The market for a smartwatch is now seen as viable because of recent technological advances in Bluetooth Low Energy, low-power screens and curved glass with improved battery performance. Voice activated searches have also reached a usable maturity, while push notifi cations make regular monitoring of a wrist-based device a sensible idea. One has to ask, though, is the current crop of new devices a truly serious attempt to attract that mass market or are they proof of concept designs: platforms for the live testing of a new array of subminiature technologies? After looking carefully at each model, the latter is more likely.
The designs are still too large which means that only a niche audience will be interested, compatibility with phone models is generally limited at the moment and voice-activated features are not available. The age of the smartwatch will arrive, it’s just not quite here yet.
Samsung Galaxy Gear
To be used as a partner device with Galaxy Android products, the Gear uses a 1.63-inch Super AMOLED, 320 x 320 display and a 800MHz Exynos CPU offering 512MB of RAM. You’ll also fi nd a 1.9-MP camera, speaker, microphone and 4GB internal storage with a day’s battery use between charges.
Using a low-power Mirasol screen, the Toq uses power at the same rate as an Amazon Kindle meaning that time between charges should reach several days. WiPower technology means that you can drop it on a charging pad to charge wirelessly. Other features include an unused mic and accelerometer.
The SmartWatch 2 features a 1.6-inch screen packing in a 220 x 176 display set within an aluminium body, plus a micro USB charging facility. There is no microphone, camera or speakers available but there is NFC and Bluetooth with a reported three-tofour day battery life between charges.
