Smartwatch Misfit Shine 2 review:

Clean-looking, well-designed app: works with iOS and Android phones; improved Bluetooth syncing; waterproof for swimming or showering; internal battery lasts six months and can be replaced; automatically tracks sleep and adds vibrations for silent alarms including basic buzzing for notifications.

The included strap and clip are terrible: They don't securely hold the Shine 2, nearly guaranteeing it'll be lost sooner or later. No heart rate tracking; LED lights show daily progress and the time, but can't show other data.

Blocks smartwatch Review

If you've ever fancied creating your own smartwatch, with features tailored exactly to your needs, then Blocks might be right up your street. It's a smartwatch, powered by a version of Android, that has a strap made up of interchangeable sections, like links in a normal watch strap. Each section contains different technology to perform a specific function.

The watch face itself connects to your smartwatch to deliver notifications, but the strap modules will allow you to add on extra functions such as GPS, NFC for contactless payments, or even extra batteries.

Rufus Cuff is like a tablet on your wrist

The $279-pledge-price Rufus is big. It has a 3-inch wide touchscreen. It's not far off from what you would get if you just taped your smartphone to your wrist. It is designed with a band that lets you wear it either out on top of your wrist, or rotated under your wrist to make it a little more subtle. But people are going to notice, so be prepared for comments if you buy one.

Rufus Cuff works with both Android and iOS phones, which is nice. I tried to immerse myself in the specs, but I kept getting distracted by the aesthetics. It looks like a connected mini-tablet you just happen to wear on your wrist. It has a built-in mic and speaker. It even has a camera and Web browser. Apps are no problem, since it runs a full Android operating system. At some point, you might wonder why you would even bother to carry a separate smartphone, but you'll still need your phone to handle actual calls.

Samsung's Gear S2 smartwatches will have 2-3 day battery life

Last month, Samsung teased a brief glimpse of its next smartwatch, promising more information at the IFA electronics trade show in Berlin, Germany on September 3.  Now, the Korean giant is jumping the gun and offering a few more details about the new Gear S2.

We already knew that the Gear S2 featured a round watch face with a rotating selection dial and was powered by the Tizen operating system, Samsung's home-grown software that's separate and distinct from Google's Android Wear smartwatch platform. But now it turns out that the Gear S2 won't be one watch, but three -- each of which has slightly different features and designs.

Braille Smartwatch Dot Allows The Blind To Read Texts And E-Books

People with visual impairments can use mobile features like Siri to speak their commands, and they can utilize the text-to-speech functionality to send messages — but touch screens on smartphones and watches do not cater to this demographic.

That is, until now. A South Korean start-up has developed Dot, the first affordable Braille smartwatch that allows the blind to read their texts and even e-books.

 The World Health Organization estimates that there are 285 million people with severe visual impairment around the world, of whom 39 million are completely blind. Among them, literacy is a serious issue because access to Braille education and materials is limited. Even for the literate blind, reading is laborious – one Braille Bible comes in 40 volumes, for example – and remains largely limited to the printed word. Active Braille technology, which displays changing Braille text in real-time, typically cost up of US$3,000 and haven’t changed over the past decade.

Apple Watch will be available at Best Buy Stores next month

Outside of Apple itself, Best Buy will be the first major US retail chain to sell the watch as Apple tries to expand its availability.

The Apple Watch will soon be available at Best Buy both online and in retail stores, the electronics chain announced via a press release issued on Sunday.

Huawei announces a budget smartwatch

Android smartwatch fanatics over is the announcement of the Huawei Honor Band Zero last week. So far only renderings are available, which show a design that Huawei itself calls “minimalistic” and Scandinavian-inspired.

Judging by the circular face of the device, its likely that the smartwatch will tell time and track some range of basic activities. Remember, though, that Honor is Huawei’s budget-conscious line of products, so the watch can only get so many and still remain affordable.

Even so, with basic water resistance, a light sensor, activity tracking capabilities, and a sleek design, the Band Zero looks like a low-end option to look forward to.  

Withings Activite Pop review:

The Activite Pop has great battery life, is water-resistant for showering or swimming, syncs with iOS and Android, tracks steps and sleep automatically, is affordable and is easy to use and wear but it can't store data beyond a day and a half without syncing; setting watch requires using app; no heart-rate tracking; analog watch face shows daily goal progress but no other stats.

With its analog looks and Bluetooth-syncing functions, the Withings Activite Pop is a clever, stylish blend of everyday watch and connected fitness band that lasts months on a single battery. Sometimes you just want a watch to be a watch.

Epson Runsense SF-810 review:

Accurate heart-rate and GPS tracking on runs. Long battery life. An easy-to-read display that offers up a lot of data. Can be worn in the shower and pool, but no all-day activity tracking. Workout data isn't synced automatically. Mobile app is slow. GPS signal acquisition slow and inconsistent.

Long-distance elite athletes will appreciate the accuracy of the GPS and heart-rate, but the high price tag makes it less appealing for everyday runners.As he approached the final stretch in the Boston Marathon, Olympic silver medalist and last year's champion, Meb Keflezighi, looked down at his wrist and with a quick glance was able see his pace, distance and time.

Reserve Strap to Offer 30 Hours of Extra Apple Watch Battery Life, Launching in November

Reserve Strap this week released the official design specifications of its battery-charging Apple Watch band accessory, confirming a shipping date for the $249.99 strap to be November 3, 2015. Since its debut in early March, the Reserve Strap has gone through two design iterations, with developers Lane Musgrave and John Arrow attempting to get the look - and functionality - just right.

The strap's finalized design comes in with a width of 25mm, a thickness of 3-9mm, and a total weight of 65g. The designers have also ditched the rubber and metallic combination design of the Reserve Strap's second iteration with a uniform Thermoset Elastomer Silicone band that's "as resistant to water as Apple Watch." Coming in both 38mm and 42mm casing sizes, the Reserve Strap promises to fit wrists ranging in size from 130mm to 210mm.

The design wasn't the only aspect of the strap to be overhauled, however, with the strap's developers noting a 167 percent increase in battery life, compared to the original design's125 percent boost.

​Basis Peak updated version coming soon

You can now sync data with Google Fit and Apple Health. The added integration comes via an update to the Peak mobile app. Additionally, a new feature called Basis Peak Playground is launching alongside the app update and allows users to get an early look at experimental features and provide feedback.

The Basis Peak, which is owned by Intel, also announced Tuesday that a firmware update to the Peak will soon add a stopwatch feature and deliver improved heart-rate tracking to the activity tracker. Improvements to heart-rate detection will reportedly improve monitoring in both normal and active usage situations, such as when walking, running or biking. The firmware update is slated to arrive on May 20.

The Duo Smartwatch is also a traditional watch at same time

I love my Apple Watch. Even more so than I expected leading up to the device’s launch. But despite wearing it everyday since I received it in early May, I’m already starting to feel like I’m neglecting my mechanical/traditional watches that I bought to enjoy wearing and much prefer from a design/fashion standpoint, but now sit on a shelf each day I opt for my more feature-filled Apple Watch. After a few weeks, however, and with the novelty of the Apple Watch almost gone, It’s getting harder to keep ignoring my other watches, and that’s the reason Original Grain’s new DUO product is something I wanted to get my hands on.

Pick your own features on the first modular smartwatch from Blocks

Considering the myriad of options currently on the market, it would take the development of a very special type of smartwatch to allow a fledgling company to succeed. That is precisely what UK-based startup Blocks Wearables hopes to do with the creation of the world’s first modular smartwatch.

Just as its name suggests, users choose what features they wish their watch to have by way of sensor modules built into individual links. If you decide you want more features later on, the website makes it easy to buy add-ons of your choosing; from heart monitor to gesture control, you may build the watch you want with only the functions you need.

Third-Party Apple Watch Apps Can Track Workouts

There is a good news for apps developers, now they are able to create native Watch apps that track a wearer’s activity, and can report back to Health with information about the workout, as well as remain active throughout the workout session just like Apple’s own native Workout app.

Watch apps also have access to the same existing iOS HealthKit APIs that they do on iPhone and iPad. Data saved to Watch apps will also automatically sync back to the paired companion device it works with, and workouts done on the watch will show up in your daily roundup in the iOS Activity app.

Apple Watch Updates

The Apple Watch is a beautifully constructed, compact smartwatch. It's feature-packed, with solid fitness software, hundreds of apps, and the ability to send and receive calls via an iPhone. But the Battery barely lasts a day and recharge time is slow; most models and configurations cost more than they should; requires an iPhone 5 or later to work; interface can be confusing; sometimes slow to communicate with a paired iPhone.

The Apple Watch is the most ambitious, well-constructed smartwatch ever seen, but first-gen shortfalls make it feel more like a fashionable toy than a necessary tool.

The Apple Watch is a brand-new Apple product, the first from-the-ground-up product line since the iPad and since Tim Cook took the helm. This watch is, in a way, a new type of wrist-worn super-iPod. It's also a symbiotic iPhone companion. And, it's a fitness device.

 

It also embarks onto a churning sea of smartwatch launches -- many manufacturers have set sail with ambitious wearables; very few are bonafide successes. Most people aren't even sure they need one.The Apple Watch comes in three different models, two different sizes, and six different finishes, with a range of swappable bands and prices ranging from $349, £299 or AU$499 all the way up to $17,000, £13,500 or AU$24,000. It's designed to be Apple's most personal product: fashion as much as it is tech.

Apple's products have been fashionable for years, but now Apple wants these watches to transcend into jewelry. Smartwatches may one day be the future of phones, or a seamless extension of both them and your home, or any number of connected devices. Right now, they function as phone accessories. And that's where the Apple Watch lands. Apple designed the watch to help us look at our phones less. I'd call it more of a smaller screen in Apple's spectrum of differently sized screens. I used it instead of my phone, sometimes. Then, I'd go back to my phone. Has it changed my behavior? It's too early to tell yet, but it might.

 I've been using the Apple Watch for a week. I've worn it on my wrist every day, doing everything possible that I could think of. I've tracked walks and measured my heart rate, paid for lunch, listened to albums while exploring parks without my phone, chatted with family, kept up on email, looked for Uber cars, kept up on news, navigated on long car trips for Passover, controlled my Apple TV with it and followed baseball games while I was supposed to be watching my 2-year-old.

 

The watch is beautiful and promising -- the most ambitious wearable that exists. But in an attempt to do everything in the first generation, the Apple Watch still leaves plenty to be desired. Short battery life compared with other watches and higher prices are the biggest flags for now. But Apple is just setting sail, and it has a long journey ahead.the Apple Watch isn't a standalone device -- it's a phone accessory. Android Wear, Samsung Gear, Pebble and others work the same way. But here, you must own an iPhone 5 or later to use the Watch.

A few Apple Watch functions work away from the phone, but the watch primarily works along the phone as an extension, a second screen and basically another part of your iOS experience. It's a symbiote. Communication, fitness, information, time: these are the core Apple Watch functions, but the Watch is incredibly ambitious, packed with many, many features and apps. In scope, it reminds me of Samsung's ambitious Gear smartwatches, but more fully realized.

Apple Watch receives messages from friends, send texts and lets you dictate messages, make speakerphone calls, ping people with animated emoji, give love taps long-distance or send your heartbeat as a sort of long-distance hug. It tracks your steps, logs runs and monitors your heart rate. And yes, you can use Apple Watch to listen to music via wireless Bluetooth headphones. You can play songs like an iPod, get notifications and run apps like a mini iPhone and make payments with Apple Pay. And it has a totally new force-sensitive display that's never been seen before.

Design

Apple wants you to think of the Apple Watch as fine jewelry. Maybe that's a stretch, but in terms of craftsmanship, there isn't a more elegantly made piece of wearable tech. Look at the Apple Watch from a distance, and it might appear unremarkable in its rectangular simplicity compared with bolder, circular Android Wear watches. It's clearly a revamped sort of iPod Nano. But get closer, and you can see the seamless, excellent construction. I reviewed the stainless-steel Apple Watch, with a steel link band -- a $1,000 configuration. I also wore it with two different Sport Bands, one white and one blue.

The Apple Watch feels a bit chunky compared to Apple's stable of super-slim gadgets, but it doesn't look big on the wrist. The larger 42mm version has length, width and thickness similar to the Pebble Steel, one of the smaller smartwatches available. The 38mm version is even smaller. The 42mm version I reviewed felt great on my wrist and didn't feel uncomfortable at all.

Apple Watch's curved-rectangle form will polarize: some will find it looks great, others will see it like some sort of space-age iPod. Others will be annoyed it's not circular, or isn't thinner. Some won't like the curved glass (or sapphire crystal) that covers the edges and makes it seem like scratch magnet. Mine hasn't scuffed yet, but I'm trying the higher-end steel-and-sapphire version, not the aluminum-and-glass Sport.

 

The Digital Crown, Apple's specialized way of interfacing with the watch, sits off to the side, looking just like the part of the watch that used to wind older watches. But in this case, the crown is a mini scroll wheel. You can click it or turn it, and it moves smoothly and beautifully. A second button below brings up favorite contacts, or triggers Apple Pay with a double-click. All Apple Watches have a new S1 processor made by Apple, that "Taptic" haptic engine and a force-sensitive and very bright OLED display, which is differently sized on the 38mm and 42mm models.

The watch has its own accelerometer, geometer and heart-rate monitor, but no onboard GPS. It uses Bluetooth 4.0 and 802.11b/g/n 2.4GHz Wi-Fi to connect to your phone or your home network. There's a built-in speaker and microphone, but no headphone jack.The old iPod Nano had a grid of apps to swipe through, like an iPhone. Samsung's Gear watches use a similar approach. Google's Android Wear uses a blank slate at first, pushing notification cards while hiding its apps behind a scrolling menu.

The Apple Watch has its main watch faces, but also two levels of apps: Glances, which are a lot like the quick-glance app summaries in iOS 8's pull-down "Today" menu (or the occasional cards that appear in Android Wear), and full-fledged apps. You swipe up for Glances, down for on-watch notifications like texts or Twitter/Facebook alerts and click the Digital Crown button in to get to that "home screen" grid of glowing circular apps you've seen in all the ads.Apple has spent a lot of time making its collection of watch faces great, and the effort shows: these are a beautiful bunch. 

The old iPod Nano had fun watch faces, but many of Apple's are actually clever and useful: a chronometer becomes a customizable stopwatch; a solar cycle face shows actual sunset and sunrise times, presenting changing arcs depending on the season; a jaw-dropping planetary face shows the Earth and Moon, but properly lit to reflect day, night, and lunar cycles. You can see all the planets in their current alignment, or spin the crown and see their positions change by date. There's also Mickey Mouse.

The watch faces are customizable, to a point: numbers can be added, colors changed and many "complications" (a watch industry term for extra information on a watch) altered. You can see battery life, calendar appointments, daily fitness and more at a glance. Tap, and those zones open the full app. It's a great idea for a launchpad, but Apple's clock collection won't currently allow third-party extensions or watch faces to join in the fun. That will probably change down the road, but for now it limits the possibilities. It's also odd how many of the 10 watch faces opt for round analog designs even though the watch is rectangular. I would have preferred more digital-style options like those on the Pebble Steel.

 

Sometimes the feelings are too subtle: I don't know if I felt them or imagined them. My wrists might be numbed from too many smart devices. I set my alerts to "prominent" and got sharper nudges on my wrist. Notifications do feel distinct from each other thanks to those haptics, but associating the feelings and sounds with what they are takes getting used to. The range of feelings the Apple Watch can pull off is greater than other smartwatches, and the accompanying sounds also help give the nudges extra dimension (you can silence those sounds, too, but I kept them on). 

One great thing about the Apple Watch's notifications is that you can individually manage them, like on the iPhone. You can also set them differently than the iPhone, depending on what you need. I haven't even begun to dig deep into customizing mine, but Apple offers a lot of ways to tweak your settings.It turns out that Siri, a feature I barely use on my phone, is noticeably useful on Apple Watch. Like Google Now on Android Wear, it's a catch-all way to speak and do things in ways that can cut through the menus and swipes.

Opening apps, sending messages, getting directions or finding out the core temperature of the Earth to settle a debate with your 6-year-old while on a drive. You can reach Siri by pressing and holding the crown button, or by raising your wrist and saying, "Hey, Siri." Voice recognition was excellent, surprisingly quick and more useful than you'd expect.

I didn't even use Siri for the first few days, but then I realized how useful it was. Just like on the iPhone, it can also bring up things like movie times and sports schedules with graphics and tables, too. The small display can sometimes induce squinting, though. Apple has offered a strange spectrum of ways to communicate: a clever friend wheel, which pops up when you click the flat button on the Apple Watch's side, stores favorites.

You can dial-up someone, literally, and then text, call via speakerphone or headphones, and send a variety of "digital touch" messages if that person also has an Apple Watch. Those digital touches feel mostly like flirting: quick sketches in glowing light, taps the other person can feel, or sending your heartbeat via thumping haptic vibrations by holding two fingers down. I tested these with a willing Apple employee on the other side, and my wife kept wondering why I was getting smiley faces and throbbing heartbeats in the middle of the day. They might be cute for new couples who like buying Apple products together.

Apple Watch's calling and speakerphone elements are like what Samsung's Gear watches have offered: the watch connects with your phone remotely. Apple's microphone is excellent: people I called had no problem hearing me and didn't even know I wasn't on my phone, even with the watch down at chest level. But I found that I had to lift the watch up to my face, mainly so I could hear them.

It wasn't always easy: the speaker's volume is on the low-end and a little tinny. You can use Bluetooth headphones, but oddly, you can't use the Apple Watch as a remote to place calls while your phone is in your pocket and your wired headphones are on. Sending messages via the Apple Watch can be accomplished by dictating texts, much like sending a message via Google's Android Wear, or by sending actual recorded audio messages (as you can do on iPhones with iOS 8). Both come in handy, and audio messages help when transcriptions fail.

There are no onscreen keyboards, but Apple supplies canned responses you can pick and customize, like "be home soon." Apple's own set of animated emoji are weird and cute: massive smiley faces that melt into hearts, tears, tongues or any in-between combination. (My wife called them "fun but creepy!") Or, you can pick hearts or hand gestures. No omelette, airplanes, silverware or pets yet, alas: a full emoji assortment seems called for. (The first software update for the Apple Watch adds support for hundreds of new Emojis).

Apps

The iPhone and iPad have, collectively, one of the most amazing app collections ever created. Games, productivity, entertainment; it's fantastic. On the Apple Watch, for now, you'd better curb your expectations: many of the current apps feel like shaved-down "lite" versions of the larger apps, at best. But for a smartwatch, this is already a very promising assortment of software. Of course, the original iPhone never had apps right out of the gate.

The Apple Watch's early apps feel like those apps from the first days of the iPhone: simple menus, basic functions, common interfaces. Most apps aim for bare-bones utility. Apple has suggested that Watch apps aim for no more than 5-10 seconds of interactivity at a time. That shows in the design of many apps. Of the 33 or so I've seen so far, the ones I've liked the most have been Twitter, Evernote, The New York Times, CNN and TripAdvisor.

But none of apps feels as elegant as Apple's own onboard software. Currently, all third-party Apple apps work by cross-loading an extension onto the watch while an app also lives on the iPhone, a bit like Google's Android Wear apps. As a result, these apps work more like remote phone apps -- they tend to load slowly and seem to stream data into the watch. (Apple's says its first software update for the Watch will improve the performance of third-party apps.)

   

No third-party apps work when the watch is disconnected from your iPhone...yet. Down the road, Apple is planning for native third-party apps that will even work offline, but that capability isn't here yet. When will it get here? That's not really known yet. Built-in Apple apps, on the other hand, work far more smoothly.

Maps allows for quick navigation and turn-by-turn directions that work well in tandem with the iPhone while paired to my car's Bluetooth audio: when driving, my wrist tapped and pinged to indicate left and right turns in advance of exit announcements, and quick glances always showed me the next turn, plus how far away it was. When walking, however, GPS on my phone didn't always place me correctly.

I liked Apple's fitness apps, the nicely designed stopwatch and timer apps and Passbook, which usefully shows QR codes at a tap and brightens the display for easier reading. Uber is one of the more ambitious apps, showing an available car and map and offering one-button calling, but the iPhone app offers a better view of other cars in the area and ride estimates.

You Can Control Your Smart Watch without touching it by Aria

The Aria is an add-on band that solves this occasional frustration by measuring movement in the wrist to control smartwatches with finger gestures.

Compatible with Android Wear and the Pebble Time, their module slots in to an existing band and lets you move through a watch’s interface without tapping the screen or using controls on the side of the watch face. In the next few weeks, the team behind Aria is putting up two versions of its band on Kickstarter.

The cheaper unit will be purpose-built for the Pebble Time. For $69, it will connect directly to the watch, cutting out the need for an independent battery or constant Bluetooth communication when in use. The other option will be aimed at developers, coming in at a more premium $169 price point. It’ll be a standalone unit with its own battery, and will slot on to any watch band.

Deus Ex Technology (the startup behind Aria) founder Alfredo Belfiori says the draw for this model will be the SDK, which will let owners use the module with most Android Wear watches as well as integrate gesture controls into apps.

While it’s unlikely that Aria will directly control the Apple Watch any time soon, the SDK is also compatible with iOS applications, so you could wear the band on your Apple Watch and use gestures to do things like change palettes in a drawing app on your iPhone or take a photo with a connected GoPro.

The new Samsung smartwatch will ZOOM by twisting

Samsung Electronics Co., South Korea's No. 1 tech giant, uploaded a poster of a seemingly round watch screen on its website on Friday implying that its next smartwatch's shape will be circular. The poster, which reads "Get Ready For The Next Gear," shows what appears to be a round smartwatch, which would be Samsung's first wearable device of its kind. The next Samsung Gear smartwatch will have a 1.18inch round face with a spinning bezel, it has been revealed. Users will have to twist the bezel to scroll through a list, or spin it to zoom in and out of an image. Turning the bezel around the display clockwise will scroll down a menu, or list.

Sports Smart Watch Garmin Vivoactive review

The Vivoactive has an ultra slim design, good battery life and an always-on color display that shines in outdoor performance. It has vibration and notification alerts from your smartphone, activity tracking with auto-adjusting goals, multi-sports tracking through GPS, and can be worn in the shower and the pool.

The Garmin Vivoactive could be the first sports lover's smartwatch.  Traditional fitness trackers are terrible for actual sport, and offer such base level insights that they're almost useless for people who take their fitness seriously.

If you like to get active, a GPS running watch was the best fit for runners and cyclists – but most are expensive and only useful when you're pounding the pavements. And what about people who like more than one sport?

Asus is going to launch ZenWatch 2 for Male and female versions in 2016

Some internet gurus revealed that Android Wear sequel - the Asus ZenWatch 2 - will be available around 2016 to get one on our wrists.  According to CEO Jerry Shen who was speaking to a renown TV Channel, is that there will be two versions of the ZenWatch 2 - one for men and one for women.

We don't know any details at this stage as to whether this will mean different sizes or styling but it's a smart move. Earlier this year we learned that the Asus ZenWatch 2 will boast a seven day battery life. Talking to reporters in Taiwan, the company's chairman Jonney Shih said, "The ZenWatch is defined by us as a companion of a smartphone, and we think it still has a lot of room for improvement.

 "As a companion device, its central processing unit and operating system should be more simplified than the current version, so that I can use it for up to seven days on one charge, rather than for just two days."

  

The Asus ZenWatch 2 looks like going head-to-head with the Samsung Gear S, with Shen stating, back in December, that a standalone smartwatch would arrive in Q3 2015 alongside two other new Asus wearables. It's believed that the ZenWatch 2 will offer independent voice-calling and communication features much like the Gear S, which has its own SIM-card slot.

The Asus VivoWatch has since been revealed but it looks as if the 2015 date for the next ZenWatch may have slipped. The original ZenWatch is available now and is a lovely looking device with a unique and attractive design. Its launch was a bit of a mess with a series of misinformation being released by Asus, so we're hoping for a smoother outing for the sequel.

Aplus SmartWatch Full Review

Aplus Smartwatch, a Chinese watch with the same features. As a watch that we have in the market but with a lower price. If you see the image of this Smartwatch and know some of the existing devices on the market, you will find many similarities with some Samsung watch, already takes several months for sale.

For the most clueless you indicate that this Chinese watch, is very much like Gear 2. We are not the most appropriate to say whether this make cloning is good or bad, or if Aplus is inflicting patent rules, we can only give you the information you find to buy this Smartwatch.