Even though it may seem like smartwatches could be on the way out, Louis Vuitton has decided to try its hand at the segment. Today the French designer house announced a new line of Android Wear-powered smartwatches. The Tambour Horizon line, as its being called, certainly looks impressive, but as with everything else to come out of Louis Vuitton, expect to pay quite a bit of money to own one.
It's been nearly two years since Sony revealed its "not a smartwatch" take on the wearable market. Born from its First Flight internal crowdfunding platform, Wena promised a way to enjoy the trappings of smartwatches without actually getting a smartwatch. Like many watch makers that followed, that promise is made real via bands that enclose all the smart electronics and functionality. And, finally, those Wena bands are finally hitting the market. In Japan at least.
If you happen to really like the look and design of the Apple Watch, but are also a tired-and-true fan of traditional mechanical watches, then here's a timepiece that's just for you. Swiss watchmaker H. Moser has announced a new watch that almost perfectly mimics the look of Apple's smartwatch, yet it's 100% mechanical, meaning there's no display, no touch input, and no health or fitness tracking — no 'smarts' of any kind.
As a consequence of history, the smartwatch OS scene is a bit more diverse, despite Android and iOS owning the lion’s share of the market. The smartwatch market is a bit less confusing, with the line drawn between the Apple Watch and a myriad of Android Wear smartwatches. Sure, there are others, like the Samsung-only Tizen-based Gear S, but the numbers are thinning. Pebble and Vector, which each had their own OS, succumbed to Fitbit’s power. Undaunted, Swatch CEO Nick Hayek is boldly revealing that the company is making its own watch operating system to debut in a Tissot-branded smartwatch in late 2018.
TAG Heuer's latest smartwatch may be all about interchangeable modules, but the biggest benefit of the Connected Modular 45 might well be its ability to live on after wearables lose their charm. Announced earlier today, the new watch is one of the more expensive options out there - unsurprisingly, given its old-school timepiece brand name - not to mention among the first to run Android Wear 2.0. TAG's trick is interchangeability not only of straps and virtual watch-faces, but far greater personalization.
Here's an announcement that will likely only be of interest to a small cross-section of audiences: watch historians and/or Steve Jobs fanatics. Seiko has announced that it will be offering a limited re-release of one of its older watches made famous by a Steve Jobs portrait. The Japanese watch maker's Chariot timepiece was seen on the wrist of the Apple co-founder in the 1984 Time Magazine cover image, which featured Jobs sitting cross-legged on the floor with a Macintosh in his lap.
A smartwatch with a touchscreen display and a set of mechanical hands is exactly what we did not expect from MyKronoz. It didn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to continue to try to make smartwatches look like traditional watches in the first place, given the lack-of-market for the devices. But here they are, complete with elements from both the traditional universe and the new-age smartwatch world, made by MyKronoz.
Next year Google will be releasing two new Android Wear smartwatches in the style of their Nexus smartphone line. There's very little to get in Google's way in the market for these devices as the only massive competition out today is the Apple Watch. According to a recent study, nobody wants a smartwatch at the moment - except some Apple fans, apparently, who all want the Apple Watch. So why would Google want to continue rolling in this market?
Pebble watch owners go to the web to suss out the Fitbit Pebble acquisition, asking what's next for them, the users. What does this acquisition of Pebble mean for a Pebble Time 2 crowdfunder? How about someone who owns a Pebble Watch from a past generation? As it turns out, there's very little a person can do if they're caught between Pebble and a hard place.
According to market analysts, the fad of smarwatches has faded. However, people today are, more than ever, obsessed with keeping track of their activities, whether that actually leads to healthier lifestyles or not. At the same time, many don’t actually want to be noticed wearing a silicone fitness tracker or, even if they do, those might clash with their fashion sensibilities. For these people, Timex is offering a compromise in the form of the new IQ+ Move, which is basically a classy watch, not a smartwatch, that also hides a fitness tracker inside.
The Michael Kors Access line features to main smartwatch products: Dylan and Bradshaw. Both are available in more than one color and with a variety of straps. The Dylan is the lesser of the two, coming in two "silocone" iterations, one black (the one we have here), and one closer to a true rose gold. The Bradshaw comes in Gold, Rose Gold, and Sable - all of which are "tones" of stainless steel, not actual gold. Michael Kors brand suggests that these watches are what the user should consider "the chicest way to do tech."
Amongst the new versions of the Apple Watch for generation 2, Apple revealed a Nike edition. This version goes by the name Apple Watch Nike+ (or Apple Watch Nike Plus), and it's priced right along the lines of the standard Series 2 Apple Watch. Gone is the original Apple Watch Sport - taken its place is the Apple Watch Nike+. The original Apple Watch (Series 1) has been given a bit of a kick in the pants as well with a new processor and the "Sport Band" that was originally only on the Sport version of the watch.