MEXICO CITY—Some two years after Huawei shipped one of many weirder gadget-fusion ideas we’ve seen—a smartwatch that carries and costs its personal wi-fi earbuds in an inside compartment—a Reebok-branded smartwatch on show right here on the Electronics Residence Mexico expo affords the identical concept at a a lot cheaper price.
Whereas Huawei’s Watch Buds, which shipped within the spring of 2023, stow their earbuds underneath a watch display that pops up, the Reebok Watch EB tucks them into particular person compartments on one facet. Seeing this mixture gadget right here, I had to have a look.
The rapid attraction for native customers: the worth tag. The Huawei smartwatch retails for 9,999 pesos on Amazon’s web site right here (about $525); the Reebok timepiece is 1,976 pesos ($104).
And in contrast to Huawei, which has been underneath a years-long industrial ban by the US authorities, the Reebok distributed by an area agency, Life Works, might theoretically make it to the US.
“I am working to have it within the US,” product supervisor Julio Faz mentioned in a show-floor dialog, including that this might require Reebok’s US division to log out on a co-branding deal. He quoted a good cheaper price, 1,099 pesos, however couldn’t clarify why Amazon would cost nearly twice as a lot. The watch, manufactured in China, went on sale in Mexico in January, then in different Latin American markets in Might.
It incorporates a 2.01-inch display, IP67 water and mud resistance, a heart-rate sensor on the again, and a 345mAh battery that its label says can cost the earbuds for six hours of speak. That sort of battery life could be fairly good for Bluetooth earbuds at any worth; JLab’s JBuds Mini, our decide for under-$50 fashions, tout a battery lifetime of 5.5 hours.
Keep in mind to tuck the earpod into that charging compartment. (Credit score: Rob Pegoraro)
The watch runs an unspecified taste of Google’s Put on OS–the model working on the show unit was custom-made so extensively that the About display in its system settings didn’t establish the software program as Put on OS. To compound the software program thriller a bit, the guide directs prospects to obtain a third-party app to sync the watch to a telephone.
Extracting the small stowed earbuds from their compartments of a show-floor demo unit that was notably chunkier than different Android watches required some dainty work with my fingernails.
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Faz provided the Spotify app on his telephone for a fast audition; I needed to decide Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio,” then found that the earbuds had little bass response, leaving that 1982 synth-rock traditional sounding tinny. Cellphone calls appear to be a greater use case.
As a lot because the Lego-esque nature of this watch-plus-earbuds mixture intrigued me, the sketchy nature of the software program would go away me uneasy. However I did have to provide the designers credit score for going out of their strategy to deal with one of many extra frequent issues with tiny wi-fi earbuds: shedding monitor of them after listening to them.
Disclosure: I traveled right here with a gaggle of different North American journalists as visitors of the present’s organizers, who coated our journey bills.
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About Rob Pegoraro
Contributor
Rob Pegoraro writes about attention-grabbing issues and potentialities in computer systems, devices, apps, companies, telecom, and different issues that beep or blink. He’s coated such developments because the evolution of the mobile phone from 1G to 5G, the autumn and rise of Apple, Google’s progress from obscure Yahoo rival to verb standing, and the transformation of social media from CompuServe boards to Fb’s billions of customers. Pegoraro has met a lot of the founders of the web and as soon as obtained a single-word e mail reply from Steve Jobs.
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