Review: Mobilewear Bluetooth Watch

Mobilewear is the latest company to offer an alternative take on the everyday wristwatch.

As you'd expect, given the name, the Bluetooth Watch incorporates Bluetooth connectivity to talk to your phone.

It will then notify you of incoming calls or text messages via a vibrate alert - the caller's name or number will also be displayed on the LED screen.

From the controls on the watch you can mute or reject incoming calls as well as control the pairing process.

A rather large restriction on functionality is that it currently only works with ‘most’ Sony Ericsson phones, with compatibility for Symbian-based smartphones allegedly on the way. This is a bit of a drawback considering you’ll need to make sure every mobile you'll own is compatible. Check out compatibility for your watch on Mobilewear's site.

Souped-up watches such as this often fail due to poor styling. In Mobilewear’s case it’s not a bad-looking timepiece and is based on a rather simplistic aviator design. It’s still rather bulky though, and we’d like to see an alternative leather or imitation leather strap on offer rather than the rubber one we were provided with.

The pairing process is a little awkward, as if often the case with Bluetooth devices, but once paired it does work quite well and we liked the way it takes the time, date and contact information (if present) from the phone.

As with most products of this type we wonder how often you’d actually use it, even assuming you have a compatible phone. It’s an interesting idea, but the advantages it offers are limited to saving you the trouble of reaching into your pocket to grab your phone.

Starting at around £120, you’re certainly paying for the technology, and it’s debateable as to whether it looks like a £120 watch.

The Bluetooth Watch is an extremely niche product and still suffers from bulk issues inherent to most other technology of its kind. But, if, after reading about the features and drawbacks you still think it’s something you’d use, you can rest assured it works well enough in the optimum environment.

See also:

Fossil Abacus Wrist PDA

A fully functional handheld computer in a wrist watch  03 Mar 2006

Mavizen Blueye

Turns any mp3 player into a Bluetooth headset for your mobile  21 Feb 2006

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