Smart devices have been occupying the whole world. We are dependent on them for one or other reason. Day by day innovation is taking place, making our lives more easy and secure.

Targeting one’s security every time at all point, Hug Innovations are setting some high goals. Hug Innovations is the first Indian smartwatch company, launched in October 2014 by Raj Neravati. According to him, the name came from the need of an active and affectionate things.

Journey

Raj Neravati is an MCA degree holder from Sri Krishnadevaraya University, India. He was the Chief Operating Officer at Cigniti Technologies, US and has 17 years of working experience in the IT industry. The Nirbhaya incident in December 2012 was the turning point for his professional life. Affected by the event, he decided to quit his comfortable job to contribute to women’s safety in India.

He realized that mobile apps are not enough to deal with such situations, and thus, there is a need of something more powerful than a smartphone. It was 2014 January when he funded a team to build the solution and after six months, he joined the project as full-time. Raj on Hug Innovations shares his thoughts that Hug as a brand was there for everyone, every day, almost like an extension of their lives.

Smart Working

The product is way different from a smartphone with three major factors- personal safety, IoT gesturing, and health monetizing. Raj says that usually devices follow rules that are entered by the user, but Hug smartwatch automatically collects critical information about the user. It runs on machine learning algorithm and therefore, creates a base pattern for the user, based on his lifestyle. Later on, this model is used by the smartwatch to guide and suggest the user from notifying for lunchtime to telling the best Indian cuisine based on a user’s calorie intake.

Besides showing time, Hug smartwatch also offers all the standard features of a smartwatch including call management, dialing contacts, social media notification alerts, e-mails. Moreover, the smartwatch has heart rate monitoring functionality that alerts a user when identifies an abnormality. The concept behind is artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms.

To set the Hug smartwatch apart from the competitors the team added gesture control facility for virtual reality, which acts when connected to the VR glasses. Raj believes that this addition leads the product to integrate with other technology such as home automation. The smartwatch connects to any device due to agnostic OS.

Behind the app, the real target is to provide a safety tool ensuring a self-sustained environment for a user. The watch has an panic alert button that sends an SOS trigger to the user’s friends and family when in need. The app for the watch shows the nearest located hospital and police station locations along with the details.

Growth Prospects

With such commendable features, the company is planning to price the smartwatch at Rs. 9999. The current location for the manufacturing of the smartwatch is Shenzhen, China. Thus, the company is looking to manufacture it in India. They are targeting 25000-50000 user by 2016 end and nearly a million users in coming three years. They are planning to launch two more devices next year aimed at healthcare. Currently bootstrapped, the firm seeks to raise capital of Rs. 12-16 crores for further growth.

Market Scenario

According to reports- Inspired from Government’s ‘Make in India’ agenda, many companies showed interest in manufacturing electronic products in India and proposed Rs. 1.20 lakh crore to the government. There is hope for many aspirational Indian firms to build excellent products out of India because of this boom. Talking about Hug Innovations, its competitors include smartwatches from Apple and Motorola and on the other hand Fitbit and the Xiaomi Mi Band in fitness wearables. According to an IDC market, there are still more opportunities exists in the sector, and so for Hub Innovations.

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