Items tagged with SmartWatch
Are you nostalgic for the days of POGs, Beanie Babies, and Surge? Are you the type of person who constantly pounds out in all caps, “ONLY 90S KIDS WILL REMEMBER THIS”? Then Windows 95 must be the smartwatch operating system for you. It lives! (Credit: Nick Lee) Developer Nick Lee managed to get Windows 95 working on his Apple Watch. And Apple Watch definitely has the specs (check our full review). The watch packs in a 520 MHz processor, 512 MB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage. Compared with Nick's original $3,000, 300 MHz Pentium II powered PC with 256MB of RAM, the Apple Watch is practically the Computeress from Dexter's Laboratory. There were quite a few hurdles to overcome, however, before...
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A new Indiegogo campaign is looking to make smartwatches a bit more pervasive in our modern lives. The CoWatch leverages the powerful Alexa Voice Services (AVS) platform, which is a first for a smartwatch. This isn’t the first time we’ve seen some rather intriguing third-party devices with Alexa power; look no further than the Raspberry Pi-Powered Echo smart speaker. “Speak, and CoWatch shall listen. Integrating Amazon Alexa, ask questions, order an Uber, organize your life - all with the power of your voice,” states IMCO, the company behind the CoWatch. Unfortunately, it’s not stated how this Alexa integration will work. It’s possible that it would be an always-on feature where simply asking...
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If you're an Outlook user on Android and also happen to own an Android Wear device, you're in luck -- Microsoft has just released a new update that adds support for smartwatches. At the moment, the update can be snagged from the Google Play store in some areas, but in the event your device isn't pulling down the latest version, you can manually snag the update here. Note that the up-to-date version is 2.1.0 (Google Play currently shows 2.0.57 for us.) According to the folks over at Android Central, Microsoft sums up the update, writing, "This week, we're bringing the best of Outlook to Android Wear. Stop reaching out for your phone, everything is now happening on your watch. Check your Outlook...
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Pebble was one of the first companies to create a viable smartwatch for the masses, but now the company is having to downsize amid growing competition in the sector. The company is laying off 40 employees, which represents 25 percent of its workforce. "We've definitely been careful this year as we plan our products," said Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky. "We got this money, but [Silicon Valley VC funding] is pretty tight these days." Nearly a year ago, the company was riding high with the announcement that it had raised $20 million at the end of its Time Kickstarter campaign thanks in part to nearly 79,000 backers that were willing to purchase Pebble’s first color smartwatch. But that was before Apple...
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In late January, Samsung kicked off the global launch of the Gear S2 Classic New Edition smartwatch. The name is defiantly a mouthful, but it merely represents two new finishes available on Samsung’s range-topping Tizen-based smartwatch: Rose Gold and Platinum. Although both new smartwatches went up for pre-order in Europe with a $500+ price tag, folks in the United States won’t pay nearly as much. Samsung is pricing both the Rose Gold and Platinum smartwatches at $449.99, which represent a $100 premium over the standard stainless steel Gear S2 Classic (cheaper still is the standard Gear S2 which retails for $299). The Gear S2 Classic in 18k Rose Gold will ship with an ivory-colored genuine leather...
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If three's company, we'd say Motorola has gone and made a full-on family out of its Moto 360 smartwatch. Hot on the heels of its second-generation Moto 360 comes the Moto 360 Sport, an Android Wear timepiece designed to compete not with TAG or Sony or Samsung, but with FitBit, Polar, Garmin, and TomTom. The ruggedized or sports smartwatch field is an interesting one. The target market isn't your typical smartwatch buyer. Instead, it's the fitness tracker buyer that a company hopes to upsell to. At $300, the Moto 360 Sport isn't exactly cheap. It's a full $50 cheaper than the Apple Watch Sport but it's $100+ more than a lot of the fitness trackers it's competing with. Now that the...
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Though it still hasn't grabbed consumers like some manufacturers had hoped, the smartwatch market is growing rather quickly, and a number of good options are currently available. For some users, price may be one of the key factors holding them back from buying a smartwatch. While many watches cost at least $250, and some can run hundreds of dollars more, ASUS’s latest ZenWatch 2 we'll be showing you here is available for as little as $129. Of course, any time we see a budget-friendly smartphone, laptop, tablet, or smartwatch we assume sacrifices were made to keep the price low. In the case of the ZenWatch 2, this is somewhat true but you may be pleasantly surprised by all the features it has...
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It didn't take long for Apple to rise up and claim the top spot in the smartwatch market, at least unofficially. Apple still hasn't revealed sales or shipment figures for its Apple Watch line of wearables, but a new report by market research firm Juniper Research pegs Apple as having shipped 51.5 percent of the world's smartwatches in 2015.One thing to note before performing a little surface level dissection is that the report refers to Apple's shipments, not necessarily actual sales to consumers. That's an important distinction, though to be fair, we haven't heard any reports of retailers or Apple sitting on mountains of unsold Apple Watch inventory.Semantics aside, the study puts the number...
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The nascent smartwatch market has delivered a number of near-winners thus far. The Apple Watch and Microsoft Band, for example, are better-than-average fitness trackers and smart timepieces. The 2nd generation Moto 360 is impressive from an aesthetics standpoint. The Huawei Watch hits the mark for those looking for a good-looking, functional, timepiece that also happens to feature smartphone notifications. And then, there's Samsung. In a bid to be first to market, the original Galaxy Gear was launched with a less-than-optimal design, poor battery life, and a camera that wasn't very useful. That was just over two years ago though, and the company has since popped out a multitude of wearables...
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One advantage smartwatches have over their dumb brethren is that when you grow tired of looking at the same timepiece, you can download new backgrounds to freshen things up. So it goes with Android Wear, the custom version of Android built specifically for smartwatches, which just received nine more watch faces.Each of the new watch faces is from an "iconic fashion" designer or brand, including Ted Baker, Melissa Joy Manning, Vivienne Tam, Nicole Miller, Y-3, Mango, Zoe Jordan, Harajuku Kawaii, and ASICS. They all bring a unique flair to the Android Wear world, and best of all, they're free to download.These new watch faces are part of an ongoing effort to add a bit of uptown appeal to Android...
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Do you know an Apple fan who made the nice list this year? If so, you might consider getting them one of Apple's smartwatch devices. Your timing is good because Best Buy is now selling the Apple Watch Sport for $249, which is $100 off its normal selling price of $349. That's the best deal we've seen for Apple's wearables line to date.It's even better than the Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. For example, Target offered a similar deal two weeks ago, but you had to pay the full $349 up front and then you'd receive a $100 gift card (that deal is still going, except it's now $399 up front). The price at Best Buy doesn't come with any strings attached -- it's $249 outright (plus tax, of course)...
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It looks as though TAG Heuer has a hit on its hands with its Connected Watch. The company announced the Android Wear smartwatch in early November, and it’s priced well above other devices running Google’s wearable operating system, coming in at $1,500. However, that high price tag hasn’t been enough to keep customers away. The Swiss watchmaker announced that it has received over 100,000 orders for the Connected from its various retail partners and subsidiaries. As a result, the company is increasing production from 1,200 units per week to 2,000 units per week. Demand has been so strong that TAG Heuer parent company LVMH will suspend online sales of the Connected until mid-2016, so that it can...
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At long last, Motorola is providing more details about its Moto 360 Sport smartwatch, including when it will be available. The U.K. and France get dibs on December 18, followed by a launch in the U.S. on January 7, which is when it will be available to purchase on Motorola's website and select online retailers for $299. Three days later, Best Buy stores across the nation will carry the Moto 360 Sport. So will Motorola's Moto Shop in downtown Chicago. As for everywhere else, Motorola says its newest wearable will ship to Brazil, Canada, China, Mexico, and Spain sometime in the new year. There are some notable changes in the Moto 360 Sport compared to its predecessor. One is the construction; the...
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Samsung has a few different smartwatches up for grabs, including its latest offering in the wearables category, the Gear S2. It's a sleek and round successor to the comparatively garish Gear S, and since we've entered the season of deals, you can already find it marked down for sale all over the web. The cheapest sale price is just $200.Buydig, an authorized dealer in the United States (which means the warranty is intact), is the one selling it at that price. The deal is through its eBay channel, not its retail website where it's listed for $50 more at $250. That same deal can be had at Amazon too, by the way right now.The Gear S2 runs on Samsung's home grown Tizen platform powered by a dual-core...
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One of the sharpest, classiest, most alluring Android Wear smartwatches yet has arrived, and it's manufactured by a company that many American consumers may not be familiar with. The Huawei Watch is just about as good as it gets for a smartwatch currently. The reason? It's a watch first, and a smartwatch second. For those clamoring for a timepiece that looks like a tried-and-true premium wristwatch, look no further. Huawei has made phones, tablets, and other gizmos for years, though it has had more success in Asia than in the U.S. Standing out in the U.S. marketplace is difficult. A company typically won't get very far without wide distribution and a massive marketing budget. The Huawei Watch...
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We've sure come a long way since cell phones exploded in popularity. It used to invoke a great feeling to hold out that flip-phone and admire its sheer awesomeness. Today? Most would laugh at those older devices. Now, we have super advanced smartphones that can do everything from take great pictures to play videos to check your heart rate. And, as if that wasn't enough, we've since piled on tablets, smartwatches, and many other smart devices or wearables. With so much personal fragmentation like this, it can be a bit frustrating that if someone calls you, and you happen to be nowhere near your phone, you're not going to know about it. Wouldn't it be nice to leave the house for a jog and be able...
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Is the world ready for a luxury smartwatch running Android Wear, a special version of Android designed specifically for wearables? We'll find out in another 27 days. Come November 9, 2015, Tag Heuer will launch a premium smartwatch driven by Android Wear, and it will have a premium price tag to match. Tag Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver told CNBC in an interview that his company's forthcoming smartwatch will cost $1,800, which is $400 more than the figure that was making the rounds in previous reports. That's a lot to ask for a wrist accessory, though it's still far cheaper than Apple's top end Watch Edition, which starts at $10,000. There's a countdown timer on Tag Heuer's website that leads up...
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Technology moves quickly, but when it comes to smartwatches, things seem to be moving more rapidly than usual. We published our Moto 360 review early last year and here we are merely half a year later testing the second generation of that device. In many ways, the original Moto 360 felt like the hero device for Android Wear. Google still hasn't created a watch of its own, nor has it partnered with a manufacturer to ship a "Nexus" branded Android Wear device. So, the Moto 360 continues to carry the torch. But much has changed since the 360 was ushered onto the scene. LG, Huawei, and Samsung have all shipped at least one smartwatch, and the round face -- which was the original Moto 360's unique...
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Pebble might have been one of the first companies to enter into the smartwatch arena back in 2013, but it has faced some stiff competition as new players have entered the market. Google threw its hat into the ring with the Android Wear operating system last year and hence gave birth to a number of smartwatches including the Motorola Moto 360 and the LG Watch Urbane. Likewise, Apple launched its Apple Watch earlier this year, and has seen a great amount of success in the market. Pebble hasn’t exact stood still; it announced the Pebble Time with a 64-color e-paper display and followed up with the Pebble Time Steel, which ditches the plastic body for, well, steel, and slightly longer battery life....
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It seems as though smartwatches are all the rage these days. Although smartwatches have been around for quite some time, things didn’t really start heating up until Motorola launched the Moto 360 last year. The market really took off when the Apple Watch was launched this past spring, and we’re looking forward to even more great things with the upcoming launch of devices like the second generation Moto 360 and Samsung Gear S2. But what about those of us that don’t want to go full-bore into the smartwatch realm, but still want something with a little more intelligence than a typical wristwatch? Withings tried to achieve such a feat with its Activité Pop, and now Timex is looking to do the same...
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Samsung announced their latest smartwatches a couple of days ago, the Gear S2 and Gear S2 Classic. We’ve got all of the initial details and imagery from Samsung’s release posted here if you’d like to check them out. To quickly reiterate some particulars, both of these smartwatches feature 11.4mm thin casings and 1.2-inch, 360x360 displays that are complete circles, unlike the “flat tire” displays used on the Moto360. At the heart of the Gear S2 is an undisclosed Samsung-sourced 1GHz dual-core processor paired with 512MB of RAM. NFC technology is incorporated into the watches as well, which will support Samsung Pay in the near future. The Gear S2 and Gear S2 Classis are IP68 certified for dust...
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Samsung just couldn’t let Google have all the spotlight today when it comes to smartwatches. Samsung has been teasing its Gear S2 for the past few weeks, but now the South Korean electronics giant is ready to give us the Full Monty on its reentry into the smartwatch market. As Samsung clearly states, it has “come full circle” with the introduction of the Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch. While we always had an idea that Samsung’s latest smartwatch would once again dip into the Tizen OS well, the company today confirmed the news. And we also learned that Samsung is launching not one, but two Gear S2 smartwatches. There’s the Gear S2 that is made for “those who are on-the-go and have an admiration for...
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