Wearables are useful little devices, but many of them suffer from short battery life, and in my case at least, I forget to charge mine from time to time. So when I saw GLIGO E-Ink smartwatch promising 2-year battery life on a charge, it caught my eyes.
But then looking into the details, it looks like battery life is really 6 months unless you don’t plan on using the display:
We adopted an energy-efficient dual-core design:the quartz core has a battery life of up to two years, e-ink screen has a battery life of up to 180 days.
Six months is not that bad either, so let’s still have a look.
GLIGO E-Ink smartwatch specifications:
- MCU – Unamed Arm Cortex M3 microcontroller with 128KB memory
- Display – E-ink segmented display
- Japanese Watch Movement
- Connectivity – Bluetooth 4.2 LE
- Sensors – Green light heart rate sensor (HRM), 3D G-sensor, 3-axis accelerometer
- Misc – 15,000 rpm vibrator
- Battery – 100 mAh charged with magnetic charging
- Dimensions – 41mm ∅ x 12 mm thickness (361 stainless steel + tempered glass)
- Weight – 58 grams
- Water Resistance – 3 ATM (up to 30 meters deep)
The battery situation is a little odd, but as far as I can understand, the quartz is maintained by a non-rechargeable cell coin battery (and typically lasts 2-year), while a separate rechargeable battery is used for the e-ink display and related electronics and can last up to 6 months on a charge. The exact duration will depend on Bluetooth connectivity, notification frequency, and heart rate monitor usage. So even if the rechargeable battery is depleted, you could still use the watch without E-Ink display, by just reading the time using the watch’s hands.
The face comes with straps made of full leather or stainless steel mesh. it can perform all talks found in fitness trackers like step counting, heart rate monitoring, sleep monitoring, setup alarms (with vibrator) and reminders, as well as handle notifications from Android or iOS smartphones thanks to GliGo watch app.
The watch launched in Indiegogo and with 16 days to go, close to 2,600 backers pledge around $240,000, well beyond the funding target. But there are still many $99 early bird rewards with either steel mesh or leather strap. The watch come with a charger, and since $100K and $200K stretch goals have been met a button cell battery and Apple USB cable will also be included. Shipping is free worldwide, and you should expect your reward in September 2018 if everything goes accordingly to plan.
Jean-Luc started CNX Software in 2010 as a part-time endeavor, before quitting his job as a software engineering manager, and starting to write daily news, and reviews full time later in 2011.
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I’m getting older, and I’m seeing 2 needs that aren’t being met for me and my peers (I blame it on engineers and marketers being too young, trendy, sporty ^^).
Both are for stylish devices to be worn while at work or on the town, w/o looking like a dork or a misplaced athlete:
1- a simple smartwatch that simply forwards high-priority alerts, for parents’ kid emergencies and high-availability professionals, so that you ALWAYS get that important message (pick up the kid, call back your boss) even if your phone is at the bottom of a bag, you’re in a noisy bar… Basically just “pick up your phone !”)
2- a ‘”social-only” smartwatch (no sports stuff, so smaller and more stylish) especially for service/sales workers that can’t use their phone during working hours but don’t want to lose touch with all their “friends”. Allows you to discreetly message.
An e-ink screen seems like a good fit for both.
They claim 30 m water resistance with an IP65 classification. It’s completely wrong and misleading. The IP65 classification does not allow any submersion. It only guarantees that low pressure water jets have no harmful effects at a distance of 3 m!
It is not very reassuring to commit money on it…
Hmm, yes now I can see IP65 is part of the description, but specs clearly read 3 ATM (in a photo, so not searchable). The former may not even handle just taking a shower, but the latter would be OK with some snorkeling, and maybe some not-too-deep diving.
It’s an IP68 worthy seal but the materials aren’t anti-cursive to withstand hours of exposure to sea water and chlorinated water as those might damage the strap or the finish so they didn’t certify over IP65. IMHO unless they advertise as a diving / sports watch, it’s not an issue.
it’s already sold on:
http://www.globalsources.com/si/AS/Shenzhen-Pertie/6008839245746/pdtl/Bluetooth-smart-watch/1153380708.htm
https://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/New-Arrive-Best-E-Ink-Display_60718005298.html
no need to wait till the end of indiegogo 🙂
and probably for 50$ in a flash sale on 11.11
If I was designing this then:
a) would ditch the dual-battery thing and just have a single replaceable lithium battery powering everything. Non-rechargable batteries have about double the energy density of rechargables, and for the timescales involved, just replacing a battery is reasonable
b) Digital LCD clock display instead of analogue, again about twice as energy efficient.
Can u believe it?
if this is true, the campaign is fraudolent. wish i didn’t participate
https://selenee.shop/collections/watchs/products/50-off-2-year-battery-life-e-ink-smartwatch
After owning several smartwatches and finally receiving my Gligo here is my review of the watch and this company. The customer service of Gligo is terrible. They do not return emails in a timely manner. By that I mean it can take days to even get a response. I tried connecting with them on FB and after talking to a rep for a little bit they broke off chatting with me. I was never rude or swore I just explained my disappointment with the watch and the app and was asking for a refund. Since it was FB IM it lets you know when the message was read. So I was ignored on purpose because they did not want to answer my question or did not know the answer. The person I talked to even said: “But you only view the negative comments.” Which is untrue, I had the watch and made up my own mind of the quality. Now on to the watch itself. The build quality feels cheap, My first Pebble, which was all plastic, fell higher quality. The glass seems cheap and at certain angles seems warped. The steel mesh band is inflexible and uncomfortable. The watch band I bought for my Amazfit Bip for 10 US dollars is of better quality. The notifications on the watch face disappear so quickly that you can not tell what the notification was for. It does not take a periodic heart rate and you have to go to the app to get a heart rate. Now on to the app itself. The app is lackluster and hard to navigate. I could not get my calendar events to appear no matter which mode I put the phone into. The options in the setting menu are confusing as is the documentation. The watch seems barely connected as you can not even use it to have your phone’s smart lock feature and does not show up in the Bluetooth settings. Overall I am incredibly disappointed with this watch and would only recommend it to someone I dislike. All I was looking for was a refund as I could have spent 20 US dollars on Timex if all I wanted was a quartz watch. After tonight if someone does not reach out to me I will be making it my mission to post this review on every social media outlet I can find.
Contribution ID
#4865
Placed on
September 15, 2018
After owning several smartwatches and finally receiving my Gligo here is my review of the watch and this company. The customer service of Gligo is terrible. They do not return emails in a timely manner. By that I mean it can take days to even get a response. I tried connecting with them on FB and after talking to a rep for a little bit they broke off chatting with me. I was never rude or swore I just explained my disappointment with the watch and the app and was asking for a refund. Since it was FB IM it lets you know when the message was read. So I was ignored on purpose because they did not want to answer my question or did not know the answer. The person I talked to even said: “But you only view the negative comments.” Which is untrue, I had the watch and made up my own mind of the quality. Now on to the watch itself. The build quality feels cheap, My first Pebble, which was all plastic, fell higher quality. The glass seems cheap and at certain angles seems warped. The steel mesh band is inflexible and uncomfortable. The watch band I bought for my Amazfit Bip for 10 US dollars is of better quality. The notifications on the watch face disappear so quickly that you can not tell what the notification was for. It does not take a periodic heart rate and you have to go to the app to get a heart rate. Now on to the app itself. The app is lackluster and hard to navigate. I could not get my calendar events to appear no matter which mode I put the phone into. The options in the setting menu are confusing as is the documentation. The watch seems barely connected as you can not even use it to have your phone’s smart lock feature and does not show up in the Bluetooth settings. Overall I am incredibly disappointed with this watch and would only recommend it to someone I dislike. All I was looking for was a refund as I could have spent 20 US dollars on Timex if all I wanted was a quartz watch. After tonight if someone does not reach out to me I will be making it my mission to post this review on every social media outlet I can find.
Contribution ID
#4865
Placed on
September 15, 2018