Portable Gadgets Adding a Little Chic to Geek

Cell phone maker Nokia Corp. flirted with purely decorative accessories such as the Medallion I, a necklace-type accessory with a small screen displaying images downloaded from a mobile phone. The company's Web site advised wearers to "go bohemian with an abstract close-up from a favorite painting, your garden, or your body."

Now, said Nokia product manager Marika Patto, the company is no longer focused on devices that just "show off" but ones that serve a function, like the new Nokia Wireless Image Headset, which includes a small screen that hangs around the neck and displays call information or images.

Wearable technology is big business for companies because accessories generate retail profit margins ranging from 60 to 80 percent.

The accessories market could grow 10 to 15 percent every year, according to Roger Entner, an analyst with Ovum, a research firm. At Simply Wireless, the number of accessories in the chain's 50 Washington area stores tripled in the past two years, now including items such as leather cases and animal-print bags for cell phones.

For cell phone carriers, the benefit is also additional talk time. Making the phone inseparable from its wearer makes it possible to make more calls from the ski slope, the convertible and other places that have not been hospitable to talking.

Timothy Towster, for example, dons a Bluetooth headset while mowing the lawn and listens to music streamed from a cell phone inside the house.

The number of cell phones that come with Bluetooth capability is in the 55 percent range, and by the end of the year, most phones will have it built in -- which, in turn, means a bigger market for wearable stuff, said Towster, Cingular's senior director of devices and accessories. "There's talk, discussion and development around [clothing] products as well," he said. "It's easier to use when integrated with everyday items that people already use."

To that end, Motorola plans to sell its Burton Snowboards ski wear line early next year.

"We showed an ad with a guy mountain biking and holding a conference call," said Scott Martin, global marketing director for Motorola's accessories business. And this summer, the company partnered with fashion designer Frostfrench for a promotional giveaway of the designer's scarves that matched the pink Bluetooth headsets. The items sold out ahead of schedule in stores across Europe. "The goal is to make it look cool and stylish and all that."

Such devices will gain even more acceptance as prices come down and more people buy them, analysts and retailers said. Ovum's Entner, however, is a skeptic of Bluetooth couture: "You look like a half-assimilated borg."

Garments and technology just do not make a good combination, he said. If you leave the device in, "you wash your sweater and it's toast. Or you have to charge your sweater or jacket. It's kind of silly."