Tag Archives: Smartwatches

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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Best of MWC 2023: Mobile Gets Design-Conscious

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Mobile devices have long been a part of our modern lives, from the smartphones that are always in our hands to the smartwatches on our wrists to even the laptops that have become our reliable mobile work partners. Despite almost two decades since the iPhone paved the way for modern smartphones, these devices have mostly been seen as geeky products that are more obsessed with specs and features rather than the humans using them. Trends, however, have started to change, and the players in this industry have started paying closer attention to the value of design, almost to the point of making it the next buzzword. MWC 2023 is unsurprisingly filled with the latest mobile innovations and thought experiments, but it is also showcasing the growing design awareness among brands. This year, we’ve taken a tour of what’s up for show in Barcelona to bring you Yanko Design’s top picks for the Best Product Designs at MWC 2023.

ABLE Human Motion

We easily take our physical capabilities for granted until we suddenly see ourselves deprived of some of them. Some people, however, are not so lucky and might be born with some disability or encounter a tragic accident sometime in their lives. With today’s technologies, they shouldn’t have to be forever confined to a wheelchair or worse, and thankfully there are now many companies utilizing modern tools and techniques to improve the lives of people with disabilities.

Designer: ABLE Human Motion

ABLE Human Motion, for example, is dedicated to helping people with walking disabilities enjoy life to the fullest. We’ve seen exoskeletons designed to give well-bodied people more strength to lift or move stuff, but ABLE Human Motion’s exoskeletons are instead made to give people back what they might have lost. Best of all, you won’t feel embarrassed wearing something sleek and well-designed, especially if it makes you look like some armored superhero in the process.

Honor Magic Vs

It might still baffle people as much as awe them, but foldables are slowly but surely becoming more common in the market. Samsung still remains the most familiar brand in that niche market but was never the only one. Due to some rather colorful circumstances, however, Huawei’s foldable phones barely made it outside of China. Fortunately, its former subsidiary is helping bring its legacy to the global market, and it’s posing a challenge to Samsung’s dominance.

Designer: Honor

The Honor Magic Vs, an updated version of the brand’s first foldable, carries a mix of specs and features that definitely stir things up a bit. Unlike the Galaxy Z Fold, there is no gap when the phone is folded shut, a trait that is becoming more common among non-Samsung foldables. Its external display is interestingly curved at one edge only, making it visually distinct from other horizontal foldables. It isn’t perfect, of course, but another player in the market creates variety and good competition that will only help foldables grow.

HTC Vive XR Elite

Meta seems to be playing with fire when it comes to its metaverse vision and even its Quest line of VR hardware. It might have the luxury of playing around, but HTC is all-in on the extended reality or XR industry, whatever buzzword you might call it. On the heels of the Meta Quest Pro, HTC unveiled its own standalone Vive XR Elite headset, offering a design that seems to take us closer to that ideal minimalist eyewear painted by science fiction and Hollywood.

Designer: HTC Vive

As the product’s name suggests, the HTC Vive XR Elite takes the headset beyond just virtual reality, sprinkling a bit of augmented reality into the mix. Its more impressive feat, however, is being able to cram even better hardware inside a more compact design that makes you feel like you’re wearing large glasses rather than ski goggles. It’s still far ways off from sleek Tony Stark shades, but it represents a significant step forward in a market that has seemingly stagnated of late.

Huawei Watch Buds

The popularity of wireless earbuds only confirmed what we had known all along, that most humans have become terrible at remembering even the simplest things. Now people are likely to lose one of two buds, forget the charging case at home, or forget to charge the buds before going out. These accessories aren’t smart enough yet to remind you of all those things, so one stopgap measure it make sure they’re always with you all the time, always charged, and ready to go when you need them.[/caption]

Designer: Huawei

The new Nokia 5710 XpressAudio solves that by turning the phone into the buds’ charging case, but obviously, that can’t happen with our very thin smartphones. Huawei’s solution is to put the buds inside a smartwatch instead, creating a locket-like cover that reveals teeny earbuds charging inside. Sure, the design makes plenty of compromises, and it looks almost comical to a certain degree. It’s hard to deny, however, that the novelty certainly has appeal, especially if you’re the type to fancy yourself as a secret agent with spy tools hidden inside their timepiece.

Huawei Watch GT Cyber

Although many decry how smartwatches present fake luxury, there are definitely benefits in having the ability to change a watch face to fit your style or even your changing mood. That’s only true for the display, though, since you’re practically stuck with whatever watch body you purchased. At most, you can swap out straps for other colors or materials, but the chassis for the watch itself remains unchanged.

Designer: Huawei

The Huawei Watch GT Cyber tries to change the status quo by letting you swap out cases as well. Granted, the available cases all look more like stylish tanks, but the idea itself is probably something worth exploring. It does require a healthy ecosystem of case makers to meet the varied tastes of consumers; otherwise, it remains a design experiment with no future in sight.

Lenovo ThinkPad Z13 Gen 2 (woven Flax Cover)

Unless you’re going for a gaming heavyweight, chances are you’d want a laptop that’s sleek and stylish, almost like a luxury item you’d want everyone to drool over while you work in public. Plenty of laptops do fit that bill with their brushed metal or shiny covers, but nothing grabs the attention better than something that’s not common fare as far as laptops go. That “wow” factor is definitely what the new ThinkPad Z13 Gen 2 is going for, particularly with its brown, fabric-like cover that’s sure to turn eyes and heads around you.

Designer: Lenovo

This material, however, isn’t just eye-catching. Made from 100% agricultural product harvested from Flax plant fibers, this woven Flax material increases the new laptop’s sustainability prospect while also making it stand out with its unique elegance. This material is bonded to the top cover, which itself is made from 75% recycled aluminum. Thankfully, the ThinkPad Z13 Gen 2 isn’t just a pretty face, either, and it possesses the best that Lenovo has to offer for businesses and consumers alike.

ThinkPhone by Motorola

Motorola is one of the oldest names in the mobile phone market, predating even the smartphones that now rule the land, but now it is also under the ownership of yet another giant that has the lion’s share of the PC market. Given its history and pedigree, it was really only a matter of time before these two worlds collided in a very particular way, so the arrival of a ThinkPad-branded Motorola phone was both surprising but also long overdue.

Designer: Lenovo

Unlike a typical smartphone, even those made by Motorola, the ThinkPhone wants to make its association with the popular laptop brand obvious. From the iconic branding to the diagonal patterns running across its back, this phone wants to stand out visually among the rest of the crowd as something meant for serious business. It also has plenty of integration features with Lenovo’s ThinkPads, so its intention to be a mobile partner to those laptops is also unambiguous and clear.

Nokia G22

Today’s smartphones are beautiful and powerful pieces of technology, but all that becomes pointless when the battery dies out, or the screen gets cracked beyond use. Repairing phones is expensive and difficult, but it doesn’t exactly have to be that way; just that the current mobile industry has been set up that way. There are few champions of longer-lasting and easier-to-repair phones, and HMD Global just joined that club with the new Nokia G22.

Designer: HMD Global

Unlike the excruciatingly tedious and nerve-racking processes you’d see in teardown videos, it only takes a guitar pick and a screwdriver to open up this phone. Five minutes is all you need to pull out the battery and 20 minutes to replace a broken screen. It’s not exactly a trivial process, at least not yet, but it’s exponentially better than what we have as “standard” today. Hopefully, this trend will catch on so that we can have beautiful phones that last for years, no matter how many times you accidentally drop them.

Nothing Phone (1)

The phone (1) gets an honorary mention here for doing what no other phone company has managed to do with their debut product… make a big, industry-wide splash. While industry giants merely dismissed the Nothing phone (1)’s Glyph Interface as just a gimmick, it was surprising to see companies like OnePlus, Realme, and Unihertz copying the lighting feature on their own phones, announced at MWC this week. Major win for Nothing and its founder, Carl.

Designer: Nothing

The phone (1) is just the beginning for this new fledgling brand, and it gets the award for its impact, but also for holding its title of being the Flagship killer. Available now at just $299, the phone (1) is an absolute steal, with its drop-dead gorgeous design, more-than-average chipset, and impressive battery-life upgrade thanks to the new NothingOS 1.5 update. Of course, the transparent back and Glyph Interface still have our thumbs up, and we can’t wait to see what future devices will look like.

OnePlus 11 Concept

OnePlus’s claim to fame was that it Never Settled for mediocrity, trying to push the limits of what a smartphone can deliver without pumping the price up too much. Although it couldn’t stem the tide of market prices forever, it continues to be the outlier among its peers. It’s also one of the few brands willing to make seemingly crazy and outlandish experiments that may or may not become a real product. After the disappearing camera act of the OnePlus Concept One, the company is setting its sights on something cooler, literally and figuratively.

Designer: OnePlus

In a nutshell, the OnePlus 11 Concept’s Active CryoFlux is like PC liquid cooling for phones used to create a stunning visual effect. The concept phone’s clear back becomes something like a light show as the icy blue cooling liquid flows through pipes and around the circular camera bump. It’s definitely quite the sight to behold, and OnePlus naturally makes big claims about its effectiveness in keeping a phone cool, allowing it to maintain good frame rates longer. If it does become a retail model, it will definitely appeal to mobile gamers that might want something a bit different from the usual RGB designs.

OPPO Find N2 Flip

Although book-type horizontal foldable phones are definitely jaw-dropping the first time you see them, even Samsung admits that the clamshell-type foldables are more popular and approachable. Whether it’s because of their more familiar form or because of their more accessible price tag, the likes of the Galaxy Z Flip are expected to make up the majority of sales in this category. Ironically, there are even fewer players on this court, which makes OPPO’s belated challenger also more significant.

Designer: OPPO

Like its horizontal sibling, the OPPO Find N2 Flip pushes the envelope with what you can do with this kind of foldable. It offers a larger external screen and a more competitive set of cameras, packed together with flagship-level hardware and a nearly crease-less display. There are a few kinks here, and some missed opportunities there, but for a first attempt, it’s definitely a laudable move forward for the entire market segment.

OPPO Air Glasses 2

The high-profile failure of the Google Glass made many companies a bit warier of turning regular specs into AR-equipped devices, but that dream never really died. The industry now seems to be better prepared for this kind of wearable, and some are setting expectations right. It’s not going to be the hi-tech secret agent device of fiction, but the OPPO Air Glass 2 definitely takes the cake for being one of the most discreet smart eyewear around.

Designer: OPPO

Lightweight and sleek, the OPPO Air Glass 2 focuses (no pun intended) on a set of features that is more relatable rather than fancy, including real-time translation and captioning, navigation, and, of course, some messaging. The display seems like it’s embedded in the lens itself, but you can actually change it to use corrective lenses for those with eyesight problems. It’s admittedly less sensational than other AR glasses, but it is ultimately more practical and more approachable for regular consumers.

Qualcomm Snapdragon AR and XR Platforms

Although the rhetoric around the metaverse seems to have died down a bit, companies are still pushing the envelope in making the technologies empowering it more accessible. That means more headsets and glasses that try to deliver an extended reality experience without weighing us down or making us look laughable in public. There are quite a number of devices now that offer these capabilities without tying you down to a stationary desktop or laptop, and many of these standalone VR, AR, or XR wearables are unsurprisingly powered by Qualcomm’s processors.

Designer: Qualcomm

Qualcomm is the world’s leading silicon maker for mobile devices, but the large Snapdragon family doesn’t just cover smartphones, tablets, or even laptops. It also powers wearables, from smartwatches to this new generation of headsets and eyewear that carry their own computing power inside of them. As these devices get sleeker and more fashionable, it won’t be surprising to see Qualcomm’s Snapdragon AR and XR dominating this market as well, powering the gear that will make the metaverse, or whatever its name will be, our next real universe.

realme 10 Pro Coca-Cola Edition

Smartphones are no longer just hi-tech tools to make our lives easier, they have also become tools for self-expression. People slap on stickers, skins, and cases not just for protection but also for show, displaying their favorite colors, characters, brands, and much more. Some smartphone makers have tried to tap into this trend, and realme just one-upped everyone else with a partnership you never saw coming.

Designer: realme

You can definitely try to force some associations between smartphones and the world’s most popular beverage, but the realme 10 Pro Coca-Cola Edition is definitely special even without that. The mere fact that it’s weird and quirky speaks to the youthful and energetic vibe that both brands are aiming for. The phone itself is actually well-designed, and the attention to detail extends even to the smallest thing, like a SIM tray ejector in the shape of a bottle cap. It doesn’t hurt that the hardware is quite competitive as well, so die-hard Coca-Cola fans won’t feel left behind if they get their hands on this limited edition collector’s item.

Samsung Galaxy S23 Series

There are definitely many people that dislike how it diverges from the “vanilla” Android experience, but there’s no denying that Samsung is pretty much the leader of the Android market across many tiers. That doesn’t mean they always put out a winning flagship, like the ill-fated Galaxy Note 7, but they do have notable designs every so often. Although the Galaxy S23 series offers upgrades across the board, it looks almost similar to its 2022 predecessor, which is actually part of what makes it great.

Designer: Samsung

Rather than coming out with something different for the sake of being different, Samsung seems to have settled down on a more familiar and more stable design language that will become its DNA, at least in 2022 and 2023. This strategy has made the iPhones easily identifiable, even if you miss the telltale logo on the back. Additionally, the Galaxy S23 is a refreshing dose of minimalism at a time when smartphone camera bumps have become obnoxiously big. Hopefully, Samsung will stick to this classic look, even for just one more round.

Tecno Phantom V Fold

You know that foldable phones have made it big when even brands you might have never heard of start launching one. Tecno is a relatively younger and smaller player in the global scene, but it’s making a leap of faith by launching its first-ever foldable phone internationally from the get-go. The formula for horizontal foldables hasn’t exactly changed in the past four years, so it’s interesting to see newcomers that can bring fresh ideas to the table.

Designer: Tecno

The Tecno Phantom V Fold’s defining feature is pretty much its camera design, something you won’t see on any of its kind. The constrained spaces of foldable phones have pretty much limited where you could place components like camera sensors, so it is quite surprising that Tecno managed a feat that bigger brands have failed to accomplish. Whether that will be enough for it to grab sales, only time will tell, but it has definitely raised the bar for future foldables.

Xiaomi 13 Pro

Although we interact with our phone’s screens nearly 100% of the time, it’s really their backs that give them their character. Some manufacturers have taken that to heart perhaps a bit too much, creating camera and back designs that are truly eye-catching, though not always in a good way. Less sensational and simpler designs can sometimes be more memorable, and the new Xiaomi 13 Pro tries to walk the fine line between the two extremes with a unique yet minimalist design.

Designer: Xiaomi

The phone’s camera bump is admittedly big, but it tries to create the illusion of a smaller size by visually dividing it into three parts. That also has the effect of emphasizing each camera’s unique strength, especially because of their association with Leica. The back cover is also made from “medical-grade bio-ceramic material,” and while you won’t be able to see the difference, your hand will appreciate the softer touch. Of course, the Xiaomi 13 Pro also has premium specs, so you’d be getting your money’s worth both in looks and in performance.

Xiaomi AR Glass Discovery Edition

It seems that one of the most numerous mobile devices at this year’s event is smart eyewear. From full-on headsets like the HTC Vive XR Elite to more discreet glasses like the OPPO Air Glass 2, there is no shortage of wearables that offer all kinds of mixed reality experiences. This market segment is starting to get crowded, to Xiaomi is quickly making its presence known with an AR headset that could be one of the lightest of its kind.

Designer: Xiaomi

The Xiaomi AR Glass Discovery Edition might be a mouthful, but it practically encases the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 Gen 1 inside a magnesium-titanium alloy and carbon fiber frame. That’s the same powerful processor that runs in the bulkier Meta Quest Pro but in a lighter body that only looks like oversized sunglasses. It still has to make room for hardware, of course, especially since it functions standalone without connecting to a computer. It’s still lighter than most AR and VR headsets but promises nearly the same capabilities without burdening your head too much.

ZTE nubia Pad 3D

3D is becoming more than just something you see in movies or games. With the advent of mixed reality technologies and experiences, the role that 3D objects play has become a little more significant. Most people presume that enjoying 3D content would require wearing a headset or at least some special glasses like those you’d use in cinemas. There are now some TVs and even a few laptops that will let you see “real” 3D content without having to wear those glasses, but ZTE is presenting something that is more portable and potentially more usable by everyone.

Designer: ZTE

The nubia Pad 3D is perhaps the first tablet of its kind to enable viewing stereoscopic 3D content without any eyewear. It leverages Leia’s technology and ecosystem to power its features, not just for viewing 3D content but also transforming plain 2D content, like streamed videos, into something you view in 3D. The large 12.4-inch slate has dual cameras front and back to also allow users to become creators as well, generating 3D visuals from real-world objects or even their faces.

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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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Circular Ring puts a finger on your health to help you make smart choices

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Keeping track of our body’s health and state of fitness has become somewhat of an obsession for some people. A decade ago, this wouldn’t have even been possible, but the dawn of wearables like smartwatches has made it almost too easy to keep tabs on different aspects of your health. Unfortunately, these tech accessories aren’t always designed like fashion accessories, and their style often comes second to their functions. Even worse, not everyone who is interested in monitoring their health is equally keen on wrapping a smartwatch around their wrist and saying goodbye to their favorite timepiece. Enter the new generation of smart rings like Circular, enabling the same or even better health tracking without cramping your style.

Designer: Circular

While smartwatches have the advantage of giving you quick and easy access to the information you need at a glance, including the time, they aren’t always the most discreet pieces of technology if you’re trying to hide the fact that you’re wearing one. While there are now smartwatches that do masquerade as luxury watches, most people probably have a favorite piece they don’t want to give up. A ring that keeps track of the same metrics might be a more subtle accessory to wear, and the Circular wellness ring delivers the best of both worlds without taking away too much from the smartwatch experience.

Circular offers the standard lineup of activity tracking and health monitoring and adds a little more on top. A smart alarm, for example, wakes you up in the most effective way at the best time, depending on your habits and sleep cycles. It also analyzes your bio-signals to keep track of your sleep quality and to offer recommendations on how to improve it. Since you don’t have to take it off at night, you can be assured that your data is continuous and uninterrupted.

Going beyond just physical well-being, Circular is adding guided breathing exercises utilizing subtle vibrations of the ring to also improve your mood and mental health. An upcoming update to its mobile app will improve the overall user experience and add team monitoring to help coaches and employers keep an eye out for athletes’ and employees’ health. With Circular, you can get a more holistic view of your health and take back control, allowing you to make smarter choices in life.

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This concept smartwatch can be recharged even while it’s still on your wrist

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The first smartwatches amazed many people, especially tech-savvy ones that saw science fiction becoming a reality right before their very eyes. That excitement, however, was a bit short-lived when reality did finally set in, calling into question the purpose and usability of the new type of device. It has been years since the first generation launched, but smartwatches still exhibit one particular problem that has been around from the very beginning: battery life. While there are definitely smartwatches that can run for a few days before needing to be placed on a charger, these often accomplish this feat by cutting corners in other aspects. This smartwatch concept design, in contrast, makes no compromises and solves this battery charging problem by flipping the conventional smartwatch design on its head, almost literally.

Designer: Andrea Mangone

Smartwatches are caught in an even bigger conundrum than smartphones. They set the expectations of powerful smart devices on your wrist, yet their very size severely limits the battery you can put in them. Manufacturers, designers, and eventually customers often have to decide which aspect to prioritize, and battery life is often the one that gets left out. Smartwatches that advertise days or even weeks of battery life often achieve those numbers by limiting features, using a non-color display, or running software that isn’t compatible with the majority of smartwatch apps available today.

One of the biggest problems with having to charge smartwatches is the fact that you have to take them off before you can actually charge them on some charging pad or dock. This has been the status quo ever since the first smartwatches came out, and it seems that everyone has accepted it as the only design possible. The Vessel concept design challenges that assumption and turns the charging design upside-down. Instead of the smartwatch being placed on a charging pad, Vessel has a charging module that attaches to the smartwatch, even when you’re still wearing it.

Vessel comes with a pebble-shaped battery that magnetically latches onto 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. You won’t notice these contact points on the smartwatch itself because they’re integrated into the watch’s face, making it look like they’re part of its design.

While you’re charging the smartwatch, you can still keep on using it, though in a limited capacity. The battery module has its own limited display, and it will only show the time and battery status. Notifications are paused in order to speed up the charging time, but activity detection and sensors will continue to work. The module only has a 500mAh capacity, so it will still take an hour to fully charge a watch. Of course, you don’t have to take it off during that period, so you won’t be missing valuable health data in the meantime.

It’s definitely an interesting angle to solving the smartwatch charging problem, though it probably comes with its own drawbacks. The most notable would be that it locks the smartwatch to a very specific design because of the data and charging contact points, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done elegantly. It’s just a matter of thinking outside the box, and Vessel has definitely pulled that off with aplomb.

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Huawei Watch Buds leak suggests it will come with built-in wireless earbuds

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Thanks to the retirement of headphone jacks on more recent phones, wireless earbuds have started becoming a staple of modern mobile life. But while they offer the convenience of freedom from tangling cables, their diminutive sizes make them easy to lose. More importantly, the need for a charging case to keep them in means an additional object that you need to carry with you all the time and also potentially lose in the process. There have been some attempts to solve this problem, often by tracking the location of the buds or the case and warning the owner if they stray too far. Huawei, however, seems to have designed a rather crafty solution that removes the need for a charging case and, coincidentally, gives its own smartwatch another reason to exist.

Designer: Huawei (via Huawei Central)

It wasn’t until recently that smartwatches became a more common consumer electronics device, in no small part thanks to Apple creating a niche for it. Not everyone, however, might be in need of an advanced fitness tracker and mobile health diagnostic device, but there will always be a few that will need TWS earbuds to go along with their smartphones. Huawei’s solution is simply to merge the two so that you get both for the price of one or probably the equivalent price of one and a half.

Huawei recently teased its next wearable called “Huawei Watch Buds,” which is a rather odd name that sounds like a mashup of two devices. Apparently, that’s really the case, and a batch of leaked photos and a video shows a smartwatch with a pair of wireless earbuds hidden inside. Conversely, it could also be a pair of buds that come with a charging case that happens to be a smartwatch as well. Either way, the design is both ingenious but also odd, and it trades in some problems for others.

Given the fact that it has to store earbuds inside, the smartwatch’s body is unsurprisingly quite thick. This comes at a time when most non-sports smartwatches are trying to go on a diet to make them more presentable and more appealing to buyers. The earbuds themselves are also quite small by necessity, and they come as small capsule-like devices that might instill worries of getting stuck inside your ear.

As for the watch itself, it isn’t that remarkable, especially with the large bezels around the display. Huawei will have to include a larger-than-usual battery inside to offset the needs of the earbuds, further adding to the watch’s size and weight. It remains to be seen how effective this solution will be, but one has to give Huawei some credit for thinking outside the box and designing something so interesting that you might actually want to buy it to try it for yourself.

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Montblanc x Naruto collection celebrates the power of storytelling and self-expression

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As one of the most popular and best-selling mangas (Japanese comics) in history, it’s not unusual to see “Naruto” printed or even engraved in many products, some of them expensive, limited editions even. Naturally, these items are meant to appeal to fans of the character and the franchise, which happens to correspond to a certain market demographic. It might come as a surprise, then, that the not-so-silent Ninja is now part of Montblanc’s family with a collection that encompasses a variety of products, ranging from pens to bags to even a smartwatch. This, however, isn’t simply fan service but is almost a perfect match for the marque’s love of storytelling and the tools that enable that kind of written tradition.

Designer: Montblanc

Given its origin as a manga, it’s too easy to brush off Naruto as something for kids, though the mature themes in its long-running story would suggest otherwise. Like many franchises that have now spanned generations, there are many topics, themes, and even philosophies that can be gleaned from its stories, and Montblanc zeroed in on two of the most important ones for readers and fans of the series. At its heart, Naruto is a story of stories and growth, where the titular character learns to express his own identity through stories, lessons, and values passed through both oral and written traditions.

Given that theme, the Montblanc x Naruto collection encompasses an almost random selection of items from the brand’s portfolio. There are the usual culprits of pens and notebooks, but there are also accessories like leather bags and pouches. There’s even a limited edition Montblanc Summit 3 Naruto smartwatch that puts the teenage hero front and center, presuming you keep the pre-installed watch face, of course.

More than just Naruto-branded items, these products carry symbolism that Montblanc explains is important to the transmission of knowledge, especially in this fictional world. These symbols are sometimes discreet, like those engraved on the side buttons of the Wear OS smartwatch or the subtle cloud patterns on the fountain pen’s barrel. At other times, they are extravagant, like the fountain pen’s 14K carat solid gold nib engraved with the symbol of Naruto’s hometown.

The variety of products in this Montblanc x Naruto collection is definitely enough to appeal to fans of all ages and genders, though do expect to pay a pretty penny for these doubly branded items. Of course, unlike your typical Naruto merchandise, these are meant not only to last but even to become heirlooms you can pass on to a younger generation of Naruto fans, almost like how they do it in the manga.

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Pixel Watch iFixit teardown reveals its beauty is only skin deep for now

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Google finally launched the first smartwatch under its own Pixel brand, and the reception of the wearable device has been a bit mixed. Its unique dome-like display definitely gives it a unique visual personality, but the jury is still out when whether that’s actually a strength or a liability. Even with years of references and lessons from other manufacturers, the Pixel Watch seems to have all the makings of a first-gen device, especially once you start to open it up. As iFixit discovered, the smartwatch’s simple yet attractive design doesn’t extend inside, and the device could be a nightmare for both owners and technicians that need to simply repair a cracked screen or a loose crown.

Designer: Google

Unlike almost all Wear OS smartwatches today, the Pixel Watch does away with the visible external bezels with a very curved glass that covers the screen. It’s almost like the Apple Watch, except that it comes in a circular shape. Like the Apple Watch again, the Pixel Watch utilizes a digital crown, but the similarities end there. The crown has been noted to look a bit cheap, and at least one reviewer has experienced the domed screen cracking for no apparent reason.

These flaws on their own wouldn’t be too disastrous if it were easy to fix the Pixel Watch, which isn’t the case yet for this first attempt. To its credit, the back is easily removable with some heat and prying, and iFixit a mysterious adhesive that could be good news for repairs in the future. The screen can also be pried off with the same techniques, but it cannot be disconnected unless you really dig inside.

The small, squishy battery needs to be removed first, which needs a bit of heat that could be a disaster waiting to happen. There is a maze of screws and components that you need to get out of the way first before you can even disconnect the display cable. Even after all that, it is nearly impossible to remove the crown and buttons without risking irreparable internal damage. Considering these mechanical parts are likely to fail at some point, that’s not a reassuring scenario.

To be fair, this is Google’s first smartwatch, so there’s still ample room for improvement on all fronts. It’s not a great first step, though, especially considering how late it is already in the game. Perhaps more worrying is that this is a company that is notorious for suddenly canceling products and services, even those that many people have heavily invested in already. It’s going to be a tense waiting game to see if future Pixel Watches will be able to rise to the challenge or be unceremoniously put to pasture after one or two tries only.

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Apple Watch Ultra or Garmin: Which sports smartwatch should you buy

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Apple just launched its latest iPhone generation last week, but it might be its wearable companion that’s generating more discussions over the Internet these days. The Apple Watch Ultra, in particular, is kicking up a storm in a somewhat niche smartwatch market focused on extreme sports and very active lifestyles. It might simply look like an overgrown Apple Watch on the outside, but that’s part of the appeal of Apple’s most rugged smartwatch yet. After all, why would you settle for a rugged-looking sports smartwatch from the likes of Garmin when you can have a rugged yet stylish smartwatch from Apple instead? That’s exactly the question that we’ll try to answer, pitting the Apple Watch Ultra against Garmin’s finest to weigh the pros and cons before you bid farewell to your hard-earned money.

Designer: Apple, Garmin

Design

Neither of the two smartwatch makers’ designs is anything new. The Apple Watch Ultra really looks like a bigger Apple Watch, one with a 49mm size that is nothing to scoff at. It comes with that rectangular face that the Apple Watch has been wearing for generations now, albeit with a flatter screen that makes it easier to protect with sapphire crystal. The Ultra model does deviate from the standard design a bit with an extruded housing for the side button and an extra programmable Action button on the opposite side.

Garmin’s sports smartwatches like the Epix 2 and the Enduro 2 stand in stark contrast to this design. Where Apple’s watches have always leaned more towards the classy end of the spectrum, Garmin doesn’t make qualms about the rugged and sporty nature of its smartwatches. They have typical circular faces, but don’t expect luxurious appearances like those from Samsung, Montblanc, or Fossil. And where Apple aims for minimalism as it is wont to do, Garmin tends to throw almost everything into its devices, giving these two sporty watches no less than five buttons to play with. Those are particularly useful when you can’t use the touch screen because you’re wearing extra thick gloves.

In terms of appearances, the choice is a bit clearer cut. Do you want a sports smartwatch, or do you want one that can hide in plain sight on any occasion? Of course, there are even more differences under the hood, especially when it comes to details like battery life and health features, but if you can’t get past how the smartwatch looks, those differences might be meaningless anyway.

Specs and Features

What differentiates a sports smartwatch from a typical sports watch is, of course, the hardware that makes it tick. This is also where the lines between Apple and Garmin blur and mix, making it a little bit harder to choose between the two. When it comes to the display, for example, the Apple Watch Ultra has the Garmin Epix 2 beat with a more pixel-dense screen that really makes icons and text pop out. That said, neither of these are your typical smartwatches, and they both try to compete in telling you where you are or where you’ve been.

Smartwatches designed for athletes require more attention to location than conventional wearables. Garmin, whose core business is exactly in that field, has a long head start compared to Apple. While the Apple Watch Ultra boasts dual-band GPS for the first time, Garmin has been using multi-band satellite systems far longer. The latter also has the advantage of having access to more kinds of maps and topographical data than Apple, many of which come pre-installed on its smartwatches.

Garmin’s sports wearables also come with support for external Bluetooth devices, particularly those used by athletes and adventurers in monitoring stats and data that the smartwatch itself can’t collect. It’s too early to count Apple out of the game since the Watch Ultra is its first stab at this space. But extremely active people who need solutions now might not be too keen on waiting for Apple to get up to speed.

Battery Life

The biggest headline for the Apple Watch Ultra, however, is its battery life. Thanks to its larger size and other hardware improvements, it is able to accommodate a larger battery and advertise up to 36 hours of battery life under normal use. That can even be extended to 60 hours with a new low-power mode, which is practically two and a half days. That’s a big improvement over the typical 18 hours of a regular Apple Watch, but that’s only when comparing it to Apple’s smartwatches.

Garmin, in contrast, counts days, not hours, when it comes to battery life. The Garmin Epix 2, for example, boasts 16 hours, though the figure can be dragged down to just 42 hours if GPS mode is enabled. And that’s nothing compared to the new Garmin Enduro 2, which is advertised to last 34 days, not hours, in normal smartwatch mode. It even has a built-in solar panel, so you can extend that by 12 days more without having to grab the charger.

Garmin’s unbelievable battery life claims don’t come without costs, as we’ll see later, but it still shows how far conventional smartwatches are from the ideal. The Apple Watch Ultra at least comes with the assurance that you won’t be charging it as much, but having a compatible MagSafe charger close at hand will still be a good idea, especially if you plan to go off-grid with it. That said, if you do that kind of activity more often than not, any of Garmin’s rugged smartwatches might inspire more confidence and peace of mind.

Health

While Garmin may have the upper hand in navigation and battery life, Apple takes the cake when it comes to health-related features that go beyond the usual activity tracking. In many cases, the Apple Watch Ultra and Garmin’s Epix 2 or Enduro 2 are head-to-head with each other. They all cover the basics like heart rate monitoring, including less common stuff like measuring blood oxygen levels. Even the Apple Watch Ultra’s new body temperature sensing is something that Garmin has already been using for quite some time now. Apple’s advantage, however, is that it can also detect external temperatures, including water temperature.

Apple, however, has had more time fine-tuning its features to be more aware of potential health problems than Garmin. One could almost consider this to be the killer feature of Apple Watches. In particular, the ECG measuring feature that has been present since the Apple Watch Series 4 is something that few smartwatches have to date. Apple will continue pushing the Apple Watch in that direction, which would also benefit future Ultra models.

That’s not to say that Garmin won’t have these features eventually, especially when such hardware becomes more accessible to manufacturers. It could just be a matter of time, though it could also be a matter of business goals. This could very well be one of the biggest differentiating factors between Apple and Garmin smartwatches in the future, with one focusing on navigation and sports while another specializes in health and fitness.

Software

At the end of the day, however, the true distinction between the Apple Watch and any of Garmin’s smartwatches is that the Apple Watch Ultra is a smartwatch, first and foremost, while an Epix 2 or Enduro 2 are sports watches with smart features. Garmin supports a variety of apps on its smartwatches, but the majority of these focus on sports activities. The wearables connect to smartphones, too, but they have limited control over the communication that happens between the two devices. There are your typical notification and music controls, but forget about more advanced apps that don’t fit the sports theme.

Almost in sharp contrast, the Apple Watch Ultra is pretty much a larger Apple Watch designed to be extra rugged and with more sports-related features. That means it has everything that a regular Apple Watch has to offer and more, including access to dozens of apps and experiences that make it a true companion to an iPhone. You can do almost anything on an Apple Watch Ultra, especially when you consider you have access to Siri through it.

That’s also the reason why the Apple Watch Ultra and its potential successors will always have trouble matching the battery life of Garmin’s equivalent smartwatches. You will need more muscle to power those user experiences, which also means eating more of that battery every hour. It is the necessary price to be paid for a general-purpose computer on your wrist, one that happens to function as a classy but rugged smartwatch as well.

Final Thoughts

So should you buy a new Apple Watch Ultra or stick to the tried and tested Garmin? As always, there is no single answer that will satisfy all people. Even price isn’t a determining factor at this point anymore, with the Apple Watch Ultra starting at $799 and the Garmin Enduro 2 going for $1,099. It really all boils down to how sporty you want your smartwatch to be and whether you need a multi-functional smartwatch in the first place.

Despite the appeal of a sportier Apple Watch, Garmin easily wins in the areas where sports watches shine brighter than other timepieces. The five easy-to-access buttons make it usable in extreme conditions where you can’t easily swipe or tap the screen, and its navigation and mapping chops are still unrivaled, even by the likes of Google and especially Apple. Its month-long battery life is no small matter, especially when you take frequent trips outdoors. You will, however, be limited by what your smartwatch can do outside of those occasions, but that might better match your extreme lifestyle more than any other smartwatch.

The Apple Watch Ultra, on the other hand, is a more well-rounded device, more like a jack of all trades. It is more rugged and sportier than any other Apple Watch to date, but it doesn’t stray far from its roots. You can do almost anything on the smartwatch, within reason, of course. Its health-related functions are topnotch, and ECG measuring is still something that few smartwatches can boast of. Its design makes it fit better in almost any situation or occasion, so you don’t have to switch watches just because you want to go to a social party rather than go out for a run. Future models might be able to catch up to some of Garmin’s key advantages, but the Apple Watch Ultra will always be a smartwatch first and a sports partner only second.

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Huawei GT3 Pro brings classic luxury designs to smartwatches

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If Google is going for a modern, futuristic motif with their recently announced Pixel Watch, Huawei is going for the complete opposite with their latest flagship smartwatch, the Huawei WATCH GT3 Pro. Huawei realized that people who are used to wearing watches on their wrists are more likely to adopt smartwatches if they look more like their beloved timepieces, so they designed the new GT 3 Pro series to please traditional watch lovers. Taking inspiration from classic watch design with a round watch face and crown, the new Huawei wearables come in two distinctive styles, one made of titanium and the other formed from ceramic, and both look gorgeous, especially on your wrist.

Designer: Huawei

The 46mm Titanium edition is the larger of the two, measuring 46.6mm x 46.6mm x 10.9mm and weighs approximately 54 grams without a strap. That size isn’t just for show, though, since it packs a large 1.43 inch AMOLED display, with a spacious 466×466 326 PPI screen housed in a titanium case with sapphire glass on tap. Despite the mostly Titanium body, it has a ceramic rear that went through 60 processes to transform zirconia ceramic powder into this elegant finished form. The Huawei GT3 Pro Titanium model also borrows a classic rotating crown from traditional watches, offering an easy-to-use control to zoom in and out or scroll through the user interface.

In comparison, the Ceramic edition comes with a smaller 43mm body at 42.9mm x 42.9mm x 10.5mm and weighs approximately 50 grams without a strap. Despite the smaller body, it still features a 1.32 AMOLED display with 466×466 pixel resolution and a higher 352 PPI. It is the first all-ceramic smartwatch, with both the body and rear using the premium material. Like the Titanium edition, however, the screen is protected by tough sapphire glass.

The luxurious design of Huawei’s latest smartwatches goes beyond just their bodies. The series offers a range of watch faces, including exclusive watch faces designed by IED students, giving the digital surfaces more familiar classic faces. There is also a new day-and-night watch face feature that dynamically changes the watch face according to the time of sunrise and sunset, something traditional watches can only dream of. The straps are also made from premium material, depending on which edition you grab. The Titanium edition has thee three different strap options available, including black fluoroelastomer, grey leather strap, and titanium bracelet. In contrast, the Ceramic edition only has two variants, one with a gold bezel ring and a ceramic strap, and the other with a silver bezel ring and a leather strap.

Of course, the Huawei GT3 Pro is more than just a nod to classic timepieces and is a smartwatch at its very core. It is equipped with an upgraded TruSeen 5.0+ with improved heart rate monitoring, which includes an ECG function on both models, though availability and activation will differ by country. Huawei also upped its water-resistance with the GT3 Pro, allowing users to free dive up to 30 meters deep while wearing it, even in saltwater. Huawei continues to build on the successes of its inaugural smartwatch, offering an impressive battery life with the new GT line of smartwatches: 14 days for the titanium edition and seven days for the ceramic edition with regular usage.

Just like with analog and digital watches, each wearer prefers a different style and design for their trusty timepiece. Leaning more towards traditional aesthetics, the Huawei GT3 Pro delivers a timeless design while offering the modern trappings of today’s technology. Elegant, powerful, and enduring, the company’s latest wearables exhibit the smartwatch world’s best style and performance, just like the GT sports cars they are named after.

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