Born from a successful crowdsourcing campaign, the Amazon smartwatch is a solid contender in the smartwatch category.
(Source: imcowatch.com)
It’s no Apple Watch Series 2, not GPS enabled nor waterproof, but it does offer some other goodies like Alexa, long battery life, and a true round-faced design.
For folks on a budget not exceeding $300, who aren’t Apple fanboys, but can’t get behind the other non-iOS watches on the market, CoWatch makes a stylish alternative.
Oh yeah, in case you are wondering, it’s not Android OS either. We’ll come back to that…
The CoWatch offers a lovely round-faced smartwatch with some worthwhile features that rival the competition.
Round Faced
(Source: imcowatch.com)
Some believe the square face of certain smartwatches is a passing fancy. Maybe. There are some big names behind that fancy, Garmin, Polar, Fitbit, and those design-inept people working at Apple.
What do any of those companies know about shapes? For many of the round smartwatches on the market, they suffer real estate issues.
The face of a smartwatch worth its pricetag if that face not only communicates information but receives information as well. That means they need space for sensors, even cameras some day. (Ahem.)
In order to make space for sensors, many of this year’s entries came with a black bar covering the six o’clock position. [We’re looking at you, Fossil.]
The CoWatch does not do this. There’s nary a bezel to speak of in the face. The face is so clean, even Steve Jobs would look twice.
Under The Hood
(Source: imcowatch.com)
The CoWatch doesn’t do everything, but who among us does everything?
What it does, is track the usual host of fitness tracker data: steps, activity, and heart rate. It will also send notifications, control your tunes, handle most watch functions, but is also customizable for many non-standard functionalities.
It will connect with IFTTT so you can set up an endless number of customizations to automate your life. Post to a social network, ask Alexa whatever you need,
CoWatch is your personal assistant and sometimes fitness tracker.
A New OS
(Source: fashionmaniac.com)
The OS is not Apple. It’s not Google either. It’s new, call Cronologics OS. It will connect with either ecosystem, iOS or Android.
The creators of the OS are former Google people, so it looks similar to Android. It was created only to work with this smartwatch, catering to an intuitive interface.
Their goal was that this watch would not be a smartphone accessory, but a smartwatch first.
Since we’ve not had our hands on one, we cannot confirm or deny this, but early reviews tend to agree. It’s a smooth operator.
Comparisons
(Source: imcowatch.com)
Easy comparisons are the Huawei watch, which is an Android version of nearly identical proportions. These are both large watches.
Neither will look right on a small wrist, but that’s a common problem for today’s smartwatches.
The gold-standard is the series 2 from Apple, but that you’re gonna pay for it, plus it’s worthless to anyone in the Android market.
Even the LG Urbane 2 is more costly, but you get phone-free calling with the Urbane if you want it. Reviews of LG’s entry are not promising.
Not only that, Alexa beats Ok Google (and Siri for that matter) hands down.
(Source: imcowatch.com)
The CoWatch is not really a good option for the fitness minded. Carved from stainless steel and ceramic, strapped to your wrist in leather or steel, it’s more for professionals on the move.
For the professional who wants to look sharp but hasn’t yet hit the big time, it’s a lovely timepiece. They won’t have to slow down to recharging it either. Always on, the CoWatch gives you 32 hours of support.
We’re gonna file this one under one to watch.