MEXICO CITY—Some two years after Huawei shipped one of many weirder gadget-fusion ideas we’ve seen—a smartwatch that carries and prices its personal wi-fi earbuds in an inside compartment—a Reebok-branded smartwatch on show right here on the Electronics Dwelling Mexico expo presents the identical concept at a a lot cheaper price.
Whereas Huawei’s Watch Buds, which shipped within the spring of 2023, stow their earbuds below a watch display that pops up, the Reebok Watch EB tucks them into particular person compartments on one aspect. Seeing this mix gadget right here, I had to have a look.
The rapid attraction for native buyers: the worth tag. The Huawei smartwatch retails for 9,999 pesos on Amazon’s website right here (about $525); the Reebok timepiece is 1,976 pesos ($104).
And in contrast to Huawei, which has been below a years-long business ban by the US authorities, the Reebok distributed by an area agency, Life Works, may 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 is able to require Reebok’s US division to log out on a co-branding deal. He quoted a fair cheaper price, 1,099 pesos, however couldn’t clarify why Amazon would cost virtually twice as a lot. The watch, manufactured in China, went on sale in Mexico in January, then in different Latin American markets in Could.
It includes 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 discuss. That type of battery life can be fairly good for Bluetooth earbuds at any worth; JLab’s JBuds Mini, our choose 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 handbook 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.
Faz supplied the Spotify app on his telephone for a fast audition; I needed to choose Wall of Voodoo’s “Mexican Radio,” then found that the earbuds had little bass response, leaving that 1982 synth-rock basic sounding tinny. Cellphone calls look like 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 depart me uneasy. However I did have to offer the designers credit score for going out of their approach to tackle one of many extra frequent issues with tiny wi-fi earbuds: dropping 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 lined our journey bills.
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