The Mobile World Congress, an annual event and trade show spotlighting products from more than 250 companies, wrapped up yesterday in Barcelona, Spain. And the event played host to a handful of unveilings in the wearables category.
The Victorinox I.N.O.X. Cybertool
(Photo courtesy of Wareable/Sophie Charara)
This new smartwatch, a new collaboration from Acer and Victorinox, is actually a two-in-one. It’s an analog Victorinox watch with an I.N.O.X. digital bezel over the top. They come apart—which is really cool. But Sophie Charara at Wareable says there’s not much to love: “The plastic, Gorilla Glass coated I.N.O.X. Cybertool adds a non-touch display, alerts, activity tracking, and phone finding features to existing I.N.O.X. watches. It comes in blue or black and costs a considerable $225. It also pretty much destroys any semblance of style.” Ouch.
(Photo courtesy of Haier)
The new watch from Haier—a company most famous for making refrigerators—was designed to run independently of a smartphone. And it’s quite fetching in that low-key, Apple Watch way (it comes in gold, silver, and black—with leather, steel, and silicone bands). Functions include the ability to send and receive phone calls, text messages, and emails, and access calendar and app notifications.
(Photo courtesy of Garmin)
Garmin—which makes the manliest smartwatches around—has gone girly with its latest activity tracker, the Vivofit 3, which debuted at the trade show. “It’s got all the usual activity and sleep tracking features, plus it’ll now automatically track a series of different activities,” writes Michael Sawh at Wareable. “There’s year-long battery life as well and you still get the useful Move inactivity bar to keep you out of your office chair. But it’s all about the design here. Just as Misfit and Fitbit have tried to give their trackers a fashionable makeover this year, Garmin is trying to do the same.” And for just less than $100.
(Photo courtesy of ZTE)
It looks like an Android Wear watch—but the new Chinese-made ZTE Axon Watch runs on a proprietary Tencent TOS+ operating system, so it’s made (for now) solely for the Chinese market. Reviews coming off the trade show floor were largely positive: “A pleasant surprise,” wrote CNET.
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