I was having a coffee (actually tea) with a couple of friends and noticed her smart smart-watch. "Thats´ nice" I commented, only to be told it was a gift from her other half. What surprised me most was not that he was still buying her presents after all these years, more that it had connectivity to her iPhone for SMS and whatsapp messages.
Intrigued, I went online to see what functionality and prices were the current norm - and immediately was offered a special (-50% if you buy now) price on a sports band with a host of functions. That was 60€, so I had a price bar. A quick bit of research revealed the sort of functionality one might expect, so I made a note and forgot about it. But only for 24 hours, as Amazon sent me an email with their late-summer specials - and one of them was a smart watch.
It seemed to have a reasonable amount of functions, and said it paired with an iphone, (and was priced at 28€ - yes really) so I ordered it with a view to trying it out when I was on the bike.
Well, it arrived in less than 24 hours and I had it up and running (no pun intended) and paired with the App in minutes - but about an hour later I started to discover all the functionality that could be found by moving the screen around. Amazing amount of things you can do - even down to monitoring the weather forecast and taking remote photos (weird or what?).
So impressed was I - and so many times did I spring in to show Gill yet another feature I had found - that she actually agreed to have one herself (especially when I said there was a rose gold one with a pink strap).
Just for fun, I went online to the Apple store and checked what the going rate was. They seem to start at 350€, but this little jobbie which looked similar was 750€.
Now I am sure (well, I am not that sure) that the Apple one will have a host of additional Apple-related functionality, but in my book a sub-30€ smart watch is a damn sight smarter that a 750€ smart watch (well, at least the purchaser is).
Trouble is I am having to get off the settee and actually do some moving about to get the thing to move off "lazy-git" mode.
* An Amazon user asked me whether it would be good for an elderly relative who didn´t have a smartwatch, but needed their "Vital signs" monitoring. Answer - it would work, but I sure as hell wouldn´t bet my life on the data it shows. Watch ok;, steps, bike vaguely ok; medical bits very dodgy; waterproof not. Maybe Apple would be better?
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