{"id":584,"date":"2013-07-27T19:05:04","date_gmt":"2013-07-27T19:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=584"},"modified":"2013-07-27T19:05:04","modified_gmt":"2013-07-27T19:05:04","slug":"smart-watches-for-smarter-workers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/smart-watches-for-smarter-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"Smart Watches for Smarter Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am a big fan of gadgets that make work easier, life simpler, and my attire more fashionable.\u00a0 Smart watches don\u2019t just keep you on time; they keep you connected to your social media, your email, and make sure you never miss that important call.\u00a0 I for one find myself constantly missing emails or texts until hours after they are sent, simply because my phone was on silent and I couldn\u2019t feel the vibration.\u00a0 Alerts aren\u2019t the only useful tool; smart watches are just a stone\u2019s throw away from functional smartphones.\u00a0 Allowing you to view your contacts and the weather, go on Facebook or Twitter, check your email and texts, manage your incoming calls or make outgoing calls, or controlling your media player, these watches are an extension of your device, almost to point of replacing it \u2013 almost.<\/p>\n

The first watch I have played with is the Sony SmartWatch<\/a>.\u00a0 This watch connects via Bluetooth to your Android phone, and can display full text messages, emails, Facebook posts, and Twitter feeds.\u00a0 It has tons of features, and is light, weighing in at just .55 ounces.\u00a0 It sports a 1.4 inch OLED screen, which some may feel is small, but allows it to keep its low weight.\u00a0 This watch has been my favorite, simply because of all the features it offered and its low price of $150.00 ($129.00 on Amazon).\u00a0 It does have some negatives however.\u00a0 It has to be connected via an Android smartphone to work, and Sony says it is only compatible with a select few<\/a>.\u00a0 The screen is also near impossible to see in the sunlight.\u00a0 Thinking of it as a smartphone accessory is safer than thinking of it as a watch.<\/p>\n

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I also took a look at the \u201cI\u2019m Watch<\/a>.\u201d\u00a0 This Italian watch runs a modified version of Android 2.1, and looks fabulous doing it.\u00a0 It offers most of the same features as the SmartWatch by Sony, but this one actually has a speaker and microphone built in so you can make calls from the watch itself.\u00a0 Their base model starts out at $300.00, but can go as high as $20,000 if you decide to deck it out with gold and diamonds.\u00a0 The I\u2019m Watch has a larger screen than the Sony Smart watch, 1.5 inches, and is curved.\u00a0 It is easy to see in the sunlight and has vibrant colors.\u00a0 The cons are its short battery life, its overly sized wrist band, and its higher price.<\/p>\n

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The Pebble watch was my last experiment.\u00a0 It was originally funded on Kickstarter, and you can pre-order it on their site<\/a>.\u00a0 It comes in at $150.00, has a black and white screen, and boasts tons of features.\u00a0 They claim it is waterproof, can control your music, can be used as a rangefinder, or to see how far you have run or cycled.\u00a0 This is in addition to standard smart watch features like checking email or call management.\u00a0 The only hiccup is that it isn\u2019t fully released yet, and so far is showing some lack of app support, but you can\u2019t hold that against a product that hasn\u2019t officially released.<\/p>\n

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Smart Watches may seem like gimmicks, but may be that gadget that gives you the edge you need to stay on top.\u00a0 If you are iffy about these products, there are more like them on the market, and rumors circulating about an \u201ciWatch\u201d that Apple may announce sometime this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am a big fan of gadgets that make work […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[508],"tags":[1029,1030,1031,1032,1033],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=584"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/584\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=584"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=584"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=584"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}