Before Google launched Android Wear and Apple introduced the Apple Watch, a startup called Omate was developing its own smartwatches running a stripped-down version of Google Android.
Now Omate is back, and this time the company is offering its most powerful smartwatch yet. The Omate TrueSmart+ has a 1.54 inch, 320 x 320 pixel display, 1GB of RAM, 8GB of storage, and it runs Google Android 5.1 Lollipop.
The Omate TrueSmart+ is basically a watch-shaped phone. It even has a micro SIM card slot and support for 3G connectivity.
Of course, Android was developed for smartphones and tablets, not for watches. So Omate developed a custom user interface called OUI which makes the launcher, settings, and other features a bit easier to navigate on a watch-sized display.
Since the TrueSmart+ runs the full version of Android rather than Android Wear, it can support many apps which may not be available for Google’s wearable platform. But you can’t access the full Google Play Store on the watch. Instead you can search for watch-friendly apps in the Ostore app store.
Worried that running Android instead of Android Wear will run down the battery quickly? Yeah, it probably would… but Omate gave the TrueSmart+Â a 700 mAh battery, which is about twice the size of a typical smartwatch battery.
Other features include a 1 GHz MediaTek MT6572M dual-core processor, WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, motion sensors, a microphone and a speaker.
Omate is taking pre-orders for the TrueSmart+ for $169 and says the watch should ship in November.
Want something a tiny bit cheaper? The Omate TrueSmart-i is also up for pre-order. This model ships in October, features a 240 a 240 pixel display, a 600 mAh battery, Google Android 4.4, and a 5MP fixed focus camera.
via UberGizmo
“The Omate TrueSmart-i is also up for pre-order.”
Isn’t that the one launched on KS in 2013?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/omate/omate-truesmart-water-resistant-standalone-smartwa/updates
They eschewed the µSD-card from the original and the waterproofness claim.
$169? Where is the catch? That is almost impulse buy territory.
doesn’t seem like it supports us gsm 3g.
MT6572M not 6752M , one is dual core A7 at 1GHz, the other 8xA53 at 1.5GHz.
I really wish they’d stop putting out chips with such similar model numbers. This isn’t the first time I’ve made that mistake!
Thanks for catching it.
Could be worse, you could have called it the 6502 :-p
That’s my motto: Things could *always* be worse.
It’s difficult when you have so many different chips. Qualcomm has lots of numbers too but they bundle a bunch under the same name (SD801 had some 5-6 different versions and SD400 a lot more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qualcomm_Snapdragon_devices#Snapdragon_400 ).
Mediatek did introduce the Helio branding this year and that should make it easier (and less precise) going forward.