Just as your smartphones had some competition with features phones and their limited apps, longer battery life, and in many cases better designs, so the smartwatches of the world have the oncoming storm of the featurewatches. Starting with the Phosphor Touch Time.
Just like the feature phone, the Touch Time stands out against a field of smartwatches thanks to a limited but focused set of applications.
Through these applications, and the hardware in the watch, the idea of a smartwatch is implied.
The capacitive touch-screen, as well as contributing to the name, also allows a smartwatch like UI to be employed.
Switching between the top level screens is accomplished by a swipe across the screen to either the right or the left; app selection is through a tap on the screen; and switching through views in each individual application is accomplished with either an upwards or downwards swipe.
The UI is consistent across the seven applications, the settings screen, and the clock faces. That’s important in a small piece of consumer technology, so congratulations to Phosphor for focusing on the UI to enable this consistency.
Excerpt taking from additional fodder I have over on Forbes.
When is a watch a smartwatch? When is a watch just a watch with a few gimmicks? And is there a middle ground for the latest wave of watches that mix personalization and apps with long battery life and traditional techniques and styling? Watchmaker Phosphor is answering these questions right now with the Touch Time watch.
Following a successful Kickstarter project (which saw over $314,000 raised, comfortably passing the $50,000 funding goal), the Touch Time watch went into production late last year, and went on sale a few weeks ago priced from $159. Phosphor has provided me with a review unit and I’ve been looking at the functionality and practicality of this ‘smarter watch’.
With the recent wave of smarwatches and fitness trackers, there is renewed interest on the wrist in the mainstream. It’s important to set up expectations of the Touch Time. This isn’t s smartwatch by the definitions of Samsung, Sony or Pebble. While Phosphor go with ‘a smarter watch’ an easier way to describe the Touch Time is that it is a feature watch compared to a smart watch, just as the smartphones of the world have the comparison to feature phones.
Read more of my thoughts at Forbes.
Ewan Spence is a blogger, author and writer based out of Edinburgh, Scotland. In addition to his own blog, he has contributed and contributes to BBC News, BBC Magazine (online), The Stage (UK Arts and Entertainment Newspaper), Computing (VNU), iProng Magazine, IT Pro, O’Reilly’s Make Magazine, Palmtop Magazine, Podcast User Magazine, UK Tech and UK Mobile Blognation, PDA Essentials, Mobile Messaging 2.0 and All About Symbian.
He wrote the book Rapid Mobile Enterprise Development for Symbian OS and has audio program commissions for BBC Radio 5 Live – Through the Night and Pods and Blogs, Computer Outlook Talk Radio Show and Talk 107. He also regularly speaks at and moderates panels at high profile technology conferences around the world.
