Wearable tech takes CES 2013 by storm

It's time to strap on your smart devices. I'm Bridget Carey and this is your CNET Update. We're into the final stretch of the 2013 International Consumer Electronic Show here in Las Vegas, and with all the robots, sensors and screens on display, we're on a gadget high. This year, there's a surge in wearable technology. One of the more popular ones is the Pebble Watch. It raised $10 million online from 68,000 people funding it on Kickstarter so it's safe to say that people are pretty interested in this smart watch. It syncs to phones both Android and Apple, and will display incoming messages and caller information. You can also program it to send custom alerts. It can even give you an alert when it's raining. It has an e-ink style LCD display so you can see them bright sunlight, and you can change up how you want the time to display. Aside from numbers and phrases, you can even have it show the time in binary computer language. It comes in several colors and cost $150, and the Pebble will begin shipping out to its first Kickstarter supporters on January 23rd. Some other watches here have included health sensors. The $200 Basis Band is part pedometer, heart rate monitor and sleep tracker. There are sensors on the bottom that measure your blood flow and heart rate in real time. It'll also track your skin temperature and perspiration levels on your wrist. The accelerometer logs your steps taken and calculates how many calories you're burning, and as you would expect, there's an app that keeps track of all this data to help you analyze your overall health. It has a soft rubber strap that comes in black or white, but the company says more colors are on the way. Watchmaker Martian also showcased its Passport Watch here at the show. It syncs with iPhones and Android phones to display text messages and other alerts. And calling Dick Tracy fans, you can actually answer calls using the built-in speaker phone and you can use it for voice commands. It uses Bluetooth to connect to phones and once linked, your text, e-mails and tweets will roll in on display on the watch and it buzzes if you miss an alert. But this tech doesn't come cheap; it costs $300 and will ship by early March. With more wearable tech at the show, this year's CNET Best of CES Awards have a new category called wearable and health tech just for these types of devices, and in that category, the Basis Band and Martian Passport Watch have been nominated along with the Fitbit Flex, which is like a Nike Fuelband. There's also one quite unique: The HAPIfork, which is a smart fork to help you eat slower. It gives a small vibration when you eat too fast and it sends that data to an app. Be sure to read up on all the Best of CES nominees this year and the rest of our coverage at ces.cnet.com. From the Consumer Electronic Show, I'm Bridget Carey.