This week in wearable tech: Apple Watch Series 4 is reviewed more widely, Oculus reveals the Quest and the release of the Apple Watch ECG feature beyond the States is considered.
The Week in Wearables is a news digest, out each week, focused on some of the things that have happened in the world of tech you can wear on your wrist, perch on your head, stick in your ear, sling around your waist, tuck into the small of your back or, well, you get the idea.
Apple Watch Series 4 Reviewed
Lots more Apple Watch Series 4 reviews have arrived in the last few days, after the initial slew last week. These include mine (forgive my tardiness, dear reader). I’ll just give you the briefest of tastes because there are others worth reading, too. I’ve framed mine to answer questions people have asked me. Like this:
Does it really look that different?
Oh my, it really does.
It gleams. The bigger screen makes a spectacular difference thanks to those slimmer bezels and the screen is brilliantly pin-sharp, colorful and vivid. Previous Watch faces look great now they spread closer to the edge, and if you turn on the torch function you can see clearly one of the reasons: the bezels now perfectly follow the shape of the case, curved edges to an oblong, instead of just the sharp-cornered display that preceded it. It’s a subtle but utterly opulent improvement to the look.
Even so, it retains the usefulness of a squarish, as opposed to a round, display: that text runs evenly down the screen in the way that a circular screen could not support.
Read more here at Forbes.
Matthew Bolton saw how big a leap forward the new Watch has taken, over at T3.
Apple has added haptic feedback to the Digital Crown too, so when you're scrolling through items on-screen, you feel a little click for each item, which makes it easy to navigate at speed if you know how far you should be going. It's a really nice little quality-of-life addition. When you're scrolling something that doesn't divide so neatly, it makes rapid clicks, just to give you some feedback.
One change we're not so sure about is that the side button is now essentially flush with the case. It's easy to press (it clicks in a tiny amount, but enough to comfortably feel), but is a little harder to find without looking, and to press rapidly or in motion, since your finger can't use the edge for purchase any more.
It's not hard to find (it takes up most of the edge that isn't Digital Crown, after all), but you're just more likely to slip off it instead of pressing it if you're doing it awkwardly. If you're trying to quickly double-press for Apple Pay while carrying bags or something, it definitely doesn't feel like an improvement, even if it looks nice.
And, in a somewhat less common occurrence (hopefully), this is also the button you use to trigger Emergency SOS, so making it more difficult to press in any way for the sake of aesthetics isn't ideal.
We've got the silver stainless steel Apple Watch Series 4, complete with cellular connectivity built-in. It also comes in 'Space Black', which is a great super-dark finish that's a lot like looking into an ethereal abyss, but in a good way.
Most importantly, there's now a gold stainless steel finish that's absolutely gorgeous. This isn't gaudy gold, like the, uh, actual gold watch Apple used to make. It's somewhere in between traditional gold and brass, and when paired with the matching milanese loop, it's striking without being OTT.
Read more at T3.
In the UK, the i newspaper has a brilliant tech correspondent in Rhiannon Williams. Here’s her take.
While Apple states the Series 4 Apple Watch sports the same 18 hour battery life as its predecessor, I found it retained charge more effectively and lasted for longer. Over several days of wearing it for an average of 17 hours, I was often left with around 65 per cent power when I went to charge it overnight. Unfortunately, there’s no sign the Apple Watch will monitor sleep data any time soon, so I’ll continue to charge it overnight until it does.
So, should you buy the Apple Watch Series 4?
I feel that with the Series 4, Apple has finally fully hit its stride when it comes to balancing the social and health applications of a smartwatch. The larger screen is both functional and beautiful, making it easier to send and reply to messages as well as detect and analyse work outs. While it may not appear immediately obvious, Apple’s orchestrated enough of a physical evolution for the Series 4 to feel like a leap from last year’s model. As is typical with Apple products, the price will be the main stumbling block for curious consumers. Starting at £399, the Apple Watch has never been cheap, and as is the case with many smartwatches, its definitive purpose hasn’t always been obvious either.
The forthcoming ECG functions could prove helpful to people who are required to regularly provide their doctor with readings, and the fall detection could help to generate peace of mind for those caring for the elderly, but an Apple Watch is a particularly expensive way to monitor these things. Looking at the Series 4 Watch as a holistic product, however, its transformation from slightly confused fashion accessory to a functional fitness tracker that still looks attractive and delivers useful messaging and other social functions, there’s never been a better time to buy an Apple Watch.
Read the rest of the review here.
And Tech Radar’s reliably good Gareth Beavis liked the Watch, too.
The Apple Watch 4's key feature is really its design - we say that because while the extra health benefits are something that are worthy and really make this an attractive device for those in need of them, the pool of people this is relevant to is smaller than just those looking for a new watch.
We're also not able to test some of the key new health features - specifically the electro-cardiogram feature (ECG) as that's not enabled yet in the US, and won't be coming to the rest of the world for even longer.
However, we were able to see it in action during our demonstration from Apple, where you need to activate the app on the phone and then hold the Digital Crown down to complete the electrical circuit in your body.
This spits out a set of data from the ECG to your Health app on the iPhone, which can be exported as a PDF and give information on rhythm to a phsycian, plus you're able to write notes to contextualise what was happening at the same time.
The other thing we weren't able to really test was the new fall detection, as you have to go down a certain way and remain there for a while to activate the feature.
We did try to fall, but it was getting a little embarrassing and perhaps we need to commit harder to the testing - we'll update the review if we get braver in the coming months.
However, one thing that did worry us a little about this feature is battery life - while it's great to see that fall detection exists, and will be set up automatically for those over 65, the fact that you really need to charge the iPhone once a day is going to be harder to remember for some users and that could mean their safety blanket (or for those that bought the Watch 4 in the first place to safeguard a loved one) is redundant if the Watch has no power.
More on the ECG later, but here’s where to read Beavis’s epic review.
Lastly, Forbes’ Paul Lamkin also rounded up some of the earlier reviews, which you can read here.
Oculus Quest revealed
As Forbes’ Paul Lamkin also reported, a new standalone VR headset has been announced by the Facebook-owned Oculus. This new model will sit between the Oculus Rift, which needs a PC connected and the entry-level Oculus Go.
It packs in plenty of power, and is certainly the heaviest hitting wireless VR headset so far - on paper at least. Facebook didn't actually mention what processor is running the Quest but it's understood that it's the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor - the same silicon found in the Lenovo Mirage Solo.
What sets the Quest apart from it's mass-appeal VR headset rivals is the four ultra wide-angle sensors and computer vision algorithms that track your exact position in real time without any external sensors. Facebook calls this tech "Insight" and states that "it gives you a greater sense of immersion, presence, and mobility, plus the ability to go beyond room-scale."
Read more from Paul, here at Forbes.
What next for Hybrid smartwatches?
Michael Sawh at Wareable has been looking into the world of hybrid smartwatches, you know, the ones which add smart capabilities to (usually) analog watches.
So far the formula has been to take beautiful, 'dumb' watch designs and discreetly add those connected smarts. Those smarts have usually taken the form of basic fitness tracking (step counting, sleep tracking) or finding room for a vibration motor to buzz you when a phone notification comes through. That's been achieved without impacting on the slimness of the design or long battery life. There's been plenty of great examples of this from tech companies and traditional watchmaking brands. But there comes a point where hybrids need to get smarter and the people making them need to get smarter about adding more connected features. That point feels like now.
It's clear that as full fat smartwatches like the Apple Watch continue to grow in popularity, there is also a growing demand for hybrids to act a bit more like Apple, Samsung and Google's watches. Making that happen isn't going to be easy and it could take time for that to happen. Using existing watch features like crowns or adding additional physical buttons are just some of the ways hybrid watchmakers are seeking to add extra functionality without making design compromises. Swedish startup Kronaby uses these traditional watch features to allow its hybrids to do more and utilise more smart features like music controls and even personal safety features. It's also using the strap (like many other watchmakers) to introduce features like contactless payments. It's starting with straps, but is also working to build that functionality into its watches too.
Plenty of food for thought in Sawh’s excellent piece, over at Wareable.
And finally…
That Apple ECG feature. Well, it’s not available yet as Apple’s still working on the software, but before it can be rolled out anywhere else, Apple needs approval in other countries. How long before it reaches the U.K., for instance? Following a report at 9to5Mac, I looked into it.
But, although the whole thing has been cleared by the FDA in the U.S., the ECG app isn’t on the Watch yet as Apple is still finishing the software.
I will say, though, that when I saw it in action it looked pretty finished to me, indeed it was slick and effective, so I would think that Apple’s assertion that it will arrive this year will prove accurate.
Until then, there’s no whisper of it on the Watch. You can't find it. The app won't appear, it can't be activated and it won't do its monitoring until a software update arrives.
And outside the U.S., there’s also no sign of the app and there won’t be until it’s approved in individual countries...
There is one glimmer of hope for Brits waiting to use the feature (I’m one of them). Apple could obtain permission from the equivalent agency in another E.U. country and a German cardiologist has hinted this might be the case in an interview for the website Heise.
In the interview, the cardiologist explains that the Apple Watch could accurately diagnose 95% of cases of atrial fibrillation (afib) even though it’s not suitable for other heart diseases such as myocarditis, infarction or circulatory disorders, he says.
The cardiologist, Thomas Meinertz, also says, “In my experience, a CE certification in Germany will come relatively quickly. But that just means that the procedure is safe and workable, it says nothing about the clinical benefit.”
In which case, if it’s approved in Germany, it will be approved in all EU countries. Given that the U.K. is currently supposed to leave the E.U. on March 29 2019, it had better be before then…
Read more, here at 9to5Mac and here at Forbes.
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