I remember when the first Samsung Galaxy Gear Smartwatch came out and it had that huge camera hump, I loved to take pictures with it (no matter how bad the quality.) Looking back on that now, I honestly never thought I’d want another smartwatch with a camera, but after seeing Arrow’s concept-turned-reality from Indiegogo, I could really see myself putting this to use…
Arrow built a beautifully designed smartwatch that works with both iPhone and Android with a very unique feature, a 360-degree rotatable 1080P HD camera. No, this isn’t a 360-degree camera like the ones that take round pictures, but a camera that rotates around the bezel of the watch so you can take a picture or video from any angle. Starting at just $150, it’s already a great price for a good smartwatch without this stand-out feature. Giving you 8GB of internal storage, you can really store as many pictures or videos as you can take before tethering to your phone and transferring them over Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to free up local space on the watch.
Arrow comes with a 5MP / 1080P camera that’s optically stabilized to help take better pictures. How they built optical stabilization into a camera this small is beyond me, but makes the watch a whole lot more interesting!
The developers behind Arrow claim around 20 hours of mixed use out of the 400mAh battery, and with the OLED display, I could truly see this being possible. Arrow runs “Arrow Wear OS” which is built off of Android 5.1 according to the company. It features Bluetooth LE 4.2, Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, has 8GB of internal storage, and uses standard 24mm watch straps.
Arrow also features fitness tracking, GPS navigation, phone call pass-through, notification viewing, and even replying to messages without having to pick up your phone. This unique smartwatch will also allow you to sync media locally to it to use without a connection, or control your favorite streaming service from your phone with the watches interface so you never have to pull your phone out of your pocket when going out on a run.
All in all, Arrow is an exciting smartwatch for me. The smartwatch market has long been stale without proper innovation, so I’m glad to see someone actually taking a risk on a new idea. Arrow is already over 800% funded of their goal, and starts at a really good price of just $150, $170 if you want leather, and $190 if you want metal for the band. They also sell the bands individually, if you want to snag a few extra to go with any outfit you might wear. Sadly, Arrow is not fully water-proof, but it is IP65 rated, meaning that it is dust and splash resistant. The developers behind Arrow expect it to ship around February 2018.
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