Asus has launched a contest giving fans a chance to create a watchface and see their design feature on the company’s ZenWatch devices, as well as win one of their own. The contest, dubbed Face the Future ASUS ZenWatch Face Design Contest, runs through February 28, and is open to users all over the world.

Selected designs will be awarded under the following categories: Overall Gold Medal, Best Beauty in Design, Best Practical Design, Best Creative Design, Best Student Design Award, and Fan Favorite. In total, 6 ZenWatch devices will be awarded to winners, the company says. Read more »

The AccuWeather app for Android has received an update which enables it to work on Android Wear smartwatches. The update is currently undergoing a phased rollout, so if you have the app and don’t yet have the new version, it should make its way to you within a few days.

AccuWeather won’t simply show you weather notifications on Android Wear. Instead, it has full support for the wearable platform. Read more »

While LG probably has the most Android Wear smartwatches out of anyone out there, it has also quietly been working on a webOS based smartwatch. Made in collaboration with Audi (the kind where LG makes the watch and Audi gives it its name) this new unnamed smartwatch (model number LG-W120L) is quite an interesting design.

The design of the watch is similar to the G Watch R, wherein it has the same circular display, but with a few extra buttons on the side and a different finish for the watch. The specs are likely the same but it’s the software that’s new here. LG has created a custom version of webOS for the circular display of the watch and it looks quite a lot better than Android Wear. While the menus are still in the form of a list, the apps appear in a circular carousal that look much more at home on a circular display. Read more »

MediaTek has announced a new chipset specifically for the low-power needs of Android Wear devices. Called the MT2601, this new chipset is designed to be smaller and more efficient than current chipsets.

The MT2601 has a dual-core 1.2GHz ARM Cortex-A7 CPU, Mali-400 MP GPU, and supports qHD resolutions, which should be plenty for something like a smartwatch. Most of the current Android Wear devices are based on the Snapdragon 400 SoC, a quad-core chipset designed for smartphones but has three of its cores disabled for lower power consumption on wearables. Read more »

The latest app to announce support for Android Wear, Google’s smartwatch platform, is none other than BBM. BlackBerry’s messaging service will soon be available for Android Wear devices (in “early 2015″), though an exact release time frame hasn’t been given.

BBM for Android Wear will let you access your messages straight on your watch, without the need to reach for your smartphone all the time. Read more »

Just a few months after it went on sale, Sony has unveiled a stainless steel version of the SmartWatch 3, giving it a fashionable finish. The company said the wearable device will be rolling out globally from next month.

As it turns out, apart from the new look, the stainless steel edition is essentially the same as the original release. This means that it also features the same 1.6-inch, 320 x 320 pixel transflective LCD, Qualcomm processor, built-in GPS, and standard microUSB port charging. However, the water and dust resistance rating has been upgraded from IP58 to IP68. Read more »

Lenovo is entering the wearable market with the Vibe Band VB10 – a smartband with a 1.43″ E-ink display of 296 x 128 pixel resolution. The Vibe Band can last up to 7 days with its display and Bluetooth always turned on.

What’s even cooler is the band’s IP67-certified wateproofing, as it can last up to 1M of water for maximum of 30 minutes. The band works with both Android and iOS smartphones and packs a slew of fitness tracking functionality. The Vibe Band can track steps, calories, distance and sleep. Read more »

Wearables are undoubtedly on the rise and interest for the odd new tech niche seems to growing by the minute. And even though the emerging market is dominated by big tech giants, like Samsung and LG there are some very interesting offerings available from other makers.

The three devices in question fit perfectly into the odd new realm between smartwatches and fitness trackers and come from Garmin. The Kansas-based company, most famous for its various navigation tech has hit the floor at this year’s CES with a handful of peculiar devices to go on your wrist. They are all quite different from each other and come with their own twist. Read more »

You may not have heard of Withings before but if you’re into fitness tracking and wearables you might want to read on.

The company has just announced its spanking new Activite Pop – an analog watch with a built-in tracker that counts steps, sleep, swimming and can connect to your smartphone via Bluetooth 4.0. Read more »

Smartwatches are in vogue and round ones enjoy special attention. Omate will be launching two new ones this year – the Racer and the Roma – both based on the MediaTek MT2502 chipset “Aster.”

Unfortunately, the two smartwatches will run proprietary software rather than Android Wear. Also, little is known in terms of specs. Read more »

The popular 2014 time wasting phenomenon Flappy Bird is now unofficially available for Android Wear. A crafty developer ported the title to Google’s wearable device platform.

As as an unofficial port, the game is not available to install from Google Play. Read more »

Last year, a lot of mobile device makers jumped into the smartwatch realm, and apparently in 2015 we can expect some more of that. Specifically, it looks like those companies that haven’t yet presented a smartwatch (or two) will do so soon. The honor of being first to do that this year goes to Alcatel.

That’s because what you can see in the image above is the Alcatel OneTouch Watch. TCL (the company behind the Alcatel brand) is obviously quite proud of it, since it decided to semi-announce it a few days before CES. Read more »

With technology brands slowly starting to encroach upon the territory of traditional timepiece makers with their fancy schmancy smartwatches, the watermakers are slowly starting to feel the heat. But while traditional watches are far away from extinction right now, that doesn’t mean watchmakers aren’t worried or not taking any steps to avoid becoming irrelevant.

Montblanc has announced a new Timewalker Urban Speed collection of watches that will have a special addition to the bottom of the strap. An optional display called e-Strap can be purchased with the watch that turns it into sort of a smartwatch. Read more »

Having already made its way to the USA, the Asus ZenWatch was supposed to finally make its debut in the UK tomorrow. But, for whatever reason, the wearable was launched one day early, as you can already buy one today.

Like we told you before, for now the ZenWatch is exclusive to Currys PC World. So you can only purchase one from those two outlets. The situation may change in the future, of course. Read more »

The latest company to hop onto the smartwatch bandwagon is Scania – yes, the truck making company from Sweden. It has unveiled the Scania Watch, its very first offering in this space, which is targeted at truck drivers, as you might expect.

The device is in fact a rebranded Sony SmartWatch 3, but it does feature some interesting software additions (as well as promises for much more to come in the future). This might make it more appealing to truck drivers than any other smartwatch out there. Read more »