Ahead of what’s sure to be a flurry of announcements at Mobile World Congress, LG has today announced their third Android Wear watch, the ‘LG Watch’ve Bain (Urbane)’, which they intend to show off in Spain.
Keeping with the classic circular design that’s proven popular for Android Wear watches, LG has reduced the thickness of the Urbane when compared to the G Watch R, as well as reducing the overall width and length. The LG Urbane will be made available in scratch and corrosion resistant, gold and silver coloured stainless steel.
The watch comes with a standard 22mm watch band, with a stylish looking stitched leather band. LG will offer two bands based on the chasis colour, with a brown strap coming with the Gold metal body, while the silver metal body will ship with a black strap as standard.
Cho Jun-Ho, president of LG Electronics MC Company Director said
‘LG Watch vane control’ is the closest product to an analog clock emotion than any existing smart watch, consumers are constantly on product innovation to take advantage of wearable devices in a more natural life he said trying to.
The LG Urbane will ship with the latest version of Android Wear, which still requires an Android phone running Android 4.3 and the Android Wear app from Google Play.
Feature wise, the hardware on the LG Urbane is the same as that found on the LG G Watch R, though LG has added a ‘continuous heart rate measurement’, a technology developed in-house, to check a users heart rate in real-time.
- 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400
- 1.3″ plastic OLED (320 * 320, 245ppi)
- 512MB LPDDR2
- 4GB eMMC
- 9-axis (gyro / acceleration / compass), barometric pressure sensor, heart rate sensor
- Waterproof and dustproof (IP67 certified)
- Battery 410mAh Battery
- Gold and Silver
- 45 .5 × 52.2 × 10.9mm
The ‘Urbane’ name could be a slight mistranslation and we’ve reached out to LG Australia to clarify. Availability will most likely be announced closer to launch, as will pricing. We’ll definitely be trying to get some hands-on time with this new watch at MWC.
The watch looks fine, but what gets to me is the name.
Urbane? Seriously?
Why does’t LG just fix their LG Fitness Server, and let me login. This watch will be useless since you cant upload anything fitness related without their server.
My 360 has been great, with ambient enabled from 7am at 11PM I still have 30% plus power left. With it off I have been at nearly 60% many times.
I hope the ‘LG Watch vane control’ means this will have a proper digital version of the classic analogue watch crown.
If this was released along side the Moto 360 I’m fairly sure I would have got this instead. Might have to read some G watch R reviews now if it can do all day (real all day) with ambient on it might be a Moto 360 killer.
GPS?
If this has always on feature then i’m sold, only thing that made me to ditch Moto 360 🙁
If having a round watch isn’t absolutely essential you might want to try the Asus Zenwatch. I picked one up recently and was very impressed. The screen is always displaying the time, and the battery lasts the whole day without trouble.
Now this looks like a watch that happens to be smart. Pending price and availability, it might be the smart watch I have been waiting for.
Wow – Moto 360 now has some serious comp – maybe even a knockout blow – this watch looks awesome. Just what I’m hunting for. – Tester?
Moto 360 was incredibly overrated.
I disagree – while I’d like a faster CPU, I still prefer the edge-to-edge screen and minimalist style of the 360 compared to this. It feels more understated rather than garish.
LG seems to be making their smartwatches look as much like traditional watches as possible, while the Moto 360 is a bit more like starting with a watch, and then removing what is now unnecessary (bezels, dials, etc).
You don’t need a faster CPU it is a watch running minimal basic apps at best.
You want a low power CPU that has enough grunt to drive the watch. None have done this yet, the 360 is fine for me but not low enough power use and the others use multi core CPU’s that are overkill and use too much power.
I have had people say now nice the 360 looks but in the end each to their own. The more out there the more chance one will suit you.
Well, at the very least it needs more optimisation – of course a full mobile-level CPU is not necessary, but the 360 does struggle to maintain a smooth framerate for animations when navigating around. It’s not as smooth as it could be.
For example, the Snapdragon 400 used on most other Wear devices uses less power but is faster. The Moto 360’s 3-year old CPU was a bad choice in my opinion other than keeping the price down.
Fair enough. I prefer the LG G Watch R. To each their own.