Today I ran across an interesting digital watch that has touch controls – the Mutewatch.
Simply to look at it, you might think someone was wearing an oddly-stylized silicone wristband for some cause or another. However, when you touch the face of the watch, it springs to life.
Tapping the watch brings up a display of the current time, and then you swipe your finger across the face to cycle through the clock, alarm, and timer functions. Of the functions, the alarm seems the most interesting and would be fun to play with:
- To set the alarm time, you tap at the top of the digit for a higher value, and at the bottom of it for a lower value
- To erase an alarm, you pinch the touch screen
The alerting is where things get really interesting, for me. Apparently, the watch has a built-in motion sensor. This means that if you’re active, it’ll dial the vibration down, but if it thinks you’re asleep (ie, not moving around much) it increases the intensity of the vibration.
So what’s the battery life on all this tech-wizardry? Per their website, it looks like it will be about 1-2 weeks, depending on your usage. But, don’t think you’re going to be stacking up the drained coin batteries – this
one is rechargeable, via USB.
As far as the specs go, there’s not a lot to report on – it’s a digital, quartz watch with some interesting touch features, and it’s about 24.5 mm wide in red or gray. The alarm functionality could prove to be very handy, if you need something that allows you to be woken up without disturbing someone else. Plus, you never know – with the USB connection, there could someday be new firmware that puts some new tricks on your wrist. And the price of this bundle of touch-based timekeeping is right at $259 USD.
