And again about smart watches: the battle of concepts and a week of battery life

At one time I bought a smart watches Samsung Galaxy Gear on Android 4.2.2. And purely out of greed - as well as, spent about $ 500 - wore them a couple of months, but then these distortions experiments had to be stopped. Firstly, for my hand this watch still krupnovat. Second, notice, pedometer and other basic options for such gadgets - it is certainly nice, but frankly tired of charging hours every day. And even more often.





Later, in the summer of 2014, Samsung released the Galaxy Gear for the new firmware, which gave way to the Android Tizen. In the end, I did "take two" sweeps and watch another three weeks. I must admit that was better: in a similar mode of operation hours "lived" I had two days. Some progress, of course. And yet - the horror, the horror. I got used to the usual quartz watch where you need to change the battery every two years. In two years - instead of two days. So from smart hours I had to give. However, the situation on the market I still watch.

And I can say this. Manufacturers feel that "the clock with brains" - a very promising niche. But while it's in its infancy. And really successful device can be counted on the fingers. The clock on the Android Wear personally do not impress me even once - not only that the concept of this "hour OS" built around Google Now and voice commands seem a little far-fetched, so still and the devices themselves have turned out very strange. Here is an analogy. I remember when everyone was already clear that Microsoft is friends with Nokia and eventually buy it, HTC has released a number of devices on the Windows Phone. Of strange devices made without a soul ... make them just to fulfill some "promises", given at the time Redmond corporation. So with the clock on the Android Wear the same. LG, Motorola, Samsung - they are at the time "subscribe" to participate in this project, however, is apparently not being enthusiastic about the concept of Android Wear, developed products for show. Moto 360 in the picture looks nice, but in the real world clock thick and clumsy. The same applies to LG G Watch R: the picture is almost the Casio G-Shock, but in life - hack of cheap plastic.



Hours Moto 360



Hours LG G Watch R

A separate question, "Why?" Deserves the use of hours on Android Wear chipset Qualcomm Snapdragon 200 with a 4-core processor. Why so much happiness this little gadget? As a result - the clock on the Android Wear operate without recharging for about a day ...

A somewhat different concept of the watch Samsung, and I like it more. Through the use of Tizen Korean chronometers work longer hours (two days). However, there is still negates lack of universality: as you know, the clock can operate Samsung only in conjunction with smartphones and tablets Samsung. I just recently replaced the Samsung Galaxy S5 on Meizu MX4, and what do I do now with the Galaxy Gear? That's right, sell it. Or put on the shelf.

In short, the most successful variant of smart hours, until recently, I thought the model Pebble. The best, but still a compromise. They require charging on average once a week, and it's a big plus: with a duration of "life" of the device can already be more or less comfortable to use. But the poor (in my humble opinion) monochrome interface, which is displayed on the screen Sharp Memory LCD, of course, sad. Yes, one problem - the problem of energy consumption - thanks to the "paper-like" screen resolved. But there was another: smart watches do not look high-tech, which for me is quite important.



Hours Pebble

Here again it's time to close the topic of smart watch and wait another year or two there, until the market can be more decent options. But my hands (or rather, on the hand) came hours Omate X. Looking ahead - they have a color LCD screen and they are working about a week.



Hours Omate X

At the heart of this watch - the platform MediaTek Aster. What is it? "System on chip» (SoC) with an area of ​​5 x 4 6 mm for wearable electronics. It is not just a little, and the smallest in the world at the moment - if we take into account is the smart solution for hours. Due to the dimensions given above Aster allows you to create models that do not vary in size from normal hours. With regard to computing "power", the developers rightly decided that for such devices is quite enough processor architecture ARM7 (frequency - 260 MHz) - that is quite old, but it is extremely economical by today's standards. Battery capacity is 400 mAh - they really worked for me six and a half days! This is a fact. And this fact, I am satisfied. Therefore, further, I will briefly tell you what these are able to watch.



The functional model is not overloaded with options to understand and fully utilize the device should not be difficult even for "Dummies." In my case, the first Bluetooth-pairing (Bluetooth 4.0) passed with no issues, then the connection is established automatically.



Oddly enough, but the clock Omate X ... show time. There are several options savers - with analog or digital display. Synchronize the date / time on the network or to customize your own - on the user's choice.





Omate X show call list, touch the item immediately activated attempt to call the subscriber. Telephone book, of course, synchronized Cyrillic names shown without interruption encoding. Again, here is available to call the desired person. For a quick search for contacts, open dialogue with the virtual keyboard.





An incoming call can accept or reject, in this case displayed phone number. Although smart watches are informed not only about the calls, but also about SMS. In the model, there is a speaker and a microphone, so if you want a smartphone, you can never get out of your pocket - volume enough to hear speech clearly. The interviewee complained about the noise only when the wind is strong, in that case, I screened the body palm of the other hand.



Remote control is available for the music player: launch the music, moving between files directly from the clock. Also have remote access to the camera - an interesting feature, but unfortunately, the reality is almost useless: try one hand to hold the smartphone and it is trying to tap the screen Omate X.

Additional applications slightly, by and large it's just an alarm clock. In YouTube on one of the exhibitions developers talk about the opening hours of SDK, so that over time may well come all sorts of small programs.



As for appearance, then I put Omate X strong "five", just do not find fault with what. Given that my appearance is very important when it comes to such a tech devices. The housing is made of metal, plastic (matte), only the bottom plate. Only two physical buttons: Returns to the screen saver / power and "rolled back" to the previous dialog box. The second is available directly on the screen, swipe (slide gesture) from the left edge of the display to the right.





Protective "glass" bent 1, 54-inch screen (its resolution is 240 x 240 pixels) made of synthetic sapphire. The presence oleophobic coating, I do not know, but no matter how I tried - I could not slap the display so that significantly reduce the readability of the information. High sensitivity, double-team, I did not repeat.



Subjectively hours weight is around 100 g As such, the weight of the arm does not feel, and overall discomfort of wearing Omate X no. For the model fit any 22mm straps - one more very educated decision, ultimately reducing dependence on accessories manufacturer in such an important issue. Strap default - Leather Goods authored by Italian comrades brand Moretti Milano. Quality feel, and superficially strap looks expensive - to match the metal by the hour.





On the example of Omate X stating reassuring fact: the problem is solved hours autonomous intelligent, and quite effectively. Taiwan's MediaTek showed that extremely interested in the development of wearable electronics segment and is ready to pay special attention to this issue and not stupidly sculpt multicore processors for marketing races. It is necessary to believe that in 2015 will be available many worthy alternatives of the same Omate X, moreover very inexpensive. For comparison - watch from the review are $ 129, which is two and a half times cheaper models on the Android Wear and most hours of Samsung.

Source: geektimes.ru/company/mediatek/blog/242384/