Pip-Boy-Themed ‘Fallout’ Smartwatch, ‘Ricky & Morty’ Smartwatch in Development

Popular on Variety

The team behind three recently released superhero-themed smartwatches are working on a smartwatch inspired by the Pip-Boy hardware found in the “Fallout” video games and a “Rick & Morty”-themed watch, Michael Donato, director of product development at One61 Studio told Variety.

Both are expected out in time with the launch of each property’s latest release. In the case of the Pip-Boy watch, that means a November release alongside “Fallout 76.”

In Fallout fiction, the Pipboy

The two new devices follow the release of three devices earlier this year: a square smartwatch packed with content from the 1966 “Batman” TV series, a square smartwatch loaded with content from the CW’s “Flash” show, and a round “Wonder Woman” watch based on the first modern movie starring the superhero. The square watches sell for $125 and the round one for $150.

The watches are manufactured by a third-party, Donato said, but the operating system, user interface, user experience and coding is all done in-house.

“The reason why we do all of that in-house is to give us the ability to put the amount of creative content into the watch that we need,” he said.

One61 is an offshoot of Bioworld Merchandising, a merchandising company that has been creating products based on pop culture for nearly 20 years. Recently, the company decided to form One61 to dive into the lucrative internet of things and wearbles market.

“We wanted to venture into smart tech products and were looking at the watch and how we could have something for everyday wear, so fans could have a bit of their character with them all day long,” Donato said. “We came up with the idea of creating smartwatches. It’s an almost pop tech feel.”

The theme for each watch includes everything from starting up a watch to the watch faces to the sounds. All three watches also have a health and fitness focus empowered by their particular hero.

Instead of users trying to achieve goals by hitting step counts, they are asked to go on “patrols” and their character cheers them on as they hit specific counts.

So the Batman watch might announce “Holy Motion!” when a user hits a goal. The watches also include video clips from the show or movie as well as images and gifs.

The watches all support notifications, music and camera controllers, a phone finder, calendar, alarms, stopwatch, and timer.  The Wonder Woman watch also has a heart rate monitor.

All three watches are officially licensed and Donato said that the company is already working on a number of other watches under official license.

“We are working with Bethesda and Cartoon Network, and possible other anime producers,” he said.

The company plans to continue to expand the capabilities of the watches as they come out with new models. Donato said they’re already working on second and third gen watches and the current batch of watches have been well received.

“There’s no age limit on fandom,” Donato said. “In this day and age of everyone being connected, we want to reach a larger demographic across the pop culture and tech industries. And this also appeals to the closet fan who wants to be a fan, but doesn’t want to wear something out where everyone can see it.”