My idea of smartwatch is Casio databank style want but with better E Ink-style
screen and the capability to read small notes as well as better default visibility in low
light env. That's it.
All current models of smart watches are more experimental that really useful as
they do not solve the problem of battery life. so their difference in prices is not really
justified. Watch that has a battery life less
the week is probably not that smart. Of course much depends on how you use it. But one week on
a single battery charge is an absolute minimum for light use. If you use watches mainly as a
notification device for calls and messages, it should be usable at the end of one
week business trip if you forget the charger.
At the same time the smart watch is a concept which time has come. I suspect
that in year or two somebody will eventually produce a hit item. Probably with Eink
display like Pebble. The required functionality is unclear, but the ability to connect
to smartphone and read and display notifications is important.
Right now this idea evolves mostly around the idea of Smartphone helpers.
But to be viable smartwatch should have some autonomous functionality. Currently android Wear proves
that. See LG G Watch
There are several pilot implementation on the market today. None is perfect.
The LG G Watch currently is the Wear smartwatch with the best price/performance ratio of the current
Android Wear lineup. It has the same processor/RAM/memory as Samsung Gear Live and better processor
than the Moto 360. At around $100 it is half the price of Gear Live. Again LG G Watch has the
best price/performance ratio right now. Compatible with Android 4.3 or higher. The closest
competition Samsung Gear Live is $199 (actually much more capable Samsung Galaxy gear S, which can
double as a GSM smartphone, is also $199 so the price of Samsung Gear Live does not make any sense)
The LG G Watch has a very basic, Spartan appearance.
It has detachable plastic strip which can be replaced with more "upscale" a metallic bracelet.
But plastic strip is not that bad. The important thing is that it is detachable.
The watch itself is a rather large black rectangle, 45mm x 38 mm x 10 mm (1.8" x 1.5" x 0.4"). You
need (at least) a medium size man wrist to wear such a big watch. Thickness is OK, but
Samsung Gear Live convex shape would be an improvement. But even on a medium size
wrist the watch looks large. The case itself is plastic with metal frame (that magnetically attaches to the charger
-- a very nice touch).
Battery life is weaker then Pebble -- it lasts just 2-3 full days with light usage, if you
switch them off at night. One day (6 am to 10 pm) takes 30-40% of the full charge).
Recharging is very quick -- from 70% to 100% it takes only 30 min.
Android Wear, even at its early state, is an autonomous OS that is more capable that previous attempts
to use VNC "remote display" style solutions that "project" information on the watch screen from the
smartphone, but the watch is essentially a dumb terminal and can't function other then to display
time without connection to the smartphone. In autonomous mode LG G Watch can be as capable as
CASIO Databank + pedometer (it provides timer, stopwatch, notes), if you do not install any
additional applications. More then that if you install a couple.
An interesting and innovative feature is that it is designed to be voice controlled, but such
control presupposes the Bluetooth link to your smartphone.
The killer application for smart watches are notifications from the phone. And first of all
notification about voice calls. Ability to take the call without getting your phone from the pocket
is very nice. Some people not always can pull phone out to check a notification. Also vibration on
the wrist in more noticeable. And just being able to
glance at the wrist is much more convenient, as for a busy person many calls are not necessary
should be taken.
So in this sense most watches have equivalent
functionality and what matter most is the price. As LG G Watch is around $100 while most competitors
are around $200. So the winner is evident here. The only real competitor is plastic Pebble watch, which can be bought for $70-$100 in
plastic case (they charge $199 for metal case), but quality of the screen is lower, although battery life is much better (a week or
so). Also plastic Pebble to me looks even more bulky and less aesthetically pleasing.
Although longer battery life is an important plus.
Now you can set a reminder, timer, stopwatch and several other things on the watch itself.
Pebble, has longest battery life (about a week of use; so it meets
my main criteria) and black and white screen visible on bright sun light.
It has the lowest price ($112 at Amazon (as of [Jan 02, 2014]
). Those two features, especially Eink screen, are very important
and critical for acceptable of the product. Right now it is the only
smartwatch which can get a week (7 days) of battery life. Shortcomings:
device in bulky and screen is not very reliable (the screen is ~1-inch (corner
to corner)). Supports both Android and iPhone. Although the watch
appears to be fairly basic with its monochrome e-paper display and a few
buttons (no touch screen), I consider this to be advantages, not shortcoming.
Obviously the most useful features of this watch are the discreet notifications
of incoming calls, emails, and SMS text messages
Sony SmartWatch 2 -- this was
the most promising model
on the market in 2013. Now discontinued but still availble from amazon and other sellers for
around $100. Three days battery life (which can be extended
to a week, if you switch watches off for the night), good combination of
features (and first of all no camera of mike which is a huge plus
;-). Bad visibility at bright sunlight. Slightly more expensive the
Pebble, but it was $160 on Black Friday 2013 with plastic band ($180 with
the metal). Supports only Android; has natural preference toward Sony
smartphones (you can answer calls if you use Sony smartphone).
Samsung Gear S Smartwatch, Black 4GB (AT&T) This $199 convex smartwatch have large 2"
AMOLED screen and fully autonomous Os. It does not depend on connection to smartphone in its
basic functionality which is a huge plus. Has 4GB SSD. Can act of GSM phone too. You
can have either way - either tether it to your phone as a Bluetooth device, or have it
as a mini-phone/watch on its own - or you can have both. The physical button really adds to
the userability and functionality.
Galaxy Gear -- this is a Samsung flop, overkill. They packed
too many features into this product. As a result it have very short battery
life and is very expensive due to presence fo questionable or outright useless
useless features, like a camera and a mike. It is way too expensive ($300).
Supports only a half-dozen Samsung phones (initially only Nokia Galaxy Note
III). Avoid it.
Apple used to have a "semi-smartwatch" in iPod nano. Now it probably
wants to have this device to stem declining popularity of iPhones. The ability
of Apple to integrate existing features into viable commercially product
and market it should not be underestimated.
Rumored:
Nokia is expected to produce smartwatch for its Lumia line of smartphones.
Actually it was Microsoft which pioneered the idea of smartwatch.
There are also "wearable cell-phones" category. Most are "noname" with rather
short
battery life, for example"
The only exception is Samsung Galaxy gear S smartwatch, which can double as a GSM smartphone and
is around $200.
There are a slew of other offerings, too, that might meet your specific needs.
For the more fitness-oriented,
Nike's new FuelBand ($149) and the
Fitbit Force ($130) are both technically watches. Adidas'
Smart Run, is both a sports tracker and Android watch.
The New York Times said on Tuesday that it had developed an app to provide brief news reports for
the Apple watch when it is released next month.
The reports, which will consist of a sentence accompanied by bullet-point summaries and
photography or graphics, "will provide the news at a glance across many Times sections, including
business, politics, science, tech and the arts," the company said in a statement.
The Times's breaking news alerts will also appear on the watch, the company said. ...
After
several weeks of teasing, Asus officially debuted its first entry into the burgeoning
field of smartwatches on Tuesday at IFA Berlin. Dubbed the
Asus ZenWatch, the new wrist wearable is loaded with Android Wear...
The ZenWatch combines a stainless steel case, nicely designed accents, a curved glass
2.5D front, and an Italian leather strap to more closely emulate the traditional watches
you're used to. The watch also features more than 100 digital watch faces to choose from.
... ... ...
Similar to what Google Now already offers for Wear users, the ZenWatch has a feature
called What's Next that can display upcoming calendar appointments, reminders, and weather
forecasts.
... ... ...
The ZenWatch also has a built-in feature called Tap Tap, which, as its name applies,
activates with a double tap. During Asus' ZenWatch demo on Wednesday, the company
demonstrated how you could use Tap Tap as a "find my phone feature." Just double tap the
watch and your phone starts ringing. It's not clear if Tap Tap can be programmed for other
uses in addition to find my phone.
Asus has also added wellness tracking to the watch via a "9-axis sensor," allowing you to
track your steps taken, calories burned, activity duration, heart rate, exercise intensity
and relaxation level. All of that data integrates with the Asus ZenUI Wellness app.
The ZenWatch's leather strap helps make it feel high-end, despite the low price.
... ... ... ZenWatch will sell for $200 in the U.S.
Thanks to IDG News Service's Martyn Williams for contributing to this report.
Updated on September 4 with a video report from IDG News Service.
Motorola is throwing its hat into
the smartwatch ring with today's release of the Moto 360. According to one Motorola
executive, the company "didn't come to invent a new gadget, but to reinvent the
wristwatch." And in a field currently dominated by clunky, square Android smartwatches,
the Moto 360 with its circular display and leather wristband actually looks and feels
like something you wouldn't mind wearing.
Available Friday from motorola.com, bestbuy.com, and the Play Store for $249, the
Moto 360 is made out of stainless steel and comes with three different options for
leather straps (classic black, stone leather, and limited-edition gray). There also will
be two metal options available for sale later this year, one with a dark finish and one
with the classic stainless steel watchband look. Those will retail for $299.
Spec-wise, the 360 sports a 1.6" 320x290 (205ppi) display protected by Corning
Gorilla Glass, Bluetooth 4.0 Low Energy connectivity, water resistance in up to three
feet of water for 30 minutes (IP67), wireless charging, 4GB of internal storage, and
512MB of RAM. It's 46mm in diameter and 11.5mm high.
The Moto 360 also offers a couple of bells and
whistles not yet seen on the competition. Perhaps most noticeable is the lack of ports
on the watch. That's because the 360 comes with an inductive wireless charger that
doubles as a watch stand. Motorola says the battery is sufficient to power the watch for
an entire day; at bedtime, you take it off and lay it on the charger. If you're
traveling, you'll obviously need to bring the charger along for the ride.
Unlike the other round Android-powered smartwatch, the recently announced and not yet
available
LG G Watch R, the pixels run right up to the edge, maximizing the display area of
the watch. The only slightly odd thing about the display is that the bottom sliver of
the watch face is blank, cutting off the minute and second hands as they sweep along the
bottom of the screen. According to Motorola, there are "thousands" of apps available
customized for the circular 1.6" UI offered by the Moto 360. The watch is also the
first Android Wear smartwatch with an ambient light sensor and auto brightness.
Compared to Samsung's newest offering, the clunky-looking square
Samsung Gear S, the Moto 360 looks minimalist. The contrast is especially noticeable
once you turn the watches over. The Gear S has pogo pins for charging and a SIM card
slot in addition to the heart rate monitor, while the Moto 360 has the kind of smooth
back you'd see on an old-school wristwatch. The design looks and feels really solid,
bringing to mind sleek devices from Motorola's past such as the RAZR.
The Moto 360 feels more natural than other smartwatches
I've tried on in the past, as the circular design and removable leather strap clearly
communicate the concept of "watch" in both look and feel. Given that I've not regularly
worn a watch in about a decade, it feels as natural on my arm as any other watch I've
donned over that time period.
Motorola's new smartwatch will pair with any phone running Android 4.3 or better, and
it linked up with our test Moto X without any problem at all once we downloaded the
Android Wear app from the Google Store. The display lights up when you raise the watch
to look at it, and if you tap the face, a Google Now prompt comes up. As the Moto 360
contains a natural language processor and a noise cancellation microphone, voice
recognition worked very well, bringing up weather forecasts, driving directions, and the
like without erring.
Motorola's "state of the art" heart rate monitor will give you your pulse on demand,
along with a range of heart activity. There's also a pedometer that tracks your activity
throughout the day.
Swiping through the notifications works well. Swipe to the left to make the
notification disappear and to the right for more details. For example, if you ask Google
Now for the current weather, swiping to the right will give you the four-day forecast
for your area. Google Hangout notifications were sent seamlessly to the watch, as well,
and could be read by swiping through the screens.
Is this the smartwatch you've been waiting for? We'll have a full Ars-style review on
Sunday night with the definitive answer, but based on our brief time with it today,
Motorola has definitely taken a step ahead of the competition with the Moto 360.
This review is from: Qualcomm Toq - Smartwatch for Android Smartphone
- Black (Wireless Phone Accessory)
I have a Pebble, Sony SW & SW2, LiveView and the Toq. I got all these
watches to implement features for my corporate email app eNotify. I think
the Toq is a good watch. For one thing, the battery lasts a lot longer than
any of the other watches that I work with. I can be developing with it for
a full week without having to put it on charge. The display is excellent.
It is not only energy efficient, but can be viewed equally well in any light.
You can see it perfectly clearly even in bright sunlight. The connection
is rock solid (Used with Samsung s4). With my other devices there is much
more fiddling about to get notifications coming through to the watch. Aesthetically,
it looks and feels well made. I think it was clever putting the battery
in the band so they could make a normal sized watchface. It is my favorite
watch at the moment though I haven't had a chance to use the Pebble Steel
yet.
Google announced the
Android Wear, which is an extension of the Android OS, to power the future
wearables; the first of which will be smartwatches from several OEMs.
Motorola and LG went ahead and announced their smartwatches along with Google's
announcement. This is a big announcement for Google, its partners and the whole
wearables industry collectively. With Google jumping into the arena with Android
Wear, a lot of manufacturers will start making wearables; smartwatches more
specifically. That's it for the software side. On the hardware side, we haven't
had any formal announcement from any company regarding this until today. Qualcomm
just announced that their Snapdragon chips will be the heart of several Android
Wear powered devices.
Qualcomm further revealed that they have been already working with Google
and several other companies to develop and deploy Snapdragon chips into several
Android Wear powered wearables. They did not name any names but Google revealed
yesterday that they are working with Samsung, Broadcom, Imagination, Intel,
Mediatek and HTC on wearables. So most of these companies will probably have
Snapdragon chips in their watches.
Qualcomm Technologies also has decades of experience designing for mobile
devices that need great performance and connectivity, but also long battery
life. Our highly integrated Snapdragon processors are designed from the
ground up for the optimal balance of high performance and low power, ensuring
that devices based on Snapdragon processors can deliver outstanding performance
and user experiences while lasting longer between charges.
Qualcomm made a smartwatch themselves last year. Even though the Toq was
not really a huge success but it was a nice show of engineering and technology.
The most exciting part of this watch was its display with Qualcomm's Mirasol
technology which eats very less amount of power and can stay on for days. Furthermore,
it somehow gets clearer in brighter conditions. However, there was no mention
of this technology making its way to other watches in Qualcomm's announcement.
At $200, the SmartWatch 2 is cheaper than its most obvious competitor, the
Galaxy Gear, which costs $100 more. That's quite a difference. Of course, the
Galaxy Gear has some notable hardware features that help it stand apart --namely,
a camera, speaker and microphone. On the other hand, Samsung's offering is also
currently limited to just a small handful of compatible phones. Also, Sony made
sure the SmartWatch 2 functioned well as a proper watch -- crazy, we know.
That said, this is also a third-generation device for Sony. That's two more
cracks of the whip than Samsung, yet still the software can be buggy, and the
performance is not as smooth as you'd hope. And then there are the apps. A bulging
library to choose from is one thing, but in reality, there aren't many more
useful apps here than you'd find on Samsung's offering, which has been out for
just a month. In either case, however, we'd encourage you to question your need
for a smartwatch. Unlike a phone, what you want to get from a watch will differ
greatly from person to person. In a vacuum, the SmartWatch 2 is a well-built
product that doesn't have a wince-inducing price. It offers a reasonably good
notification solution, as well as the potential for improved functionality with
future apps -- though it's probably best to check what's available first. The
bottom line is: If you want a bit of a "gadgety" smartphone-companion, predominantly
for notifications, the SmartWatch 2 will certainly fill that role. For everyone
else, the buggy software will likely become too much to tolerate, even if you're
the most ardent smartwatch believer.
This review is from: Sony Smart Watch SW2 for Android Phones (Wireless Phone
Accessory)
Bought this device as second Android screen for my Samsung Galaxy S4 smart
phone. Got with the black strap. So far it is working ok. There were some initial
troubles in pairing this device with my phone via NFC. After several attempts,
gave up on NFC pairing and went with blu tooth pairing. Blu tooth pairing is
holding good till now. I have moved this watch away from the phone by significant
distance and did not face any re-pairing type annoyances yet.
The watch face is wider than the length by few mm. I went with this watch instead
of Samsung gear because I have small hands and I thought this will fit better
than Samsung gear. The Gear is longer and narrower than Sony SW2. This watch
sits perfect on my hand with no constant sliding in any direction. I have to
use the last hole on the strap though.
I did not go with Samsung Gear because, as of now it will not work with my S4.
I was also not keen on camera, extra cost and non-replaceable straps.
The resolution on SW2 is decent, but Samsung Gear resolution is much better.
I did not compare them side by side, but I am fine with Sony SW2 resolution.
I purchased one app so far to enable me to dial numbers from the phone (just
for coolness factor).
The SW2 has one button on the side (like a regular watch) and it has 3 soft
buttons (back, home and apps type button - still trying to figure this one out).
You cannot press the soft buttons directly without pressing side button first.
One the other side, there is a micro usb port to charge the watch.
Sony SW2 Smart Connect Liveware is the software that need to be installed on
the phone first. It happens when the watch is paired with phone. One can also
download the s/w from google play store directly as well. Once the Liveware
s/w is installed the watch comes to life. The liveware s/w gives options to
installs apps on the watch directly. There are few to select from.
The screen response is decent. It is not blazing fast, but generally responsive.
I have installed Gmail, Messages, phone app, dial pad so far. They all work
fine. The gmail app shows the gmail on your watch, messages shows texts on watch
on so on. The dialpad allowed me to dial a number from the watch.
My biggest complaint about this watch is its standby brightness. It is very
low and it is difficult to read the time without pushing the side button. The
black watch face (shown in some pictures) is absolutely not readable. I have
switched to white background, which made it marginally better. Pushing the side
button, brightens up the screen and makes the time very readable. I think this
is a big miss for Sony SW2. The watch should always tell time clearly without
the need to push additional buttons. Hopefully this will get fixed via s/w update
in near future.
My second issue is that there are no apps to allow multiple timezones to be
displayed on the watch. As a watch linked to smartphone, I think this should
have been made available out of the box. It should have allowed the travelers
to switch timezones with a simple swipe action. This would have made it really
useful for people traveling in multiple time zones regularly. I hope an app
gets released by Sony or some third party to address this gap. There is a timezone
app in the market, which allows to set a single timezone.
I will keep testing and post any updates.
Pros:
- fits on my small hand
- looks good
- wide and flexible strap
- Decent resolution
- Some useful apps
Cons:
- Standby display brightness is very low making it very difficult to tell time
without pushing the side button
- Cannot pair via NFC (may be it is a galaxy s4 issue)
- Very few free apps. Most of the apps are at least 0.99
- No hotmail app
- Mail app listed by liveware is not compatible with the watch
- No world clock app yet
- Watch froze once so far, Had to reset (by pushing and holding power button
for 15 second)
Update : 10/4/2013
The device is always paired over blu tooth. As some else pointed out, NFC is
just for easier pairing. I think the issue was, when I tried pair it by NFC
tapping, it did not download the liveware software. However when I paired it
using blu tooth manually, it started downloading liveware software. I stand
corrected on the NFC pairing. Thanks for pointing it out. However, theI am downgrading
it 1 star because this device impacts the call quality on my blu tooth paired
car phone system (honda odyssey). When this device is paired, the phone calls
have become scratchy, barely audible over the other blu tooth paired headset.
Update : 10/11/2013
The blue tooth issue has been resolved after taking to an android expert. Basically
on the phone I have to turn off sending Media Audio over BT, but only send Call
Audio over BT. This resolved the call quality issues I had with Odyssey Handsfree
Link BT.
The Last but not LeastTechnology is dominated by
two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt.
Ph.D
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