Some smartwatch manufacturers are starting to pay attention to design to distance themselves from the techy Android Wear, Tizen, and Pebble powered crowd. Omate is the latest company to attempt a good-looking, premium smartwatch with its Omate X. Its first smartwatch, the TrueSmart, was a standalone device with a somewhat bulky design. The Omate X is a companion device that can only work when paired to your smartphone.
The Omate X is specifically designe dto look more like a normal watch than a smartwatch. The watch face is only 11 millimeters thick and fits to any 22 millimeter watch strap. It comes with genuine leather straps by default, but it’s nice to know that you’ll be able to use your own watch strap if you want. The watch has only two buttons: one for returning to the home screen and another for turning it on and off.
Related: Omate’s ‘standalone’ TrueSmart watch hits Kickstarter
The Omate X features a 1.54-inch touchscreen with a 240 x 240 pixel resolution. Omate says the watch’s face is made of extra durable sapphire glass, which is the same material many believe with cover the iWatch’s screen. The smartwatch is powered by the MediaTek Aster (MT2502) and uses Nucleus RTOS to send you notifications from apps on your smartphone. Since it’s not running any specific, closed operating system, the Omate X is compatible with iOS and Android devices. The company says that the smartwatch’s battery life will be about a week.
Related: Battle of the Samsung smartwatches: Gear Live vs. Gear 2 vs. Gear Fit
Omate plans to kickoff production for the smartwatch in mid-October. When the Omate X goes up for preorder on September 1, it will cost just $130, making it much cheaper than Samsung’s Gear lineup and the budget Pebble smartwatch. Omate will sell the X for that price until September 30. After that, it’s unclear what price tag the Omate X will bear.
