Smartwatches

HP’s Gaudy Smartwatch Will Be Surprisingly Affordable

Here’s our first detailed look at the Hewlett-Packard “luxury” smartwatch teased a few months ago. It’s designed to look like a fancy metal rich-guy watch, but at $350, you won’t need to be a rich guy to buy it. Called the MB Chronowing, the watch is designed by Michael Bastian. It’s a 44mm stainless steel…

LG G Watch R Review: Worthy of Your Wrist, Even If Android Wear Isn’t

Motorola’s Moto 360 stole the Android Wear spotlight when Google’s smartwatch operating system was first revealed. But it’s not the only tech-filled timepiece to sport a circular display, with this, LG’s G Watch R, hot on its heels just a few months after the Moto 360’s release. Depending on your aesthetic taste, the G Watch…

Apple Watch Accessories Are Already Out of Control

Whenever Apple announces something new, companies will use the most basic specs revealed onstage to take a stab at making What You Need to go with it. But the Apple Watch is even crazier; despite not even existing yet, more than a few companies are already accessorizing for it. The Apple Watch represents a challenge…

A “Smartwatch” For Kindergarteners Is the Only Smartwatch You Need

Smartwatches: So much futuristicness promised, so little delivered. They’re clunky. They’re frustrating. They’re just not quite there yet. But what if there was a smartwatch out there that was just plain fun to use? There is—it just happens to be built for four-to-nine-year-olds. https://gizmodo.com/the-joy-and-misery-of-life-with-a-grotesquely-large-sm-1637632048 Yes, in the interest of science, reader service, and the dogged…

Smartwatches Fulfill Their True Destiny With a Game Boy Emulator

Google and Apple can pitch them as productivity tools all they want, but the real reason anyone would strap a smartwatch to their wrist is as a more covert way to kill time and avoid boredom. So it’s good to know that when your Twitter and Facebook feeds run dry, you can always boot up…

Microsoft Created an Android Wear Handwriting Keyboard

Smartwatches are still trying to answer a lot of questions, chief among them being, “What do people actually what to do with them?” Their small size means many platforms will need to be reimagined to fit their screens, and Microsoft Research is trying to tackle the most important one—texting. Microsoft Research’s “analog keyboard project,” wants…

Apple Really, Really Wants The Apple Watch To Be Fashionable

Apple’s already been clear that it wants its upcoming timepiece to be something that you’re not ashamed to wear. But in case displaying it at the Paris Fashion Week wasn’t clear enough, Apple’s PR people have gone ahead and put the Apple Watch front and center — quite literally — on the November issue of…

LG Appears To Be Developing a WebOS Smartwatch

WebOS has a rather chequered past but that doesn’t seem to bother LG. Now, it looks like the operating system is set to appear in a smart watch, according toa new developer site hosted by LG. Thenew site teases a software development kit for a webOS smartwatch. The odd little Bean Bird from LG’s webOS…

Flexy, Wrist-Worn Concept Phone: A Real Life Buzz Lightyear Communicator

Indiegogo concepts are always a bit out there, and this one’s no exception: Portal, a six-inch Android-powered smartphone that’s impressively capable, waterproof, and flexible enough to wear on your wrist like Buzz Lightyear’s communicator. Forget smartwatches, this baby’s a goddamned gauntlet. Judging by the specs, Portal’s creators don’t want to churn out some mid-range device:…

FCC Papers Show LG May Be Building a Smartwatch With Cell Service

Newly-surfaced FCC papers seem to indicate that LG’s upcoming smartwatch will boast a 3G cellular connection. Soon you could be wearing your LG cellphone on your wrist! Yes, the device, known only as the LG-VC100, will pack a 3G CDMA cellular connection, judging by the papers filed with the FCC. That means, hypothetically at least,…

Samsung’s Gear S—Samsung’s first smartwatch that is literally also a phone with a SIM card and a phone number—is coming to the US this fall, and it’s being supported by all four major carriers. Dick Tracy your day has come.

The Joy and Misery of Life With a Grotesquely Large “Smartwatch”

Brought to life by a Kickstarter campaign that raised nearly $1 million last year, the Neptune Pine is the most literal interpretation of the word “smartwatch.” It’s a huge phone-like Android device that you strap to your wrist in order to feel smart. The $350 Neptune Pine does almost everything you would expect your phone…

Luxury Brand Tag Heuer Wants to Make a Smartwatch

It looks like luxury watchmakers were waiting to see what Apple had planned before entering the smartwatch race. Less than a week after the company’s Apple Watch announcement, Tag Heuer spoke with a local Swiss newspaper about its own smartwatch plans and how it will be nothing like Apple, Reuters reports. In an interview with…

Apple Watch Will Play Music On Bluetooth Headphones, No iPhone Required

The Apple Watch we got a glimpse at this week is a powerful peripheral device, but most of its tricks require it to be tethered to an iPhone in the user’s pocket. Last night on Charlie Rose, Apple CEO Tim Cook revealed one thing the Watch can do on its own: Send music to your…

It’s Easier To Draw the Smartwatch Future Than It Is To Build It

“It’s still easier to draw a new wrist technology in a comic strip than to sell it to consumers,” wrote James Gleick in 1995. And boy was he right. Even before 1995, consumers had seen countless visions of the smartwatch future. And Gleick’s reluctant optimism about the future of wrist-worn tech was certainly admirable. But…

Apple Watch Will Lock Up Your Payment Info When You Take it Off

One of the Apple Watch’s nifty features will be its Apple Pay integration, letting you tap-to-pay right from your wrist. Yes, that means the sensor-laden smartwatch will be connected to your credit card—but there’s a nifty trick to prevent would-be thieves from stealing your credit card if they nick your watch. We know that the…

Moto 360 Smartwatch Review: The Best Might Not Be Enough

Early this year when Google first announced Android Wear, it teased us with the Moto 360. It was by far the best-looking smartwatch we’d ever seen. Many months later it’s here at last. It’s the best Android Wear device yet, but with the Apple Watch looming on the horizon, it’s no longer clear if that’s…

This Is What a Watch Expert Thinks of the Apple Watch

The New York Times calls Benjamin Clymer “The High Priest of Horology.” He’s the executive editor of the watch-enthusiast website, Hodinkee, which featured in Time magazine’s list of the 50 best websites in 2013. Which is what makes his unique take on the Apple Watch so fascinating. While the rest of us compare the Apple…

How Apple Traded Magic For Surprise

If you had a working internet connection and the capacity to Google before yesterday, you’d already seen the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in full detail. The details of the Apple Watch, though, remained a mystery until the end. How’d Apple keep the secret? By sacrificing a small part of its magic. And by putting…

Report: Apple Watch Will Need Charging Every Day

Amidst all the fist-pumping and Bono-goofing yesterday, one piece of information was conspicuously absent: The Apple Watch’s battery life. What’s the point of strapping a tiny computer to your body if it needs constant charging? According to Re/code, even Apple hasn’t quite figured out the battery dilemma yet. After Tim Cook mentioned charging Apple Watch…