The couple formed by Aletta and Peter Stas are the founders and owners of the groupFrederique Constant, but before that both were senior executives of a multinational (ING and Phillips), which gives them a global vision of the businesses and, above all, of their implementation. Two years ago they decided that they too were going to be in the world of smartwatches, so they looked for a partner in Silicon Valley with whom to develop their proposal: aHorological Smartwatch ®, which is already advancing its desire to differentiate itself from conventional smart watches.
And the main difference between this smartwatch and all those presented so far is that it is not a dark glass screen where anything can appear, but rather it is an analog watch, with its dial and hands that basically works as a receiver and whose data is passed to the true brain of the whole: the smartphone, which it is in no way intended to replace. From my point of view, and after listening to Peter Stas, the move is masterful: they do not aim to stand up to the sophisticated iWatch or any other similar device but rather their objective is much closer, more abundant and "vulnerable": quartz watches, which with 21 million units represent 75% of Swiss exports. As Mr. Stas says "very soon an unconnected quartz watch will no longer make sense." And the new generations do not quite understand the functionality of a device - the wristwatch - that only serves to tell the time, which they consult on... their smartphone.
There are more differences with what we understand by smartwatch: it does not have a USB input, or any other type. The connection to the phone is via Bluetooth and the power supply is by battery, a huge 3 volt battery that gives it an autonomy of more than two years. In other words, we can forget about the annoying little cable.
Despite its "traditional" appearance, the crown of the Horological Smartwatch is merely decorative. It is welded to the box and the only functional thing about it is the button that synchronizes with the phone application. The reason is that the time setting is precisely via synchronization, so that if we board a plane in Europe and land in America (or in any time zone other than the one of departure) the clock time will automatically adjust to that of the phone the first time they connect. And the second, of course.
The dial is deliberately simple in a watch that focuses on classic aesthetics. It shows a subdial at six o'clock where you can see two scales: one with the days of the month (the fact that it is linked to the phone makes it a perpetual calendar) and another centesimal one where the percentage of goals achieved is shown. What kind of objectives? For now, theHorological Smartwatch by Frederique ConstantIt has the following functions:
- Activity tracking using MotionX®: How many steps have been taken, how many calories have been consumed
- Activity Tracking Using SleepTracker®: How Many Hours You Have Sleeped
- Sleep cycle alarms: We can tell the clock the time we want to wake up and it will decide the best time within a predetermined range to take advantage of the sleep cycles detected by the clock.
- Get-Active Alerts
- Day and date synchronization
- MotionX® Cloud Backup and Restore
MotionX®'s patented sensor fusion engine tracks activity and sleep patterns. Its algorithm is based on thousands of data collected from previous studies, so it can help the user improve their own habits and thus their quality of life.
“We spend a third of our lives sleeping, but most people have no understanding of their own sleeping habits,” explains Philippe Kahn, founder and CEO of Fullpower. «The MotionX-365® Horological Smartwatch Open Platform is a huge step forward that will completely change what we know about our behavior during the day. It is based on the monitoring and analysis of more than 100 million nights of sleep and many years of R&D into the biomechanics of natural human movement. Whether one is awake or asleep, theHorological Smartwatch by Frederique Constantgives accurate activity and sleep tracking information using advanced and patented sensing technology. Plus, you don't need to charge it!
[envira-gallery id=”10032″]
Although this is not the main thing: MMT goes much further and intends to bring its standard to the entire industry, selling its know-how to the different watch brands so that the MotionX-365® Horological Smartwatch Open Platform becomes a reference, creating a new market niche, something like romantic geeks. At the moment it has already joinedMondaine(with an equally successful model, in my opinion) and there are several candidates about to be decided. Furthermore, the fact of being able to store the data in the cloud allows not only to replace it on any terminal (due to loss or update) but also to add new functionalities to the watch as they appear. And so it will be: according to its promoters, a roadmap has already been defined for the next 5 years.
El Horological Smartwatch by Frederique Constantand Alpina (brand belonging to the group) will have a price below one thousand euros in its steel and leather strap version and the versions with bracelet (Alpina) or gold plated will rise slightly above that barrier.
Their official presentation will be at Baselworld 2015 and they will be available from June of this year.
Think about this news in theSpecial Watches forums
www.frederique-constant.com
Read next: Best watch strap | Best annual calendar watch | Best watch winder | Best black luxury watch | Best Luxury Watches Men
