The New Wearables
Hiren Kumar Bose on two smartwatches to hit the hit market soon, namely Huami Amazfit Verge and Withings’ Steel HR Sport
With some eight known smartwatches that includes models like Moto 360 (2nd Gen, Samsung Gear S2, Apple Watch, Huawei Watch, Asus Zenwatch 2, Pebble Time (Round), Pebble Time Steel, LG Watch Urbane and Titan Juxt there are new additions almost every month hitting the market as selling them has become easy, thanks to e-commerce. Most of these watches do not affect the mechanical as they are priced very smartly—nothing beyond Rs 55,000.
A smartwatch makes our constant notification-filled life much simpler. We may have our mobile phones still we would like to have one for our wrist.
One of the popular makers of smartwatches in China, Humai has just released a couple of new wearables in the country. The highlight announcement is the brand new Huami Amazfit Verge smartwatch, weighing barely 46g, has essential features such as all day heart rate monitoring, abnormal heart rate notification, NFC with payment support and GPS.
The 1.3-inch circular display (43mm diameter) size is made to suit the wrist of most users. The watch is made out of reinforced plastic and comes with a removable silicone strap. It weighs just about 46 grams. The display is an AMOLED panel with 360 x 360-pixel resolution covered with Gorilla Glass 3 on top with a coating to avoid fingerprint smudges on the screen. As for the other specs, the wearable comes with GPS+GLONASS support along with 11 different sports modes, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.0+BLE. The watch is powered by a dual-core 1.2GHz processor with 512MB RAM and 4 GB ROM. Along with the usual sensors, there are additional geomagnetic, and air pressure sensors on board. Huami claims that the Amazfit Verge will last for 5 days on a single charge under normal usage. But if you are going to keep your phone connected (WeChat and other app notifications supported) as well as use its sports mode on a daily basis, expect the battery life to drop to some extent.
Withings’ Steel HR Sport which comes in 1 size only – 40mm and 13mm thick, with a stainless steel case and an engraved bezel. Matte metallic hands with a colour accent sit on either a white or black watch face, protected by mineral glass. With its sports focus, a soft 20mm silicone wristband with ventilation holes completes the look. For those times when you’re not breaking a sweat, you can swap out the silicon strap for an optional leather one.
Being a hybrid smartwatch, in addition to the analog hours and minutes hands, a subdial displays your percentage progress towards hitting your daily activity goal. Sitting atop the watch face is an OLED screen that displays phone notifications, heart rate, steps, distance, calories, activities and alarm settings.
The Steel HR Sport allows you to select from 30+ sports while also featuring automatic exercise recognition. In addition to the metrics tracked by its previous smartwatch – the Steel HR, the Steel HR Sport also comes with Connected GPS and a Fitness Level assessment. Connected GPS relies on you bringing along your smartphone to map your session and track distance, elevation, and pace.
