Vector, the smartwatch with a 30-day battery (hands-on)

BASEL, Switzerland — Vector, a new smartwatch brand from London has entered the ever-expanding wearable arena, hoping to joust with Android Wear and the Apple Watch by offering 30 days of battery life, classic watch stylings and an easy-to-use interface.

Two main models will be available: the Luna — a round watch costing $349 (£237) and the rectangular Meridian, costing $199 (£135). All models are waterproof to a depth of 50 metres and will go on sale this summer, globally, from Vector’s own online store as well as “select local retailers”.

Check out the Vector smartwatch with 30 days…
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Both the Luna and Meridian are evidently designed to mimic classic analogue watches, with their metal bodies and metal link, stitched leather or rubber straps. You can mix and match the straps to customise them as you see fit. I’m keen on the classic look of the watches and up close, they look well put together, and they’re comfortable to wear, too.

The displays are all digital, but monochrome, rather than colour. Supposedly, this is to increase contrast and therefore readability under harsh sunlight — something we’ll be putting to the test as soon as possible. A monochrome display is also like a factor in the claimed 30 days of battery life.

The watches have all the functions you’d expect from a fully fledged smartwatch. You’ll find step, calorie and distance activity tracking and sleep tracking. It links to your smartphone (Android, iOS and even Windows Phones are supported) to provide incoming notifications, upcoming calendar appointments and let you browse news headlines — pulled from RSS feeds you subscribe too in the app. You can also customise the look of the watch face from the app, too.

The watch face isn’t touch-enabled, so navigating around functions on the watch is instead done using three physical buttons on the side of the watch. In my brief hands-on time, this seemed fairly easy to do, although how much of a hassle this is to do in a hurry when you’re walking through busy streets remains to be seen.

The watch faces are simple and easy to read. As part of CEO Joe Santana’s mission to not have the watch intrude on your daily life, incoming notifications aren’t immediately displayed, instead appearing simply as a thick line around the watch face. If you do want read the notification, a flick of the wrist — performed within five seconds of the vibration arriving — will display the message.

Third-party app developers will also be allowed to put their own software on the watch. Nest is already a partner, and I was shown a demo of the watch being able to control a Nest thermostat from the watch face.

Outlook

It’s either extremely brave or extremely foolish for an unknown brand to go head-to-head against Apple and Google, but Vector’s promised 30-day battery life alone is enough to make this smartwatch extremely appealing. Its wide range of smart functions and attractive metal design won’t do it any harm either.