Vivek Vaid: “I believe technology should add to the quality of life while being non-intrusive”

In the era of wearable, FashNerd.com takes a moment to chat with Vivek Vaid, Founder and CEO of Swarg Tech, and the main behind Sakhī smart jewellery line.

As wearable tech brands targeting women continue to come and go, we get to know a startup that is determined to be the exception to the rule. Swarg Tech has come up with a smart jewellery product called Sakhī. Pronounced ‘Suhkhee’, the state-of-the-art jewellery for women has been built on offering useful, intelligent features while preserving the fundamental essence of wearing a stylish accessory

Giving women the freedom of design, one of the great things about Sakhī is that you can customise your bracelet with beads and charms from other brands like Pandora, Chamilia, Baigi and Brighton. Their most significant selling point has to be the smart bracelet’s ability to safeguard women with a designated guardian network. Loving the sound of this, I decided to find out more about this lovely trinket, so I arranged a one on one with Vivek Vaid, the founder and CEO of Swarg Tech.

1. What is your company in 2–5 words?

Swarg Tech is “creating heavenly experiences, bit by bit.”

2. Why is now the time for your company to exist?

We believe technology should add to the quality of life for the humanity while being non-intrusive. Technology should not be the primary focus of life’s joy, but a means to the pleasure. With the many advancements in wearables and gadgets, we think its now time to steer and create hidden and intelligent wearables.

We started with jewellery because since stone ages the primary function of jewellery has been “beautiful wearable accessory”. We want to make it “beautiful & intelligent” wearable.

3. What are the tech features?

  • The integration of AI voice Assistant like Amazon Alexa. All you have to do is press the large oval gem to “Alexa, add bread to my shopping list” or “Alexa, switch on kitchen lights”. The only catch is that this feature requires users to have an Amazon Alexa account
  • A reliable SOS trigger which means that when a woman is in distress or a dangerous situation, she can start an SOS signal by pressing BOTH the large and small oval gems together. A message with her GPS location will be sent to her designated guardians. Most such SOS devices in market work by just connecting to the lady’s cell-phone via Bluetooth. However, our devices add another layer of backup communication – our patent pending “Direct Jewelry to Jewelry” wireless link. In case the cell phone is broken, stolen or has no cell network, our Sakhi jewellery can connect to nearby Sakhi (up to 1km / 0.6mile) and send the message. It is like passing a message to a friend in case of emergency. This is the reason our product is named “Sakhi”, which means “a female friend” in the Sanskrit language.
  • A Fitness Tracker, although a standard feature it is still a great addition that will allow users to count their steps, sleep track and calculate calories burned via daily activities.
  • Wireless charging allows women to just place it on simple and elegant looking wireless charging stand.
  • An innovative child tracking mode– Sakhi can connect to our future product “Radius Kids GPS watch” via the same patent pending “Direct-Wireless” link. This will allow moms to track their kids while they are in the ~1km range, an example in a public-park, playing outside the home, on the beach, or in remote areas where there is no cell phone connection.

4. What are your USP and usability?

Our USP is Customizable smart jewellery. The user can add their beads and charms to match their attire, style or occasion. It works with most standard brands like Pandora, Chamilia, Biagi or Brighton, and any other bead with similar hole size (4mm minimum).

5. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your metrics?

At the moment we want people to learn and understand our product and provide feedback via either our website or pre-register for our launch on Indiegogo. We hope to collect 100k expression of interests.

In the future, the measure of success is if our product improves the lifestyle of busy women, and we get positive feedback after its daily use. If Sakhī is used to trigger SOS, someone is saved from distress condition- that is the ultimate success. Though we always hope no one has to use the SOS feature.

6. In a few sentences, what, regarding added value, do you offer and to whom?

Women will have the flexibility to add charms and beads to their liking. They will no longer be limited to constrained looks of smart wearables out there. The features are useful for a wide age range – from college girls to working professional or homemaker moms, and even senior women.

7. What’s most exciting about your traction to date?

The most exciting part has been creating the working first prototype. We got the Direct Sakhi-to-Sakhī wireless link working and tested its range. But during our technically focused development, we learned from jewellery makes, women and our wives that our prototype- even though right looking, was significant. Creating a technical product enclosed in beautiful form factor, aka jewellery is teaching us the sheer variety possible and the difference in choices women have. Thus, the customizable bracelet is a great solution.

8. Where do you think your growth will be next year?

Besides actual shipping, next year will be devoted to working with jewellery designers to make variations of the product.

9. What is your price point,  and where and when can people buy your product?

The average prices would be about $200, and first sales will be via Indiegogo and our website. The actual production jewellery shall be available for purchase in Jan 2019.

10. What’s your biggest threat?

We have patent-pending ideas, but it is easy for a large company to circumvent the patent ideas and still produce a product with a similar look.

11. What does the future of your brand look like regarding other new products etc.?

We already have the “Radius – Kids GPS tracking watch” in the pipeline, which will directly connect to mom’s Sakhī jewellery.

12. What was your journey like to get where you are?

It has been exciting because we like to create innovative technical products, and now we are building which is beautiful as has potential to save lives. We are expert engineers, but we are learning the complexities of jewellery design while keeping the technical performance up. For example battery life of such a tiny product is a challenge, and currently, we can commit to maximum six-day battery life. Wireless signals and Bluetooth connectivity is affected merely by the metal in the glass. Many Czech hand-crafted beads have gold and silver foils in them, and they sure look beautiful and shiny in the glass, but that metal inhibits the wireless signals. We have overcome these challenges by innovative designs.

13. What do you hope to achieve with your product?

Improved lifestyle and safety for women.

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Founding editor-in-chief of FashNerd.com, Muchaneta is currently one of the leading influencers writing about the merger of fashion with technology and wearable technology. She has also given talks at Premiere Vision, Munich Fabric Start and Pure London, to name a few. Besides working as a fashion innovation consultant for various fashion companies like LVMH Atelier, Muchaneta has also contributed to Vogue Business, is a senior contributor at The Interline and an associate lecturer at London College of Fashion, UAL.