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The concept of smart watch is not new. Microsoft had drafted in 2003 with SPOT. And if the famous shows of the tandem Michael Knight / KITT imagined in the early 80 still belongs to the realm of science fiction.  No way to talk to his car by remote, we’ll have to communicate with its Android smartphone. The accessory trend coming in the next months?

 
The Sony SmartWatch

What exactly is this SmartWatch? Physically, it consists of a small square box of side 3.6 cm and 1.25 cm thick (clamp included) to 16 g that attaches to a rubber strap. The watch face features a fully glazed OLED screen of 2.3 inches square, with resolution unspecified but clearly low. You could almost count the pixels with the naked eye! Come on, we did there … 128 x 128 screen is capacitive multi-touch, two points are recognized as standard. Finally Sony has housed a single button on a slice of the watch.

The screen resolution at 128 x 128 pixels makes visible. On the edge, the only physical button of the watch
What else? For technical specifications, it only remains to mention that embeds a controller SmartWatch Bluetooth 3.0. No internal storage or microSD slot, no more than micro or speaker … Oh yes, include the small connector to recharge the watch owner. This is certainly encouraging to see a new cable, however, recognize that in terms of design, the curved sheet being fixed to the back of the watch is pretty well thought.

Side autonomy, SmartWatch is between a day and a week with a full charge based on usage (from Sony). 4 days on average for a watch is … enough! The SmartWatch is ultimately a remote display that communicates with an Android device in the range of 10 m imposed by Bluetooth.

Installation: how does it work?
Without a manual, setting the SmartWatch is nothing intuitive. And until the installation is not completed, the watch will be useless if not decorative. Indeed, everything goes through the smartphone, including setting the time, otherwise the watch displays tirelessly “00:00″. What we need to move up a gear: an Android smartphone, internet connection and watch.

The bases thus set, then we can “manage” the SmartWatch from the phone, or by deciding not to install a whole range of applications, often free, sometimes paying … Please note, applications are installed on the smartphone, not in the watch!

This means that if we cut the Bluetooth or that strays too far from the phone, the watch is reduced to display the time, after spending several minutes trying to reconnect to the smartphone, in vain. The symbol search also returns the phone every time you touch the screen shows, then disappear by the time … Note that the time is preserved, as the show stays on, or it rest of the battery. The only good thing about all this is that in case of theft of a watch, you will not lose any data confidential.

The SmartWatch panics if the Bluetooth connection is interrupted: it then looks for his master smartphone for minutes. Then she finally gave up to return on time. But beware, if you touch the screen, the clock starts to look …

This proves SmartWatch (no pun …) very limited daily. His only two utilities are summarized in relaying information from the phone to the wrist (Facebook, Twitter, RSS, Messaging, Calendar reminder, weather …) and its remote control via Bluetooth smartphone (call management, phonebook, music player, viewfinder camera …). Either … but in the first case, the experiment suffers from the discomfort of the screen (size, brightness, resolution, glare, fingerprints …), and in the second case, it is imperative to have a headset, headset or a Bluetooth headset to make sense of the applications (except for the viewfinder of the camera).

Sony Smartwatch open  phone
It is also not for nothing that the SmartWatch regularly invites to open the phone.  Worse, with an application like Gmail Notifier, the watch is just a vibration alert you that you have an email, you can not read or even know who it came from. Therefore, it appears more convenient to directly consult its smartphone …

Ergonomics of the interface side, the driver is pretty good. A double-tap to display the time (or pressing the physical button of the watch), an additional step is get to the menu. It drags its four screens applications to the left or right to change, we slide up to go to the widget attached, and pinching the screen with two fingers to go back. The brand is not very responsive, sometimes imprecise, but the animations are fluid and the watch usable. Without the ability to adjust the display of the watch, it is possible to configure the installed applications, notably to decide how they warn you.

Due to the search for technology, the product is already a little too thick while its screen is not quite visible, especially in daylight. Then, the watch must resolve to be the slave of the Standing Android smartphone which it relates and without which it is nothing. Finally, even if we do not take offense to these criticisms, it is clear that the interests of SmartWatch remains debatable. It is neither more nor less than a remote screen and very refined for Android smartphone. A compact and mobile display for a device already compact and mobile.

The SmartWatch reminds us of the secondary screens for Clam … except that there it attaches to the wrist. And it is worth € 129!

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