Sony’s Wena smartwatch takes aim at luxury brands

A side-project by a small team from Sony is looking to be an example luxury watch brands should emulate if they intend to enter the smartwatch space. The Wena Wrist, which was successfully crowdfunded through Sony’s First Flight platform for employee pitches, isn’t the “smartest” smartwatch out there but it has enough tech to get some users by and still retails that classic look of a chronograph. Designed by the Wena team and manufactured by Citizen, this watch still looks like a simple chronograph but has tech that lies within the watch’s band. Its strap has an NFC chip that supports Japanese FeliCa standard for mobile payments; a pedometer for basic activity tracking; and a clasp that’ll light up and vibrate when you get a notification on your smartphone.

The project is in its early stages and there isn’t the iOS app to show off the features yet. The Wena team hopes to launch the device in Japan sometime next year. And once they do that, they might consider an international release and Android compatibility.

Source: Engadget