This Startup Wants to Popularize the Wearable Walkie Talkie

Racked is no longer publishing. Thank you to everyone who read our work over the years. The archives will remain available here; for new stories, head over to Vox.com, where our staff is covering consumer culture for The Goods by Vox. You can also see what we’re up to by signing up here.

The walkie talkie days of childhood were glorious, and anyone who sails knows that a VHF radio is more fun than a phone, but do you want to wear a Star Trek-ish "voice communication device"? San Francisco startup OnBeep is betting that enough people do. Today, the company announced Onyx, a "small, lightweight device can be clipped to a shirt, jacket or bag strap so users can enjoy heads-up communication virtually anywhere." Approximately the size of a hockey-puck, Onyx has a button in the middle that you can push to talk, power down, or adjust the volume, and LED lights that change colors depending on your availability, the Verge explains.

Unlike traditional walkie-talkies, Onyx users don't have to be within a certain distance of one another. Similar to radios, it's easy for groups of Onyx users to communicate on the same channel. The Verge's report on the functionality sounds great, but the real question is whether you (and a group of your friends) are willing to pay $99 to wear a highly-stylized hockey puck on your chest when you could send a group text? If you dig the idea, you can pre-order yours here.
· Onyx [OnBeep]
· The Onyx is a 'Star Trek' communicator for the real world [The Verge]