Tag Archives: smartwatch

Top 10 innovative watches to inspire you from the YD x KeyShot Inspiration Hub

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At Yanko Design, we believe in constantly innovating, creating, and evolving. It’s a philosophy that serves as a lifeline for us, and one of the results of this lifeline is the YD x KeyShot Inspiration Hub! The Inspiration Hub is our ‘ever-expanding encyclopedia’ of design work for you to participate in, to inspire designers, and to get inspired by. Created in collaboration with KeyShot, the Inspiration Hub is your one-stop space for inspiration where designers like you can submit your impressive designs and be awarded to stand out in the crowd and to inspire other like-minded designers.

To kickstart your journey and send some motivation your way, we’ve curated some of our favorite watch designs from the Inspiration Hub. These unique and uber-cool watches will motivate you to create something spectacular and submit the design, as a gateway to sharing it with the best of the design world. Additionally, we will also be picking our favorite Design of the Week, Design of the Month, and Design of the Year – every week, month, and year from the submissions on the Inspiration Hub. Keep an eye on our Instagram page and the Inspiration Hub to see if your design gets picked. Fingers crossed!

Click here to Download KeyShot Pro (Use Code ‘KSYANKOHUB’ during installation for a full Pro + KeyShotWeb trial) to take your sketch from concept to render!

1. Casabo’s Casio Concept

Casio’s reputation in the watch industry is impeccable, and it has impressed us with amazing timepieces amped with mind-blowing form and functionality through the years. Casio’s design language and philosophy have been well-cemented and easily identifiable by now. However, industrial designer Alex Casabo decided to play around with that, but only just a little. Alex Casabo’s stunning translucent watch render is defined by a transparent ice-like dial and a sturdy stark-blue strap. Hints of blue run through the uber-cool watch. Casabo has managed to retain the essence of Casio’s design language, with his own fresh twist.

2. Diesel Hybrid Watch

Elia Pirazzo designed this stunning Diesel hybrid watch to perfectly capture Diesel’s design language and philosophy through the means of a powerful icon. He picked up cues from the watches Diesel created during the 80s and created a contemporary and stylish timepiece that truly reflects Diesel’s vision. The brown leather strap and the navy blue dial deftly complement one another, producing a watch that will elevate the user’s confidence and sense of self.

3. Just Another Watch

Roger Bartra designed what he likes to call ‘Just another Watch’. This quirky little watch is simple and unassuming, and its very simplicity makes it stand out so beautifully. Bartra chose a bright yellow color for the look, and a stark white dial to complement it. The ‘Just another Watch’ lets the true elements of a watch simply shine through you, without any extra or unnecessary bells and tassels. The knobs and buttons on the watch are big and chonky, giving the watch a rather playful aesthetic.

4. Cheong’s Apple Watch Ultra 2022

The Apple Watch is probably one of the most popular smartwatches globally, and it’s not much of a shocker when you consider the number of people you see walking or jogging on the street with their Apple Watch wrapped around their wrists. Apple is constantly innovating on the go, and its Apple Watch Ultra was one of the latest addition to its arsenal of techy goodies. Industrial designer Tommy Cheong designed his version of the Apple Watch Ultra 2022. The watch was crafted with precise attention to detail, which is reflected in the intricate and colorful elements on the screen. He maintained the Ultra’s quintessential strap, hence preserving the look and feel factor of the original Apple Watch Ultra.

5. Focus

This stunning watch is defined by interesting bezels! While manufacturers are trying to banish bezels, Focus embraces them wholeheartedly. Taking inspiration from traffic signs, particularly the circular ones, the smartwatch uses thick bezels to increase the visual focus of the small screen in the middle. There are no other extra markings around that screen, be it a rotating bezel or even a crown.

6. The Vessel

Called the Vessel, this conceptual watch design turns the charging upside-down. The smartwatch isn’t charged via a charging pad, but it has a charging module that attaches to the smartwatch even when you’re wearing it. It features a pebble-shaped battery that magnetically attaches itself to the face of the smartwatch. It doesn’t charge the smartwatch wirelessly, as you might assume but instead uses pogo pin contacts like those from the early days of smartwatches.

7. The Huawei Watch GT Cyber

Say hello to Huawei’s most ambitious and innovative smartwatch! The watch features a circular face and a detachable dial that pops out of the strap. This allows you to swap the outer body designs in no time. The majestic smartwatch comes with a wide range of straps, that you can switch between, giving your smartwatch the look you’re in the mood for – classy, minimalist, sports, or premium. The Huawei Watch GT Cyber allows you to log your workout with a variety of 100+ sports modes, and GPS tracking lets you keep tabs on your route.

8. Orb

Featuring a contoured watch face, Orb is a concept smartwatch that’s been equipped with all the important features you would expect from a watch – timekeeping, health tracking, real-life notifications, as well as video calling. It is designed for people of all age groups since it has a rather optimized size. It’s not too big for users who are young, and nor is it too small for adults. The contoured watch face can be customized with any number of digital dials, but the inherent dial comes with a monochromatic hour and minute hands.

9. The Beads of Time

Say hello to the Beads of Time! This innovative and unusual wristwatch was inspired by an abacus, and it combines an abacus, a digital watch, and a day calendar. Designed by industrial designer Eshaan Kothari, the Beads of Time is the perfect culmination of tradition, technology, and timekeeping. If you’re looking to read the time, the ‘beads’ in the upper row have a value of 5, while the lower row beads are valued at 1. To read the time, all you need to do is see the position of the beads.

10. QLOCKTWO W

This watch by Biegert and Funk requires you to read the time…quite literally! The intriguing watch features a uniform grid of 110 letters. You press the button on its side, which causes some of the letters to light up, and tell you the time! It spells out the time for you. In 2019, the watch won the iF DESIGN AWARD for its unique design. It’s available in two different sizes, making it suitable for all wrist sizes.

Click here to Download KeyShot Pro (Use Code ‘KSYANKOHUB’ during installation for a full Pro + KeyShotWeb trial) to take your sketch from concept to render!

The post Top 10 innovative watches to inspire you from the YD x KeyShot Inspiration Hub first appeared on Yanko Design.

Huawei somehow outdoes itself by launching the TalkBand B7 watch with a pop-out Bluetooth earpiece

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If you thought the Watch Buds were weird, Huawei’s pushing the limits further with the TalkBand B7, a slim smartwatch with a pop-out Bluetooth earpiece. Giving complete Businessman-from-the-2000s energy, the TalkBand B7 comes with a detachable module that fits right in your ear, turning from wearable to ‘hearable’ in seconds. The screen itself detaches from the watch’s band to reveal the mildly chunky retro-style Bluetooth headset (from the Jabra days) that fits right in your ear. Unlike the Jabra earpieces from back in the day, however, this one has a 1.53-inch flexible AMOLED screen, and is basically a smartwatch in your ear.

Designer: Huawei

The TalkBand series isn’t particularly new, although its novelty hasn’t quite worn off yet. The B7, as its name rightfully suggests, is the seventh in the TalkBand series, but it still feels like some ridiculously fresh idea that challenges the stereotype of what a smartwatch should do/be. It comes with a curved display that sports a unique vertical format as opposed to the square and circular variants seen on most smartwatches. The TalkBand B7 does the usual, letting you check the time, weather, notifications, and even monitor your health and track your exercises, but goes above and beyond by also letting you check your blood oxygen saturation and even track your menstrual cycles. Strangely enough, the band lacks GPS and NFC, so it depends on your phone for location and won’t let you tap-to-pay.

A set of buttons on the bottom left and right of the screen let you pop the earpiece module out, letting you go from a wrist-worn device to a Bluetooth headset that’s perfect for calls. The module runs on Huawei’s Kirin A1 chip, with support for Bluetooth 5.2 for a strong connection with your smartphone. Dual-mic noise cancellation makes the TalkBand’s earpiece a perfect choice for audio or video calls in a relatively noisy environment.

The TalkBand B7 is currently limited to just the Chinese market, although a global launch is expected in May of this year. The TalkBand B7 is compatible with devices running Android 7.0, HarmonyOS 2, or iOS 9.0 and newer, and starts at CNY 999 (US$145).

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Huawei WATCH Ultimate offers luxury you can bring with you everywhere

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Global tech giant Huawei has been in the wearable market for many years, but recently they are rapidly expanding their smartwatch portfolio. Last month, Huawei globally launched unique smartwatches, including the 2-in-1 smartwatch and earbuds HUAWEI WATCH Buds. Then, there is HUAWEI WATCH GT Cyber with a removable dial that can be popped into different case options. Their latest smartwatch, HUAWEI WATCH Ultimate, is made for outdoor adventure enthusiasts, whether exploring deep in the ocean or high up in the mountains. Huawei aims to redefine the flagship smartwatch with what they claim is the ultimate design and technology innovation.

Designer: Huawei

Featuring a 1.5-inch LTOP AMOLED display with 466 x 466 resolution, WATCH Ultra’s display is the largest for a smartwatch with a round display on the market today. First time for a smartwatch, Huawei utilized durable and luxury materials like zirconium-based liquid metal for its case. 2.35mm sapphire glass sits atop the dial, accompanied by a nano-tech ceramic bezel. All these make the Huawei WATCH Ultra able to withstand extreme conditions; an ideal companion for any escapade.

Huawei WATCH Ultimate comes in two editions. The ocean-inspired Voyage Blue comes with a deep blue nano-tech bezel and a titanium strap, while the Expedition Black features a jet-black body and HNBR (Hydrogenated Nitrile Rubber) strap. An extra-long HNBR strap scuba for diving is also included in both Voyage Blue and Expedition Black.

WATCH Ultimate borrowed three button design style from traditional high-end watches for increased convenience. In addition to a familiar rotating crown button and function button you find on the left side of the Huawei WATCH GT3 Pro, the Huawei WATCH Ultimate boasts an Ultimate mode button on the right upper side of the watch. Pressing the ultimate mode button gives you quick access to advanced features such as diving mode and expedition mode.

With impressive 10ATM water-resistant capability, you can dive up to 100 meters (330 feet) deep with the watch. The watch is certified with ISO 22810 and EN13319 diving equipment tests and can endure 24 hours of 110-meter depth submersion. Equipped with four different diving modes (recreational scuba dive, technical scuba dive, free-dive, and gauge), WATCH Ultimate monitors diving data like depth, diving time, partial pressure of oxygen (PO2), No-Decompression Limit (NDL), CNS oxygen toxicity (CNS%), and ascent rate. It can also record diving depth, temperature, and ascent curves. Audible and vibration alerts for decompression limit, ascent rate, and safety stops can help you enjoy diving in a safer way. For free divers, Huawei added a proprietary hover time function.

Utilizing Dual-Frequency Five-System GNSS positioning to offer more accurate positioning, the Huawei WATCH Ultra’s new expedition mode lets you mark your points while you are exploring the wilderness. Once you are done exploring, the watch can assist you back to the previously marked position or starting position by guiding you through the marked points in reverse order. With 1,000 nits peak brightness and a new dark light mode interface, WATCH Ultimate can be a great expedition companion on your wrist day and night. And for outdoor adventure that spans over days, it can last for 14 days off a single charge, and the watch can be fully charged wirelessly within 60 minutes.

Of course, the Huawei WATCH Ultimate is packed with familiar features, such as over 100 workout modes, health monitors, Bluetooth calls, music playback, and quick replies. Huawei WATCH Ultimate users can enjoy third-party integration, including Strava, Kamoot, and Runtastic. Sadly, Golf Mode is only available for the Chinese market, and no LTE option will be offered at the time of launch. Huawei has not announced the pricing for the WATCH Ultimate, but we expect it to be as premium as its looks.

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Huawei ‘Watch Buds’ with built-in TWS earbuds begins its global rollout, starting with the EU and UK

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Ever stepped out of the house and realized long after that you left your TWS earbuds at home? Or into a video meeting and just suddenly tried looking for your earbuds but they’re nowhere to be seen? It seems like an edge case, but it’s enough to be an absolute drag. The problem with TWS earbuds is that they’re small and that humans are forgetful… although Huawei hopes to solve that problem with the HUAWEI WATCH Buds – a rather avant-garde smartwatch with earbuds built into them. Pop the lid/screen open and you’ve got yourself a pair of earbuds that you can now wear to listen to music or podcasts, and even use with voice and video calling applications. The TWS earbuds are designed to be incredibly compact and space-efficient, as is the smartwatch that houses them, giving you a product that’s multi-purpose without being huge or clunky. Moreover, the earbuds are also designed to be completely identical and can automatically detect whether they’re being used in the right or left ear. This clever detail makes it more efficient and foolproof to wear and charge the earbuds without figuring out which one’s the left one and the right one. The earbuds sit within their charging case, which also doubles as a highly precise and capable smartwatch that’s designed with zero empty space and zero compromises. The watch itself packs a bright 1.43-inch AMOLED screen that sits under luxurious 3D curved glass. You’ve got a Clouse de Paris detailed crown at the 3 o’clock position, and full-grain leather straps that would make any watchmaker proud. Although announced in China in December 2022, the HUAWEI WATCH Buds makes its official global debut today, starting with the EU (€499 EUR) and the UK (£449 GBP).

Designer: Huawei

Design & Engineering

The watch and earbuds are a collective marvel of engineering, with 21 layers of technology perfectly sandwiched together with absolutely no wasted space. More than 20 of the watch’s internal components are seamlessly laser welded together to connect them without using screws and other fixtures, and components are assembled with tolerances of as little as 30 microns. This allows the watch itself to be as thin as 15mm, while housing everything on the inside from an SoC, a battery, other components and sensors, the display, Huawei’s latest TruSeen™ 5.0+ heart sensor array, and not one, but two rather powerful earbuds that sit snugly under the hood, accessible by pressing a button that causes the lid to flip open.

The TWS Earbuds

Measuring around 0.8 inches long, the TWS earbuds are surprisingly compact for what they’re capable of. They’re designed to be agnostic of left and right orientations, and can be used in either ear (with the buds automatically detecting where they’re placed). They’re 50% smaller than your average earbud, but pack a punch with their full-range planar speakers that output higher than 104dB with a frequency range of 20Hz to 20kHz. In short, they’re compact, loud, and have balanced audio. Dual microphones on the earbuds give them ANC features, while the earbuds themselves have dynamic EQ, ear canal adaptation, wear detection, and a patented wind noise-suppressing design. Being rather tiny (and weighing a paltry 4 grams each), the earbuds don’t offer much in terms of touch controls, although to circumvent that, Huawei designed a system that lets you tap your ear itself to control playback. You can tap twice to play/pause music or answer/reject calls, or thrice to enable or disable noise cancelation, while the watch itself lets you customize controls for each individual earbud.

The Smartwatch

Quite remarkably masking the fact that it has two TWS earbuds inside it, the HUAWEI WATCH Buds smartwatch measures 47 x 47.5 x 15 mm (1.85 x 1.87 x 0.59 in) with a stainless steel frame, a curved glass front, and leather straps that secure this marvel of engineering to your wrist. The smartwatch works just as you’d expect, offering a slew of features including music playback, AI noise cancellation and Dual Mic + VPU (Voice Pickup Unit) for things like calls and video chats, and extensive health and fitness tracking features that support as many as 80 different exercises including running, hiking, cycling, HIIT, etc. The TruSeen™ 5.0+ sensor array on the bottom adopts eight photosensors in a circular layout and a newly upgraded algorithm, which improves the accuracy of dynamic heart rate monitoring, especially during workouts. The watch intuitively pairs its TWS earbuds with the device you’re connected to, whether it’s a phone or tablet (it supports both iOS and Android devices), and even helps you find your earbuds if they ever get misplaced by letting you remotely ‘ring’ them.

Battery & Durability

The earbuds, being rather small, have a battery life that maxes out at 4 hours (without ANC) and 3 hours (with ANC) when listening to music. Pop them in their case, however, and it instantly begins charging them, thanks to the platinum-plated charging rings on the earbuds, and 360° magnets that allow the earbuds to simply snap into their charging enclosures built inside the watch. The watch itself has a battery life of 3 full days, double what the Apple Watch Ultra boasts of (36 hours). You can even bump it up to 7 days on low-power mode, giving you limited functionality but a much longer battery span.

The watch itself has an intricate hinge detail that’s engineered and tested to consistently open and close over 100,000 times, offering years’ worth of rigorous use. The watch and the earbuds are also designed to offer water resistance, with the earbuds being IPx4 water (splash) resistant and the watch being IPx7 water-resistant (even with the buds securely placed inside them).

Availability

The HUAWEI WATCH Buds will be up for pre-order in the EU and UK on February 15th, and will officially go on sale on March 1st. Customers in the EU can grab their WATCH Buds for €499 EUR while UK patrons can buy the device for £449 GBP.

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Smartwatch powered by “slime” that needs to be watered and fed

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One of the reasons why I don’t want to have pets (aside from the fact that I don’t really like them) is that I don’t like the responsibility of caring for other creatures. I’m afraid I will probably forget to feed them leading to them getting sick and eventually dying. But trying to learn to be responsible for other living things is probably something that most people would like to learn. If I can remember to charge my electronics, I should be able to remember to feed another organism. What if you could combine those two?

Designer: Jasmine Lu and Pedro Lopes

Of course you know about virtual pets like Tamagochi but this “experiment” seems to bring this to another level. Two scientists from the University of Chicago have come up with a living organism that can be attached to a smartwatch and power it, as long as the owner feeds it and keeps it alive. The idea behind this is not really to come up with a new device that can be powered by slime but to actually create a symbiotic relationship with gadgets and see how this affects the users.

The smartwatch’s function is pretty basic and the design is also minimalist since the latter isn’t really the point. It can tell time and it can also measure your heart rate. But how it is able to do so is where the experimental part comes in. The device has three main components: the slime mold or the living organism which is scientifically called the physarum polycephalum, the organism enclosure which is able to connect electronically to the watch, and the “watch electronics” itself. The enclosure has four layers which includes the lid, wells, channel, and magnets.

So you need to feed the slime with oats (every two days) and water it 1-2 times a day. As long as it’s healthy, it will be able to power your heart rate monitor. But if you forget to feed it, it will dry up and your monitor will not work anymore. Most of the wearers in the experiment actually became attached to their devices, even though it’s basically just slime on your wrist. The point that they want to make is that there should be a focus on caring for our devices rather than just constantly consuming them and replacing them when the next shiny thing comes along.

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Huawei’s absurd smartwatch with a detachable dial begins its global debut

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It almost feels like they took a page out of the Meta wearable’s design.

Meet Huawei’s most ambitious smartwatch yet. Designed with a circular face, the watch features a detachable dial that pops right out of the strap, allowing you to swap outer body designs in under minutes. Sort of taking a page from Apple’s book, the smartwatch comes with a wide host of straps that give the smartwatch a classy, premium, minimalist, or sporty demeanor. Unlike the Apple Watch, however, these interchangeable straps come with the bezel built-in, giving the watch an entire makeover.

The watch comes with a large 1.32-inch AMOLED display that supports both touch and gesture inputs. The smartwatch is rated to be water-resistant up to 5 ATM, and has been tested to meet 16 military standards, ensuring that it can withstand changes in pressure, temperature, and solar radiation. The Huawei Watch GT Cyber allows you to log your workout with a variety of 100+ sports modes, and GPS tracking lets you keep tabs on your route. Additionally, it offers heart rate and SpO2 sensors for monitoring health, sleep quality, and stress levels. As is with most smartwatches, you can also enjoy music playback, Bluetooth calling, and voice assistant functions.

The swap-out bezel/strap design, however, is the Huawei Watch GT Cyber’s most compelling design detail. Huawei offers three kinds of shells; the Urban Pioneer and Fashion shells, crafted from a combination of nanocrystalline ceramic and stainless steel, as well as the Sports shell, which is made from reinforced composite fiber.

The Huawei Watch GT Cyber is touted as being compatible with both Android and iOS devices. Huawei claims that the watch’s battery can last up to seven days when used sparingly and four days with more frequent use. Furthermore, it also has a built-in NFC chip for contactless payments, and supports Qi-enabled wireless charging.

Although the Huawei Watch GT Cyber was announced as early as October, it begins its global rollout starting with Mexico. The current price is MEX$ 3,699 (US$196), but it will go up to MEX$ 3,999 (~US$212) after February 13. To secure the discounted rate, customers must make a deposit of MEX$100 (~US$5). This new wearable boasts an impressive seven days of battery life and comes with a watch case/strap that can be purchased separately in four colors: black, grey, yellow, and gold.

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Meta Watch V2 surfaces online in leaked photos, confirming the suspected dual-camera design

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Although it was suspected that Meta had axed all plans to make their wearable around 8 months ago, new photos show that the watch’s design has now entered a more advanced stage, suggesting a fleshed-out V2 that’s probably inching closer to a finished product. Revealed by Twitter user Kuba Wojciechowski, this new iteration confirms all our previous suggestions, including a detachable module featuring a watch face on the front with a notch and a front-facing camera, and a secondary, larger camera at the back that lets people record POV videos and BeReal-style picture-in-picture content.

Image Credits: Kuba Wojciechowski

The images show a rounded-square-shaped device running a watch face, with a pretty sizeable bezel containing a notch and a front-facing camera. The watch shape feels rather odd because it’s neither square nor circular, sitting somewhere in between. I imagine designing the UI for such a device would be weird, given that you can’t really watch videos in such a rounded-square display anymore, making it hard to consume content from Meta’s social media sites at Facebook, Instagram, and its chatting app WhatsApp. There are, however, two buttons on the side of the device, although it’s tough to say what their function is at this point.

The one set of details that still remains, however, is the presence of dual cameras. The front-facing camera eats into the display, while the rear camera (slightly larger) hovers right above a bulge that contains what I assume are the heart-rate sensors. You’ve even got contact pins on the other side that I assume are for charging purposes.

There aren’t too many details about the device’s build and specs, although Kuba mentions that it isn’t running Google’s WearOS, but rather a fork of its open-source Android OS. Facebook has for long played with the idea of building their own ecosystem and app network to escape the monopolies of Apple and Google, and this could just be it. There’s also a Qualcomm chipset on the inside, although it isn’t mentioned which one, and the outer case and band are still to be revealed to the public, although we did put together our own concept just about a year ago, right before it was suspected that work on the wearable had halted indefinitely.

Earlier last year, we covered the Meta Watch too, bringing life to its speculative patent-file images through renderings. If you want to read our coverage on the band from last year, click here.

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Official Transformers-themed smartwatch for kids comes with a Qualcomm chip and two cameras

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Created by Chinese OEM Xiao Tian Cai (also known as OKII) with official licensing from Hasbro, the Transformers-themed Z8 watch is perhaps the perfect piece of gear for children. It has everything they’d possibly want, from a blue-and-red design that hat-tips Optimus Prime, to an actual folding design that reveals two cameras – one for selfies, and one working as an action cam of sorts. The smartwatch is tailor-made for youngsters, with a trendy design they’d love to wear and flaunt. Aside from that rather fascinating flip-out body, the watch even has the Autobots logo as its wallpaper and theme. In fact, Xiao Tian Cai’s even hinted at a Megatron-inspired variant sometime later.

Designer: Xiao Tian Caii (aka OKII)

The 1,999 yuan (USD $295) wearable comes with all the bells and whistles of a regular smartwatch, but is designed for children. A 760mAh battery gives it hours’ worth of use on a full charge, while 4G radio, dual-band WiFi, allows it to connect over the internet to help children stay in touch with their parents/guardians/friends. The front-facing camera lets kids click selfies, but flip the watch’s body up and you’ve got a rear camera that’s perfect for recording the world around you, as well as for character-recognition an language translation. The watch also has a heart-rate monitor, introducing children to the concept of health-tracking at a much younger age.

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moto watch 100 is a low-cost smartwatch for safety-conscious families

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Motorola was one of the first phone makers to jump on the smartwatch craze and was the first to dare to make a circular smartwatch when square was the only design available. Although it no longer makes smartwatches itself, its legacy lives on in eBuyNow’s wearables that try to target oft-neglected mainstream markets. With most smartwatches, both Apple and Wear OS, catering to more premium tiers, those with more restricted budgets are often left with cheap and unsatisfying knockoffs. With the moto watch 100, however, budget shoppers are finally given a chance to experience weeks of uptime and, more importantly, safety and critical health metrics they can share with their families and friends to make sure they’re hale and hearty.

Designer: eBuy Now

There are plenty of smartwatches today that have all these sensors that keep track of heart rates, blood oxygen levels, and more. Some, like the Apple Watch, even have fall detection that can call emergency services and contacts if the wearer seems unresponsive. These life-saving features may be staples in smartwatches, but these smartwatches are also often the ones that carry price tags upwards of $300.

In stark contrast, the $99.99 price tag on the moto watch 100 is immediately appealing, especially if you consider the Motorola branding it carries. Although the smartwatch looks quite chunky compared to more luxurious and more expensive brands, it’s not unattractive either. The aluminum body comes in two color options, Phantom Black and Glacier Silver, and while the default comes with a black silicone strap, there are other choices of colors and materials that can be easily swapped with a push of a spring bar.

The moto watch 100 has the staples of activity tracking and sensors, including a heart rate monitor and its own built-in GPS/GLONASS for phone-free location tracking. What makes these features really shine, however, is the smartwatch’s fall detection, something you’d usually find only in more expensive wearables. eBuyNow is also introducing a Family Sharing App that lets wearers share their health data with family members and friends, with their permission, of course. While this might sound intrusive for most folks, it’s actually a way for families to keep tabs on their young or elderly members.

The moto watch 100 boasts two weeks of battery life, which sounds astounding until you get to the fine print. It is able to achieve that figure thanks to a proprietary Moto Watch OS, not the Wear OS that you’d expect from a Motorola-branded smartwatch. Then again, for its price point, the moto watch 100 does offer a decent experience that revolves around monitoring your health or those of others, something you’d be hard-pressed to find in equally affordable smart timepieces.

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The Citizen CZ Smart YouQ smartwatch uses NASA and IBM technology to ‘predict’ your fitness

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Dubbed the ‘Smarter Watch’, the CZ Smart doesn’t track you through the day… it anticipates your day in advance.

Watchmaking pioneer CITIZEN just revealed its latest offering at CES this year – the CZ Smart watch + the YouQ app, designed in partnership with IBM Watson and NASA Ames Research Center. While looking just like any premium watch, the next-gen CZ Smart’s true functionality is unlocked when combined with the YouQ app that gathers, parses, and learns from the data provided by the smartwatch. The watch comes in a variety of styles, sporting CITIZEN’s iconic design with a rotating bezel, a crown and two pushers sitting beside the circular display, and the ability to swap between leather, silicone, mesh, and link variants.

Designer: CITIZEN

“The latest CZ Smart watch is a game-changing product that brings CITIZEN’s legacy of watchmaking together with best-in-class research and technology of NASA and IBM, directly to wearers’ wrists,” said Jeffrey Cohen, President at CITIZEN Watch America. “Coupled with the proprietary CZ Smart YouQ application, this smartwatch is a revolution in wearable wellness.”

The unisex watch comes with a metal body made from 316L stainless steel. Now in its second-gen (the first gen was released back in 2020), the watch also comes with the YouQ app that uses machine learning to constantly learn more and more about you so the longer you wear the watch, the more personalized its experience gets. The smartwatch sports a 1.28″ AMOLED display that offers high visibility in any time of the day, and the battery lasts for 24 hours on a full charge. The watch also comes with a built-in gyroscope, altimeter, barometer, accelerometer, heart rate sensor, SP02, and an ambient light sensor. It runs the Wear OS by Google, but is interoperable with both Android and iOS devices.

The CZ Smart YouQ app is perhaps the most impressive bit of tech here. Developed in partnership with IBM and NASA, the YouQ app possesses the ability to crunch data in ways that other smartwatches can’t. While smartwatches just present diagnostic data like your heart rate, sleep quality, fitness, weather, etc, the YouQ goes into prognosis, actively predicting and giving you actionable insights. It studies your sleep patterns and tells you when to sleep to get the best quality rest, tracks your behavior and provides key insights to help you stay more focused and less fatigued, and lets you generate Alert Scores to test your mental acuity. Alert Scores are generated when a wearer takes a custom-designed Alert Monitor test, a consumer-facing iteration of NASA’s Psychomotor Vigilance Task Test (PVT+), originally developed to determine the mental acuity of astronauts.

The Citizen CZ Smart 2nd gen watches will be available starting March 2023 on CITIZEN’s website with a price range of $350 – $435. The proprietary YouQ application will be available at the same time, although it’s only designed to work with the 2nd gen CZ Smart range of watches, and a hybrid series that will launch at a later date.

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