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This article was published on October 21, 2014

This Wizard of Oz-inspired wearable lets you click your heels to order a taxi or text your friends


This Wizard of Oz-inspired wearable lets you click your heels to order a taxi or text your friends

We’ve all found ourselves trapped in an awkward dinner situation where we want nothing more than to be rescued by a “important call.”

A new device called Dorothy might be able to come your rescue. A different take on wearables made by iStrategyLabs, Dorothy works by attaching a ‘Ruby’ (a small Arduino-based Bluetooth device) to your shoe and tapping your heels together three times to trigger an action.

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That triggered action could be a call from a fake contact, or you can configure it to send a custom message and location to your friends. The company says it’s looking in to Ruby summoning a Uber cab for when you need a quick getaway.

The Ruby currently seems a bit too large to fit comfortably and inconspicuously in most shoes, but iStrategyLabs says the current model is only a prototype. It’s looking into versions as small as a third of the current model (or even integrating it into an insole) as it refines the manufacturing process.

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The company says it’s still looking into other ideas it could apply the technology to, such as emergency pizza ordering. It’s definitely one of the more out-there wearables we’ve seen, but with the right support and creative applications, it could find an interesting niche.

iStrategyLabs

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