The New Moto 360 Smartwatch – Just Another Drop in the Smartwatch Sea or A Wave of Its Own?
The smartwatch craze is still officially on the rise and it seems that every techie-tuned company wants to cash-in on the newfangled futuristic stylings of wristwatches that do more than the run-of-the-mill tick-tocking. It wasn’t too long ago that the Galaxy Gear and the new Pebble Steel smartwatches were released, ingratiating some generally positive reviews in their own right. But the ever evolving, ever creatively steadfast Motorola company is anteing-up with a new glamorous gizmo, a revisit from its previous foray into the smartwatch game (i.e., the Moto 360’s less charming older brother, the Moto Actv) that may help to take smartwatch dynamics to a new level. Let’s take a look at the details!
Moto 360 Functionality
One of the coolest aspects of the Moto 360 is that it will be completely compatible with hosting all Android Wear featuring, supporting everything that Android Wear does on top of additional customized notifications, voice action commands and stacked cards. That being said, the 360 will be synergistic with Android devices running 4.3 or higher. It’s battery-life is apparently very solid as well, and although the word isn’t completely out yet, there seem to be some interesting developments concerning the 360’s method of battery charging. Motorola isn’t saying how the 360 will charge itself just yet, but it can be assumed that the smartwatch will utilize something along the lines of inductive charging, void of needing a USB port. Plus, when one physically observes the Moto 360, no trace of external charging points can be found. This will definitely add a lot of extra hype and a few bonus points on the chic, fashionable factor scale.
It’s worth noting that there is no camera function on the Moto 360. But don’t be too surprised. Every gizmo nowadays has a camera, but apparently when it comes to smartwatches, users just aren’t interested in a photo-taking functionality being present. People just want the watch to give them their desired information at a quick glance, nothing more. Keeping in step with this concept, the Moto 360 scrolls its notifications vertically versus horizontally like most others like the Sony SmartWatch 2. Its believed that a vertical scroll will offer more ease and fluidity to visualization and reading.
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The Moto 360’s Design
Motorola designers wanted to achieve some specific upgrades with the 360 that just aren’t present or up to par in other smartwatches. Firstly, there’s the actual rounded shape of the watch-face. This is more than just a fashion choice as it allows for a more spacious viewing surface area and offers more wrist comfort than the pointed boxy watch-faces. The attributed Android Wear notifications are specifically better-suited for a rounded watch-face than a squared one as it pointed attracts the users eyes to the center of its screen. Plus, it really does look cool.
The watch bands themselves will be interchangeable, and having learned from previous smartwatch models it has been observed that this is a more important issue than one might immediately assume. Personalization and comfort are crucial, and Motorola designers have given that a bright spotlight and allowed for easily swapped-out wrist-bands made from premium quality materials.
Granted this dedication to comfort and upper-tier quality, one shouldn’t expect that the Moto 360 will be a moderately priced item. This techie titan was pieced together from the bottom up with carefully crafted concepts of customization, including special screens, various parts and internal chips. High quality leather and metals are incorporated to allow for not only a highly functional, but fashionable piece of merchandise. But not just so for a specific target audience of potential buyers, but everyone. One of the failings of the overall smartwatch push is that these products tend to lean toward the bulkier side, making them a bit more cumbersome for the female wrist. The Moto 360 seeks to achieve the proper balance of fit to accommodate a wider demographic.
Release Date and Other Specifics
No official release date has been made available just yet aside from the vague ‘summer of 2014 or beyond’ timeframe. As for the price of the Moto 360, this remains to be a mystery as well, but it’s easily assumed it’ll cost a pretty shiny penny given the materials and design put into it creation. Also, surprisingly there is not much to be said about the internal workings of the device either. No details concerning processors or memory have been outlined just yet. Some things remain yet to be seen, but it’s certainly something to set your timer for while we look at the clock and wait patiently.
About the author:
Ezra Melino is an all-around-geek turned serious blogger out of North Carolina who not-so-secretly relishes an in-print love affair with everything from technology and multimedia entertainment to film and the hopper. He has written for and managed multiple tech blogs that are devoted to exploring new technological developments all around the world.
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