We’re not quite sure of the future of smartwatches anymore. Smartwatches were thought of to be the future of portable devices and now that we’re here, where to? Misfit thinks it’s time to go back to our roots with an Analog facing smartwatch – the Phase.
The Phase smartwatch has built-in activity tracking for daily fitness goals
Misfit has been known for its fitness trackers and of late has been dabbling in the business of making smartwatches. Their new Phase smartwatch features analog combined with a host of smart features. It’s called a hybrid smartwatch by the company but technically doesn’t really feature anything new.
The watch will be able to track steps and distance traveled, time sleep duration and also deliver notifications in the form of vibrations from the user’s phone, since it doesn’t have a display on it. It’s water-proof up to 50 meters with a 6-month battery without charge, and that’s some incredible battery life, considering that it does feature almost the whole feature-list of what a regular smartwatch would offer.
It can be used to control music playing from the phone, taking photos, changing presentation slides and other such nifty features. The smartwatch features different modes to control its applications in order to show the user what mode it is on, it has a small window just above the 6 o’ clock time that indicates what mode it is on based on its color. Notifications are shown via a combination of the hands of the watch-face and their positions. It’s not exactly convenient, but it’ll do.
The watch itself looks like a premium time-piece, considering that the company is partly owned by Fossil, so some of that design-sense must have rubbed off on the device. And it shows. The watch’s looks are minimal and sleek and are made for simple and unobtrusive observation of what the device has to offer. But yeah, at the end of the day, the imagination does seem a little lacking. We’re not sure there will be a lot of users out there who’ll want to wear it.
It’ll come with the regular set of accessories and straps compatible, provided by Misfit of course, and they all seem pretty normal. At the end of the day, what really confuses us is that for an analog watch that tries so much not to be a smartwatch, it fails in its execution. It’s actually quite hard to tell the time, considering the hands of the watch will be moving a lot at different places because of notifications and what not. For real smartwatch functionality, a screen is a must. But good try, Misfit; at least its living up to its name.
It’ll retail for a price starting at $175 and is quite a cheaper alternative to the competition out there. But the competition has screens. In any event, it’ll be a good activity tracker for those who don’t want to be distracted by an interactive interface and like to keep their style classy.
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