I reviewed Screwpop’s keyring pliers and utility knife a few months ago, and was extremely impressed with the combinations of low price/high quality/good utility. They’re even closer to putting an entire toolkit in your pocket with their new Kickstarter campaign for the Wishbone Wrench!
Dan and I recently did reviews of some of Monowear’s products for the Apple Watch. We were both pleased with the design and quality of their bands. They have just released a new take on band design that combines open loop and closed loop options. The new leather deployment bands retail for $89.99 and are really cool. Let’s take a look! Historically, when using a standard leather watch band, they push through the little loop and hook into whichever hole is best for your size then run through another loop to hold the access. While this style of watch band…
The Verge reported on some ominous news from Pebble today; they’re apparently laying off 25% of their staff. Combine that with a competitive wearables market, and it doesn’t look great for Kickstarter’s biggest success story.
My wife recently challenged me to turn off my smartwatch. Instead of letting me discreetly stay connected, I was constantly reacting every time it buzzed, even if I didn’t check my phone. It was interrupting dinner, playtime with my son, and distracting me during meetings. Surprisingly, I’m not the only Gear Diary person who has disconnected from their smartwatch!
Do you have so many keys that you can’t keep track of them all? Can your family hear you approaching from down the street by the jingle of your keyring? Could you slim down your keys, but you just can’t part with your flashlight, pocketknife, and that mystery key you found in a drawer? Enter the Keyport Slide 3.0 and Keyport Pivot!
Casio is diving wrist first into the Android Wear world with their newest release, the WSD-F10 Outdoor Watch. It combines Casio’s trademark rugged designs with the power of Android Wear, perfect for those times when you need to check Facebook while at Basecamp for Mount Everest. All joking aside, Casio has thrown a lot of extra features into the WSD-10 to make it stand out in the smartwatch world. It has GPS, is water resistant to 40 meters, offers dust and shock proofing, and has a number of Casio-specific apps for outdoor activities. They also offer a time-only display to…
After successfully launching wearables last fall, Fossil continues on the path again this year at CES with their newest addition to their collection, the Q54 Pilot. “As a brand, we are really proud and excited about the initial response to Fossil Q wearables—to date it has exceeded our expectations. Given that, we are more committed than ever to bring our design expertise as watchmakers into the wearable technology space,” said Jill Elliott-Sones, chief creative officer at Fossil. “Today at CES, we are thrilled to show off the next generation of Fossil Q wearables and look forward to introducing CES to…
Fitbit is putting their mark on 2016 early, with a new device called the Fitbit Blaze. It’s a smartwatch with a full color touchscreen, but no GPS, and it will sit between the Charge HR and the Surge price-wise, at $199.95. The Blaze will be able to receive basic smartphone notifications, tracks your steps, various workouts, and heart rate, but it does not have standalone GPS; instead it uses what Fitbit calls “connected GPS”, which is just a smokescreen way to say the Blaze uses the GPS from your smartphone for outdoor distance tracking. There’s DNA from the Fitbit Flex…
Pebble promised when they rolled out a new user interface that it would reach the first generation Pebble and Pebble Steel by the end of the year. They’re cutting it a bit close, but with two weeks to go they’ve finally announced that the original Pebbles could share in the new software with their Time siblings!
Most of the bands I’ve tried on my Apple Watch have been leather or sportier rubber styles. I’ve stayed away from the metal bands because they either looked too fussy, clunky, or masculine. The Monowear Silver Ceramic Strap is a lovely change of pace; it’s a feminine metal and ceramic combo that elevates the 38 or 42mm watch’s appearance.
I love my original generation Pebble, and have kept an eye on the company and their subsequent watches. I even toyed with backing the Pebble Time, but after seeing how fast prices plummeted, I’m glad I didn’t. Understandably, many who did back the Time and Time Steel are a bit surprised by how fast prices have dropped!
Did you read my Huawei Watch review? If you did, you’ll recall that it is currently my favorite smartwatch. If you’re interested in one, this is the time to buy! On Black Friday, Huawei will be offering $50 to $100 off select watch models through GetHuawei.com, BestBuy.com, select Best Buy stores, Amazon.com, Target.com and Google Play store.
We were in Macy’s over the weekend, and my son was excited at checking out the watches (aka “clocks” in toddler-speak), when I saw a display that made me do a double-take. Apparently Casio is tapping into the general nostalgia wave that’s brought back flannel, vinyl records, and JNCO jeans with their new Retro line…unfortunately, the price isn’t retro too!
I love my original generation Pebble, and I am hooked on notifications via this simple smartwatch. If Pebble is a basic smartwatch, Martian watches are even simpler, and I’ve had the chance to test them with the Martian Envoy G10. It’s a traditional watch with a small notification ticker, but it’s got some voice tricks up its sleeve too!
I rarely pull my keys out of my bag. My car has a push button ignition, and by the time I am home from work someone is already there. Despite this, I seem to have accumulated a lot of keys, and so I jumped at the chance to take a look at Orbitkey, which reimagines how to carry your keys.
Until recently, if you used an iPhone you had only two real choices in smartwatches: Apple Watch or the Pebble line. Android users, on the other hand, had multiple companies vying for their business including Sony, Samsung, LG, Acer, Huawei, Motorola, Alcatel and others. Android Wear for iOS has given iPhone users options; now there’s a real smartwatch selection.
I never finished my review of the Garmin VivoSmart, partly because the VivoActive arrived and I ran to that, but partly because it took a few firmware updates for everything to stabilize with the Bluetooth functionality. But I really loved the VivoSmart, and if I didn’t prefer GPS to smartwatch capabilities, I’d probably still use it today. So when I got a message about the new VivoSmart HR I was intrigued. At first glance you might think this is something new in the VivoFit line, as the appearance is much different than the original VivoSmart and closer to the VivoFit…
Doesn’t it feel like I was just writing about the Garmin Forerunner 225 announcement? While it has actually been 5 months since the FR 225 reveal, since then they also added the FR 25 entry level GPS watch and each slowly trickled into availability. This year has been all about big new launches and slow product roll-outs that have left me scratching my head wondering what is happening with Garmin. Today Garmin announced three new watches that should have me excited, but instead resulted in a cynical eye-roll and vague interest in when they might hit stores – but why…
I’ve got an Apple Watch, and from normal wear the stainless steel has a light patina of little scratches. I don’t worry about that, but I do sometimes worry about whacking my watch or breaking its crystal; I’m paranoid like that. If you’re worried that your lifestyle might be too active for your watch, then you need the LUNATIK EPIK.
Pebble is having a very busy year! They ran a record-breaking Kickstarter for the Pebble Time/Pebble Time Steel, and now they’ve surprised everyone by rolling out another new watch, the Pebble Time Round. Yes, a ROUND smartwatch, with the guts of a Pebble and the style of a normal watch!
One thing you can be certain when you get a product from Tokyoflash is that you are getting something original, and you’ll probably need instructions to figure out exactly what you’re dealing with. That’s no different with the Kisai Katana watch that I received to review.