Happy smart watch day! Let’s have a hearty welcome for our newest party guest: Qualcomm. That’s right, the Snapdragon chipmaker will be peddling its own watch—the Toq—direct to consumers. And it’s a bit of a different take than Samsung’s Galaxy Gear
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Samsung’s making waves in the wearables category today with its Galaxy Gear smartwatch, but the device’s compatibility will be surprisingly limited at launch, curtailing our excitement quite a bit. According to reps, the connected wristwatch will only pair with Galaxy devices running Android version 4.3 — for the time being, that restricts use to the smartphone and tablet announced today, Samsung’s Galaxy Note 3 and the refreshed Note 10.1, though the next version of Jelly Bean may roll out to the GS4 later this year, so Samsung’s flagship handset shouldn’t be left out in the cold for long. As for third-party devices? There’s always a chance that Gear support could come in the future, but we’re certainly not counting on it, especially with this first-generation wearable.%Gallery-slideshow79384%
This week’s Galaxy Gear prototype leak didn’t leave much to the imagination. Samsung’s new wearable was expected to debut with a built-in camera, speakers and a relatively clunky design, all of which are indeed present on the device we’re meeting today. But we now have quite a bit more clarity when it comes to functionality and specifications — the rumored 3-inch display size and 4-megapixel camera resolution, for example, were incorrect. The Gear will instead ship with a 1.63-inch Super AMOLED panel with a resolution of 320 x 320. That strap-mounted camera, for its part, is designed to capture low-res shots and 10-second 720p videos, and includes a 1.9-megapixel BSI sensor and an auto-focus lens.
The big surprise here is third-party applications support — there will be a total of 70 partner programs at launch, including sharing apps like Evernote and Path, fitness companions like RunKeeper and MyFitnessPal, and a handful of other offerings, such as TripIt, Line, Vivino and even eBay. We’ll dive into software functionality a bit more in our hands-on, so for now, let’s talk compatibility and specs. We were caught a bit off guard by the wearable’s limited compatibility, though — at launch, it’ll only work with the Note 3 and Note 10.1, though some Galaxy S4 owners may be able to take advantage soon, after that device scores an update to Android 4.3. Assuming your handset is compatible, the Gear will serve as a companion device, enabling access to features like S Voice, Find My Device, a pedometer and third-party additions including those outlined above.
The device is powered by an 800MHz processor and a 315 mAh non-removable cell, which Samsung reps say should provide up to a day of “regular” use. There are two built-in mics (with noise cancellation support), a speaker, Bluetooth 4.0, an accelerometer and gyroscope, 4GB of storage and 512MB of RAM. The Galaxy Gear will eventually ship, along with the Note 3, to more than 140 countries. Pricing and country-specific availability has yet to be confirmed, but some customers should expect to have it in hand (or on hand, rather) beginning September 25th. Sadly, customers in the US and Japan will have to wait until October to pick one up for $299.
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Samsung just took the lid off its long-rumored Smartwatch. Here’s everything the Android-powered arm computer—officially known as Galaxy Gear—has to offer.
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Tokyoflash’s busy horologists know no bounds when it comes to designing watches. The company’s latest timepiece is an update to last year’s bee-friendly Kisai Zone that sports wooden cases and straps. Each of the three available woods is married to its own LCD color for the screen — dark sandalwood’s is black, red sandalwood goes purple and maple snags a blue readout. Speaking of which, it doesn’t look like anything has changed compared to the first Zone’s watch face. It still features a standard battery that lasts “at least a year,” a funky hexagonal display (hours on top, minutes in the middle and seconds on the bottom) and an Indiglo-like backlight. If you fancy wearing part of a giving tree on your wrist, you can snag one of these for $99 if you act within the next two days.
Filed under: Wearables
Source: Tokyoflash Japan
To watch collectors and aficionados, mechanical movements are particularly desirable since they best represent the fine craftsmanship and precise engineering that has gone into watch and clock making for centuries. But ironically, even with today’s technology, mechanical movements don’t keep perfect time. They gain and lose seconds as they lose power, so Urwerk has created a watch that’s smart enough to know when it’s not accurate, letting you make adjustments as needed.
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These days there’s a new rumor or smartwatch announcement every time you fire up the internet. But they’re all designed to work alongside a smartphone doing boring things like display caller IDs or rejecting a call. Not the Hoop Tracker. This is the first watch designed to keep track of your prowess at the rim so you can know for sure if your hoop dreams have any chance of coming true. And it doesn’t need a smartphone assist.
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TokyoFlash’s watches aren’t known for their subtlety, but, despite taking cues from the aviation world, its latest design looks a bit more grounded than previous offerings. The Kisai Blade sports a custom-made turbine-style lens, and uses tube LEDs that rotate, like an airplane propeller, to tell time. The LEDs operate in three different modes, “Turning” uses a constant cycle to light up hours and minutes, while “Animation” turns your wrist into a rave with a constantly spinning diodes. In case you’re wondering how it displays the finer minutes, “Flashing” mode slowly flashes the minute hand at the standard five minute intervals, and four dots indicate minutes one through four. The timepiece uses a USB-rechargeable battery that can go a month between charges and is available with red, blue and green LEDs, and gold, silver and black bands; there’s a leather band option, too. If the Blade strikes your fancy, you have the next 48 hours to snatch one up for the launch price of $139, or if you miss the sale window, $159.
Filed under: Wearables
Source: TokyoFlash Japan
Was last week’s $1200 Hyetis Crossbow
too rich for your blood? You might
like Omate’s TrueSmart, then, which trades some of the Crossbow’s
more superfluous extras for Android support, the ability to be used
as a phone, and a much
lower price tag.
Girard-Perregaux, to those not familiar with watch lore, is a watchmaker founded in 1791 and that now produces handmade, manufacture pieces in the mid- to high-level range. I’ve been a longtime fan of the brand – they usually come up with designs that are timeless and more classic than, say, Concord, and less fuddy-duddy than IWC and other traditional makers. The watch we’re looking at today, the Chrono Hawk, is G-P’s lower-end addition to their catalog (if “lower end” and G-P can ever appear in the same sentence.)
First, let’s be clear: the Girard-Perregaux Chrono Hawk is expensive. It’s $13,800 expensive. Which makes it one of the pricier watches I’ve reviewed during my semi-regular Weekend Watch reviews, and it is, to be clear, a luxury item. Why is it so expensive? Well, it is completely made in a single factory in Switzerland to exacting standards and the time, effort, and research that go into a piece like this are akin to the efforts put into a nicer luxury car. You’re paying for a few things here. You’re paying for solid materials and a nice band, to be sure, but you’re also paying the salary of men and women who are manufacturing watches by hand at a clip of a few dozen per day. At that rate you won’t be getting any bargains.
So what is the Chrono Hawk? It is an automatic chronograph (basically a stopwatch) with two registers – a running seconds at 3 o’clock and a 30 minute counter at 9 o’clock (called the bi-compax layout) and a central seconds hand. It has a 48 hour power reserve and 44mm in diameter – quite bold for a simpler chronograph. It is very evocative of older, 1970s era chronographs where two registers and a date window were in vogue. Watch blog Hodinkee notes that the case shape comes from the Laureato, a long-time staple in the G-P line.
The tooling and design are a delight. The soft leather bands melds into the case seamlessly and the clasp is easily resized by pulling out a pair of pins under the buckle. It curves over the wrist for comfort and has a rear see-through back so you can see the handmade movement. The buttons and crown have small rubber highlights that make them easier to push and the buttons protect – and are protected by – the crown. The piece is a harmonious whole, which is an important distinction in this type of chrono.
I especially like the face. The Guilloché dial features a futuristic-looking hexagonal pattern (that is actually shaped like part of the movement) that is not too messy to render the hands illegible. It is an interesting nod to modernity, to be sure, as G-P has usually used a square engraving on its sportier watches, a change that I think is welcome.
To me a manufactured – meaning “manufactured by a single company” – chronograph like this one is tough to hate. It has just enough features – called complications – to be worth at least some of the purchase price, but at $14,000 you’d better be in love with this piece before you plunk down the credit card. I love watches that are eminently usable and the Chrono-Hawk fits the bill. It’s readable at almost any angle, is dripping with lume for night-time reading, and it kept prefect time for the weeks I wore it. I don’t like the lack of a third elapsed hours register and the chronograph is a bit short since it records only thirty minutes total – enough to time baking some cookies, but probably not a cake.
Thus the appreciation of this watch is a matter of personal taste. It also comes in black but the tan strap and champagne face look excellent together and the case is large without being overbearing. It is one of the nicer watches I’ve seen in a while and it’s a nice addition to the G-P line. Sadly, given the price, I can probably never convince myself to pick one up but, as Ferris Bueller said, “If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up.”
This is site is run by Sascha Endlicher, M.A., during ungodly late night hours. Wanna know more about him? Connect via Social Media by jumping to about.me/sascha.endlicher.
