HTC has been promising a smart wearable since late 2013 and it finally seems ready to unveil it at this year’s MWC. It will allegedly be called Petra and will not be an Android Wear device. Instead it will run a simple custom OS that supports Android 4.4+ and iOS 7+.
The HTC Petra sounds like a sporty smart band with IP57 and MIL-STD-810G certifications and an included footpad for more accurate step counting. Read more »
Swatch is officially getting ready to jump into the smartwatch game. According to Nick Hayek, the Swiss company’s CEO, Swatch will release its first smartwatch within the next three months. This will probably ensure that its offering will compete head-on with the Apple Watch, at least for headlines if nothing else – since they’re both due to be out at around the same time.
Swatch is looking to one-up Apple by creating a smartwatch that does not need to be charged. This intriguing prospect has unfortunately not been detailed further, but we assume the device may feature a battery that you simply swap out after a period of use – just like normal watches. Read more »
Just as promised, the Sony SmartWatch 3 with a metal band starts selling in the UK from today.
Clove UK is the first store to offer the smartwatch. The price of the regular SmartWatch 3 is around the £180 ballpark, but its metal counterpart is slightly more expensive at. £ 215. Sony’s UK store as well as Amazon UK still haven’t listed pricing of the SmartWatch 3 with a metal band.
The smartwatch offers a 1.6″ transflective display with 320×320 pixel resolution. It’s waterproof with an IP68 rating and runs the latest version of Android Wear on a quad-core Cortex-A7 CPU and 512MB of RAM. In addition to Bluetooth 4.0, the connectivity suite is enhanced with NFC, too. The battery is 420 mAh and is rated to last 2 days with normal use.
The CEO of Pebble Eric Migicovsky announced in an interview that the company shipped a million smartwatches. The company hit the magic number at the very end of 2014, on December 31.
Pebble more than doubled its sales since March 2014. Read more »
Motorola has just announced its Valentine’s Day promotion. If you buy from the phone maker’s website directly, you’ll be able to save as much as $140 for a purchase of at least $499.99. The details are a little bit complicated however.
It all starts on February 2 at 11 am CT. From that time and until 11:59 pm CT on the same day, you’ll be able to register for a promo code worth $140 for a $499.99 purchase, or $50 off a purchase of at least $249.99. Read more »
Smartwatch popularity has reached critical levels and new ones come from unexpected places – now including Polish company Krüger&Matz. The Krüger&Matz Smartwatch Classic runs a custom Linux build on a MediaTek Aster chipset and costs PLN 350 ($94/€83).
The smartwatch is compatible with iOS 7+ and Android 4.3+ devices. Read more »
When a new smartwatch is announced, two questions are immediately asked – “is it round?” and “does it last longer than a day?” Asus will be addressing the second question with a successor to the ZenWatch, which will deliver 7 days on a charge, up from 2 days currently (by official numbers, in practice more like a day).
The news comes from Chairman Jonney Shih, who mentioned it briefly at an end-of-the-year party at Asus. Read more »
The first Apple Watch game became a reality well before the wearable’s commercial launch. Dubbed ‘Letterpad,’ the title will also be available for iPhone and iPad.
‘Letterpad’ consists of a 3 x 3 tile of letters. Read more »
Samsung is currently working on its next smartwatch. It will be called Orbis, and it will be round, unlike any of the Korean company’s previous offerings in this space. And today we get a pretty big list of rumored features for this wearable.
The following information reportedly comes from reliable and trustworthy sources. That said, even if everything you’ll read here was true at one point, keep in mind that gadget development plans do sometimes change, so the finished product may be different. Read more »
Just last week we found out that Samsung seems to be hard at work on a round smartwatch. This will be called Orbis when it’s released, and today an interesting new detail about it has surfaced.
According to a report originating at some unnamed sources, the Samsung Orbis will be the first smartwatch made by the Korean company to feature wireless charging built-in. Read more »
The manufacturer of leather goodies for smartphones and tablets DODOcase launched a collection of premium straps for Moto 360. The San Francisco-based company is known for its bespoke cases for iPhone and iPad.
DODO’s leather bands are made from premium Pergamena leather. Read more »
Months after it announced that its new wearables would eventually be headed to India, Sony has today finally decided to unveil the recommended retail prices for the SmartWatch 3 and SmartBand Talk in the subcontinent.
The former will go for INR 19,990 (that’s around $324 or €281), while the latter will be sold for INR 12,990 ($210, €182). Read more »
At this point, it’s no secret that Samsung is working on a round smartwatch. Now, thanks to information obtained by SamMobile we can have a better idea how the smartwatch codenamed Orbis will function.
The first Samsung smartwatch will feature a rotating bezel ring, which will be used as a physical control of the main functions, which was earlier suggested by a patent. Naturally, you’ll be able to complete the action using the watch’s touchscreen, but the physical ring will give it a more classic watch feel. Read more »