As technology advances, everything around us is becoming “smart” – smartphones, smart homes and smart cars are embracing technology to become parts of our daily lives. Smart watches are also taking advantage of technology innovations, hoping to become mainstream among consumers.
The idea of operating Apple (News - Alert) devices from your wrist is not a new one. Apple and iWatchz previously partnered up to replace your watch with an iPod with the iPod nano 6th generation. The Pebble is another example -- a customizable watch that allows users to download new watchfaces, use sports and fitness apps and get notifications from your phone. Pebble connects to iPhone and Android (News - Alert) smartphones using Bluetooth, alerting you with a silent vibration to incoming calls, e-mails and messages.
Cyclists can use Pebble as a bike computer, accessing the GPS on your smartphone to display speed, distance and pace data. Runners get a similar set of data displayed on their wrist. Use the music control app to play, pause or skip tracks on your phone with the touch of a button. If you're a golfer, feel free to bring Pebble onto the course. Developers were working with Freecaddie to create a great golf rangefinder app for Pebble that works on over 25,000 courses worldwide.
Now, Casio (News - Alert) is joining the Apple/watch game with its Casio G-Shock GB6900. The $180 smart watch features Bluetooth 4.0 and syncs with your iPhone 4S or iPhone 5 to provide alerts for inbound e-mails and phone calls, and helps you find misplaced devices by activating their ring and vibrate functions.
The G-Shock Bluetooth Low Energy Smart Watch also includes notifications for basic things like calendar alerts, weather and stock. You can silence all of these vibrating notifications by simply double-tapping the watch's screen. The battery life could last for two years if the Bluetooth function is used 12 hours per day.
Image via G-Shock
“Casio’s strategy of introducing a few logical features and seeing how things go, without sacrificing the things that make watches useful to begin with (i.e., a battery that doesn’t need charging every few days), seems like the way to go for now,” said Darrel Etherington, TechCrunch.
Casio’s Bluetooth G-Shock comes in black, gray blue, brown and white, offers 200M water resistance and shock protection, and has a number of other standard watch features including alarms, stopwatch, a countdown timer and more.
The watch comes right in time for the holidays. Still deciding on what gifts to give this year? Perfect tech gifts for parents for under $50 include gifts for hands-on parents and app-loving parents. The Casio watch could be a perfect addition to someone’s iPhone (News - Alert). Sales for the iPhone 5 reached more than two million just on the first day of pre-orders. With so many iPhone owners out there, they might need a watch to go along with it.