And again about smart watches: the battle of concepts and the week of battery life
At one time I bought a Samsung Galaxy Gear smart watch on Android 4.2.2. And purely out of greed - well, I spent about 500 dollars - I wore them for a couple of months, but then these perversions had to be stopped. First, for my hand, this watch is still large. Secondly, notifications, a pedometer and other basic options for such gadgets are, of course, great, but frankly weary of charging the clock once a day. And even more.
Later, in the summer of 2014, Samsung released a new firmware for Galaxy Gear, in which Android was replaced by Tizen. In the end, I made a "double two" and sneaked the clock for another three weeks. I have to admit that it has become better: in a similar mode of operation, the watch “lived” with me for two days. Some progress, of course, is. And yet - horror, horror. I got used to the usual quartz watch, where you need to change the battery every two years. In two years - not in two days. So I had to give up the smart watches. However, I still follow the situation on the market.
And I can say this. Manufacturers feel that the “clock with brains” is a very promising niche. But while she is at the very beginning of her development. And really successful devices can be counted on the fingers. The watches on Android Wear don't impress me personally even once - not only does the concept of this “watch OS”, built around Google Now and voice commands, seem a bit contrived, so the devices themselves turned out to be very strange. I will give this analogy. I remember when it was already clear to everyone that Microsoft is friends with Nokia and eventually it will buy it, HTC released a number of devices on Windows Phone. The apparatuses of the strange, made without a soul ... They were made simply in order to fulfill certain “promises” made at the time by the Redmond corporation. So with the clock on Android Wear the same. LG, Motorola, Samsung - they once “signed up” for participation in this project, however, apparently not being in awe of the concept of Android Wear, they developed products for a tick. The Moto 360 looks pretty in the pictures, but in real life the watches are thick and clumsy. The same applies to the LG G Watch R: in the pictures it is almost Casio G-Shock, and in life it is a handicraft made of inexpensive plastic.
')
Moto 360 Watch
Watch LG G Watch R
A separate question, "WHY?" Deserves the use of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset with a 4-core processor in an Android Wear watch. Why so much happiness for such a small gadget? As a result - the clock on Android Wear works without recharging for about a day ...
Samsung has a slightly different concept, and I like it more. Thanks to Tizen, Korean chronometers last longer (two days). However, everything here negates the lack of universality: as you know, Samsung watches can function only in conjunction with Samsung smartphones and tablets. I recently changed the Samsung Galaxy S5 to Meizu MX4, and what should I do with the Galaxy Gear now? Right, sell. Or put on the shelf.
In short, the most successful version of smart watches, I until recently considered the model Pebble. Successful, but still a compromise. They require recharging on average once a week, and this is a big plus: with such a duration of "life" the device can already be used more or less comfortably. But the poor (in my humble opinion) monochrome interface, displayed on the Sharp Memory LCD screen, of course, distresses. Yes, one problem - the problem of energy consumption - has been solved thanks to the “paper-like” screen. But another one appeared: smart watches do not look high-tech, which is quite important for me personally.
Pebble watch
Here it’s time to close the topic of smart watches again and wait another year or two there until more worthy options appear on the market. But Omate X watches came into my hands (more precisely, on the hand). Looking ahead - they have a color LCD screen and they also work for about a week.
Omate X Watch
At the heart of this watch is the MediaTek Aster platform. What it is? "System on a chip" (SoC) with an area of ​​5.4 x 6 mm for wearable electronics. It is not just small, but the smallest in the world at the moment - if we take into account the solutions for smart watches. Thanks to the above dimensions, Aster allows you to create models that do not differ in size from regular hours. As for the computing power, the developers rightly decided that for such devices the ARM7 processor architecture is enough (up to 260 MHz) —that is, rather old, but still extremely economical by today's standards. The battery capacity is 400 mAh - they really worked for me for 6 and a half days! It is a fact. And I am pleased with this fact. Therefore, I will briefly describe further what this watch can do.
The functional of the model is not overloaded, it’s easy to understand the options and fully use the device, even for dummies. In my case, the first Bluetooth pairing (Bluetooth 4.0) passed without questions, then the connection was established automatically.
Oddly enough, but the Omate X watch ... shows the time. There are several options screensaver - with analog or digital display. Synchronize the date / time over the network or customize it yourself - at the user's choice.
Omate X shows a list of calls, by tapping an item, an attempt to call the subscriber is immediately activated. The phone book, of course, is synchronized, the names written in Cyrillic are shown without coding failures. Again, from here is available the call of the desired person. To quickly search for contacts, open a dialog with a virtual keyboard.
You can accept or reject an incoming call, and the caller's number is displayed. Although smart watches inform not only about calls, but also about SMS. The model has a speaker and a microphone, so if you wish, you can never get a smartphone out of your pocket - the volume is enough to clearly hear the speech. The interlocutor complained about the interference only with a strong wind, in which case I blocked the hull with the palm of my other hand.
Remote control is available for a music player: we start music, we switch between files directly from hours. There is also a remote access to the camera - an interesting feature, but unfortunately, in reality, it is almost useless: try to hold the smartphone with one hand and try to tap the Omate X screen with it.
Additional applications are few, by and large this is just an alarm clock. On YouTube, at one of the exhibitions, the developers talked about the open SDK of the clock, so that in time all sorts of small programs may well appear.
As for the appearance, then I put Omate X strong "top five", just nothing to complain about. Given that for me the appearance is very important when it comes to such a technologically advanced device. The body is made of metal, plastic (frosted) only the plate at the bottom. There are only two physical buttons: return to the screen saver / power supply and “rollback” to the previous dialog box. The second is available directly on the screen, with a swipe (sliding gesture) from the left edge of the display to the right.
The protective “glass” of a curved 1.54-inch screen (its resolution is 240 x 240 pixels) is made of artificial sapphire. I don’t know about the presence of oleophobic coating, but no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t manage to slap the display in such a way as to noticeably reduce the readability of the information. Sensitivity is high, twice I did not repeat the command.
Subjectively, the weight of the watch is around 100 g. As such, the weight on the arm is not felt, and in general there is no discomfort about wearing Omate X. For the model, any 22 mm straps are suitable - one more very competent decision that extremely reduces dependence on accessories of the manufacturer in such an important matter. The strap is by default a leather product made by Italian comrades of the brand Moretti Milano. The quality is felt, and the strap looks very expensive outwardly - to match the metal watch itself.
Using the example of Omate X, I state a reassuring fact: the problem with the autonomy of a smart watch is solved, and quite effectively. Taiwanese MediaTek has shown that it is extremely interested in the development of a segment of wearable electronics and is ready to pay special attention to this issue, and not stupidly to sculpt multi-core processors for marketing races. It should be assumed that in 2015 there will be available a lot of worthy alternatives to the same Omate X, and very inexpensive ones. For comparison, the watch from the review costs $ 129, which is more than two times cheaper than models on Android Wear and most Samsung watches.
Later, in the summer of 2014, Samsung released a new firmware for Galaxy Gear, in which Android was replaced by Tizen. In the end, I made a "double two" and sneaked the clock for another three weeks. I have to admit that it has become better: in a similar mode of operation, the watch “lived” with me for two days. Some progress, of course, is. And yet - horror, horror. I got used to the usual quartz watch, where you need to change the battery every two years. In two years - not in two days. So I had to give up the smart watches. However, I still follow the situation on the market.
And I can say this. Manufacturers feel that the “clock with brains” is a very promising niche. But while she is at the very beginning of her development. And really successful devices can be counted on the fingers. The watches on Android Wear don't impress me personally even once - not only does the concept of this “watch OS”, built around Google Now and voice commands, seem a bit contrived, so the devices themselves turned out to be very strange. I will give this analogy. I remember when it was already clear to everyone that Microsoft is friends with Nokia and eventually it will buy it, HTC released a number of devices on Windows Phone. The apparatuses of the strange, made without a soul ... They were made simply in order to fulfill certain “promises” made at the time by the Redmond corporation. So with the clock on Android Wear the same. LG, Motorola, Samsung - they once “signed up” for participation in this project, however, apparently not being in awe of the concept of Android Wear, they developed products for a tick. The Moto 360 looks pretty in the pictures, but in real life the watches are thick and clumsy. The same applies to the LG G Watch R: in the pictures it is almost Casio G-Shock, and in life it is a handicraft made of inexpensive plastic.
')
Moto 360 Watch
Watch LG G Watch R
A separate question, "WHY?" Deserves the use of a Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 chipset with a 4-core processor in an Android Wear watch. Why so much happiness for such a small gadget? As a result - the clock on Android Wear works without recharging for about a day ...
Samsung has a slightly different concept, and I like it more. Thanks to Tizen, Korean chronometers last longer (two days). However, everything here negates the lack of universality: as you know, Samsung watches can function only in conjunction with Samsung smartphones and tablets. I recently changed the Samsung Galaxy S5 to Meizu MX4, and what should I do with the Galaxy Gear now? Right, sell. Or put on the shelf.
In short, the most successful version of smart watches, I until recently considered the model Pebble. Successful, but still a compromise. They require recharging on average once a week, and this is a big plus: with such a duration of "life" the device can already be used more or less comfortably. But the poor (in my humble opinion) monochrome interface, displayed on the Sharp Memory LCD screen, of course, distresses. Yes, one problem - the problem of energy consumption - has been solved thanks to the “paper-like” screen. But another one appeared: smart watches do not look high-tech, which is quite important for me personally.
Pebble watch
Here it’s time to close the topic of smart watches again and wait another year or two there until more worthy options appear on the market. But Omate X watches came into my hands (more precisely, on the hand). Looking ahead - they have a color LCD screen and they also work for about a week.
Omate X Watch
At the heart of this watch is the MediaTek Aster platform. What it is? "System on a chip" (SoC) with an area of ​​5.4 x 6 mm for wearable electronics. It is not just small, but the smallest in the world at the moment - if we take into account the solutions for smart watches. Thanks to the above dimensions, Aster allows you to create models that do not differ in size from regular hours. As for the computing power, the developers rightly decided that for such devices the ARM7 processor architecture is enough (up to 260 MHz) —that is, rather old, but still extremely economical by today's standards. The battery capacity is 400 mAh - they really worked for me for 6 and a half days! It is a fact. And I am pleased with this fact. Therefore, I will briefly describe further what this watch can do.
The functional of the model is not overloaded, it’s easy to understand the options and fully use the device, even for dummies. In my case, the first Bluetooth pairing (Bluetooth 4.0) passed without questions, then the connection was established automatically.
Oddly enough, but the Omate X watch ... shows the time. There are several options screensaver - with analog or digital display. Synchronize the date / time over the network or customize it yourself - at the user's choice.
Omate X shows a list of calls, by tapping an item, an attempt to call the subscriber is immediately activated. The phone book, of course, is synchronized, the names written in Cyrillic are shown without coding failures. Again, from here is available the call of the desired person. To quickly search for contacts, open a dialog with a virtual keyboard.
You can accept or reject an incoming call, and the caller's number is displayed. Although smart watches inform not only about calls, but also about SMS. The model has a speaker and a microphone, so if you wish, you can never get a smartphone out of your pocket - the volume is enough to clearly hear the speech. The interlocutor complained about the interference only with a strong wind, in which case I blocked the hull with the palm of my other hand.
Remote control is available for a music player: we start music, we switch between files directly from hours. There is also a remote access to the camera - an interesting feature, but unfortunately, in reality, it is almost useless: try to hold the smartphone with one hand and try to tap the Omate X screen with it.
Additional applications are few, by and large this is just an alarm clock. On YouTube, at one of the exhibitions, the developers talked about the open SDK of the clock, so that in time all sorts of small programs may well appear.
As for the appearance, then I put Omate X strong "top five", just nothing to complain about. Given that for me the appearance is very important when it comes to such a technologically advanced device. The body is made of metal, plastic (frosted) only the plate at the bottom. There are only two physical buttons: return to the screen saver / power supply and “rollback” to the previous dialog box. The second is available directly on the screen, with a swipe (sliding gesture) from the left edge of the display to the right.
The protective “glass” of a curved 1.54-inch screen (its resolution is 240 x 240 pixels) is made of artificial sapphire. I don’t know about the presence of oleophobic coating, but no matter how hard I tried, I didn’t manage to slap the display in such a way as to noticeably reduce the readability of the information. Sensitivity is high, twice I did not repeat the command.
Subjectively, the weight of the watch is around 100 g. As such, the weight on the arm is not felt, and in general there is no discomfort about wearing Omate X. For the model, any 22 mm straps are suitable - one more very competent decision that extremely reduces dependence on accessories of the manufacturer in such an important matter. The strap is by default a leather product made by Italian comrades of the brand Moretti Milano. The quality is felt, and the strap looks very expensive outwardly - to match the metal watch itself.
Using the example of Omate X, I state a reassuring fact: the problem with the autonomy of a smart watch is solved, and quite effectively. Taiwanese MediaTek has shown that it is extremely interested in the development of a segment of wearable electronics and is ready to pay special attention to this issue, and not stupidly to sculpt multi-core processors for marketing races. It should be assumed that in 2015 there will be available a lot of worthy alternatives to the same Omate X, and very inexpensive ones. For comparison, the watch from the review costs $ 129, which is more than two times cheaper than models on Android Wear and most Samsung watches.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/363845/
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