A new Wear OS smartwatch featuring two screens is coming from the same company that gave us the TicPods.
Mobvoi, a Chinese company comprised of former Google, Microsoft and Amazon employees, announced the TicWatch Pro today. The watch has two screens–a low-power, transparent LCD panel above the main OLED display powered by Wear OS.
When using the watch, users will interact with the main OLED panel. However, when the watch is not in use, the OLED panel will power off. The LCD panel will take over, displaying the time and fitness information like your heartrate. Using the watch like this, Movboi estimates two days of battery life.
There is also an ‘Essential mode’ that turns off most of Wear OS’s smart features. Activating that leaves you with the low-power display, the time and some other low-power features like step-tracking. Movboi estimates 30 days of battery in ‘Essential mode.’ However, to access any Wear OS features requires a full reboot of the device which takes about a minute, making switching between modes rather cumbersome.
Aside from the second display, the watch is a fairly typical Wear OS watch–with all the perks and problems that brings. While the second display is a novel idea, it’s been done before. And in the TicWatch’s case, two days of battery isn’t much of a benefit. Most WearOS watches get at least a day of use. Regardless, most users will charge it every night anyway.
Movboi has quite a line-up of smart watches available, along with some other neat products. I mentioned the TicPods already, but they also offer a portable Assistant powered speaker called the TicHome Mini. The speaker is splashproof, has full Assistant integration, Bluetooth connectivity, six hours of battery life and comes in four colours.
The watch is rumoured to sell for less that $300 USD (under about $386 CAD). The watch should be available this summer. You can also sign up with the newsletter to be the first to know when it’s officially available.
Source: The Verge
MobileSyrup may earn a commission from purchases made via our links, which helps fund the journalism we provide free on our website. These links do not influence our editorial content. Support us here.
