By Harlan Chapman-Green
Hold your horses everyone. Now, we are all aware of the recently released Apple Watch, the thing that most other publications be them a watch blog or a technology blog are talking about right now. Some of them are even doing extended use articles where they check in with the audience every so often. We here at WristReview aren’t doing that, while we have nothing against smart watches (I personally love the concept), we feel that other blogs are doing such a fantastic job of coverage that we’re instead going to focus on the more traditional watches right now, however what I’m most definitely not saying right now is that we’ll never cover them in the future.
Now to the main focus of the article today. Last year IWC released a preview of the Connect system. Now they’ve released even more information about it. It gained a lot of attention and really showed us how the watch customers are split when the topic of electronic accessories (or whole watches) is brought up. Quartz has been around for a long time now and really put a strain on the watch industry, however difference is that we have many different ways to connect and tell the time simultaneously, meaning we aren’t as dependent on watches as we once were.
IWC realised this, and decided that the Connect system shouldn’t be a whole independent smart watch (yet), but should instead be an addition to the strap, much like Montblanc’s E-Watch strap. However this system looks to be much more sleek and refined, even if it doesn’t have a big screen to display messages.
The strap’s main function will be to provide fitness tracking abilities. Fitness has been a modern occurrence within most industries nowadays with multinational corporations such as Samsung and Apple sporting super advanced and powerful fitness systems. However, the name of the game is not just fitness, there’s also IWC’s Internet of Things, which isn’t at all ambiguous. What it is, is cleverly disguised, you see, IWC still isn’t ready to show us everything the Connect can do.
For now all we can tell is that the “Internet of Things” will work in conjunction with the Connect device to control and shape the environment around the wearer (i.e. your home). I personally hope that more companies take this idea and use it on their products (using their own designs of course). A lot of people make fun of smart watches, but they are a growing industry and fusing it with the traditional watchmaking will definitely help both industries expand into new and exciting territories.
For more info, please visit iwc.com
HARLAN CHAPMAN-GREEN – CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
A keen bass guitar player, Harlan enjoys all the perks modern watchmaking technologies the industry has to offer. Although you might catch him sampling Omegas or the Rolex, Harlan loves all things haute horology, with his three favourite brands being A.Lange & Söhne, Breguet and Vacheron Constantin. He hopes to study timekeeping more in depth someday and will never be able to thank his father enough for introducing him to the industry. Read his articles here.