“While some were waiting eagerly for the Apple Watch, and others got assimilated, there are still those who prefer traditional watches,” Ben Lovejoy reports for 9to5Mac.
“That’s the market Sony hopes to appeal to with a new hybrid watch called Wena (which apparently stands for ‘wear electronics naturally’), which it’s pitching on its Japanese crowdfunding site First Flight,” Lovejoy reports. “It’s mostly a traditional analogue watch, but a link to an iOS app gives it limited smartwatch functionality. On the smartwatch side, you get fitness band functionality, and notifications are echoed to the watch in the form of an LED and vibration.”
Lovejoy reports, “There’s no digital display, though, so you still need to check your phone to find out what the notification was…”
Read more — and take 9to5Mac‘s “Sony wena” poll — here.
MacDailyNews Take: WENA. “We’re Entirely Nuts, Amigos!” – Sony
If they can’t even get the audio mix right in the crowdfunding video (Has Sony now fallen so far that they need to resort to crowdfunding?), this one’s sure to be a real winner.
SEE ALSO:
Apple Watch already dominates smart-wearables market, says IDC – August 28, 2015
Best Buy CEO: Apple Watch demand is ‘so strong’ that we’re expanding sales to all 1,050 stores – August 25, 2015
I own two $6,000 Swiss watches, but I wear my Apple Watch most of the time – August 14, 2015
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Bill” for the heads up.]
Sony, why stop there? Just go for a watch with a tube amp!
“there are still those who prefer traditional (non computer screen) watches”
Well, he has a point. If you have the money and don’t care about a screen, having it work some with your IOS device is better than just telling time.
Sony is crowdfunding?!?!?
They must be harder up for cash that I thought.
So, what SONY is saying here is: “We would like a horse in this race but our belief in our own innovative team is so low that we’d rather NOT spend our own money on development; instead, if any of you out there want a watch like this, give us your money and then we may develop it”…
Akio Morita is rolling in his grave.
If you get both the SONY watch with fitness tracking and the upcoming SWATCH, which will not provide health data, you can recreate a compromised Apple Watch experience with “App-Lack™”
The competition is not going have parity with the Apple Watch for several years – this level of design and miniaturization is not as easy to copy as the smartphone form factor.
It’s now 2019. The Wena Wrist does have a display and more functionality, though still limited, than in 2015. If Apple made one of these and expanded the functionality, I would likely get one. I can keep wearing my mechanical watch collection as well as have smartwatch functions.