Between testing antennas, designing our charging dock, and fine-tuning our app, we’ve been writing about TAYA…a lot. And somewhere between the LinkedIn shares, product descriptions, and article mentions (did you catch us in Fortune?), we hit an unexpected wall: what do we actually call this thing? How does TAYA fit into the broader picture of technology, wearables, jewelry, and intelligence?
Is it a wearable? Technically, unarguably, yes. This is a device that you wear on your body. But with health tech’s claim to the term, “wearable” has been loaded with meaning that relates to metrics, sleep scores, and dashboards telling you how well you’re doing at being a human.
What TAYA stands for is, in many ways, the opposite (and we’ve written about this before). TAYA is for the moments between the productivity sprints and optimization. Calling it a wearable puts us in a room where everyone else is counting statistics while we’re building our way back to a flow state that feels natural, intentional, and screen/data-free.
Is it jewelry? If it looks like jewelry, wears like jewelry, and is bought as jewelry, then, yeah, it probably is. But TAYA’s design isn’t a shell we wrapped around a circuit board, it’s the product of months of back and forth between designers, mechanical engineers and electrical engineers, and calling it jewelry doesn’t do that justice.
The other problem with this word is that it flattens the impact that TAYA can have. When you hear jewelry, you think of something purely aesthetic rather than something designed to create more mental space, fewer lost thoughts, and less interruption. People could hear jewelry and think, that’s not for me. And we’d rather not close that door on the first word.
Is it a necklace? Yes…for now. But we’ve noticed a steady stream of questions about other potential form factors, and we’re not committed to sticking with a single design forever. Necklace is accurate today, but it might not fit the full picture anymore within a year.
Is it an accessory? This is broader, friendlier, and less gendered. But an accessory is by definition an add-on, and TAYA isn’t a supporting role.
Why we’ve accepted ambivalence (for now)
For a while, this felt like a branding failure. But over time, we’ve come to realize that the reason none of these words fit is because every existing category we try to borrow from is a category built around a product that already exists.
TAYA doesn’t have a precedent. If one of these words were to fit cleanly, that would be the worrying outcome. It would mean we’ve built a slightly better version of something already on the shelf.
So we’re accepting ambivalence for now, and when our first design (which, yes, is a necklace) is in your hands this fall, you can file it wherever you think it belongs.
Love this attitude and can’t wait to receive mine!!