Gadgetory

I'm Scott Stein maybe you've liked the idea of tech being invisible nothing here or looking like something out of a Dick Tracy movie if so what's on my wrist might interest you it's the Martian passport watch and it's a SmartWatch it doesn't require any other gadget except for the phone that's in your pocket the whole time communicating with it via bluetooth now you ever think about communicating with your watch call my wife it's all about style and it's all about a type of tech fetishization that's specific to that Dick Tracy aesthetic you're not gonna find any health monitoring on here you're not gonna find any music playback that's not that type of SmartWatch there's no touch screen on this watch in fact there's only a tiny LED screen at the bottom it's really an old-fashioned analog watch with style that's a 1960s type of throwback Martian makes three different types of watches in this line the passport there's also a round one called the victory and a candy colored version of this watch with wrist bands ranging from black silicone here to leather and the feel of it stainless steel case the crystal cover the analog construction here feels like a throwback watch and one that you might not feel uncomfortable at all wearing out it's pretty stylish and a fossil type of way but better because this thing is $2.99 that's pretty expensive compared to other smartwatches in this territory and what it has really is a suite of Bluetooth connecting apps and services you're really going to be banking the most on using this for its speakerphone capabilities there is a microphone that is noise cancelling and there's also a speaker built into the base of this watch and with Bluetooth 4.0 it connects with iOS or Android to make phone calls to answer phone calls hello oh good are you I'm also via small Ola treat at the bottom it will tell you who's calling communicate text messages notifications and allow you to change settings martien watches work with an app that is available now on Android is forthcoming on iOS and it allows you to take a short of notifications you're going to receive via social networking email or other now iOS you can still do a lot of functions right now including placing calls using Siri the way you would with any other Bluetooth device and also to receive text messages via that little OLED screen or find out who's calling you want to do some call screening there's a vibrating buzzer on here that's very loud and lets you know when it calls coming in now you can also feel what's going on in your pocket if you've got a phone and some pretty good nerves in your thigh but if you want to sit in your living room for instance your phones out of reach there maybe you don't have your phone you left your ringer off and I found it pretty useful in that regard what else you're gonna use this thing for well unfortunately this does not port over to a Bluetooth headset and it does not have any headphone jacks so any communication you're doing with the Marcia Pat sport watch is going to be like Dick Tracy's speaking directly into it but it's going to have a real impact when you have conversations in fact when I spoke with my wife on a shelf and told me to switch back over to the phone as soon as possible hey how are you doing I'm calling for the test video can you can you hear me can you hear me at all okay and it charges via micro USB via a little door on the side and it comes with its own micro USB charge cable and even a little AC adapter the Martian watch will last for up to seven days of standby two plus hours of talktime and thirty days of use for the analog watch now so far over the course of a week that's held up and a week is pretty good between charges for all of your basic functions and two hours of talk time may sound like not that much but trust me you're not going to want to talk for more than 25 minutes on this maybe not even five my arms getting tired there are a couple of other neat funky little features on the Martian watch including a camera mode that allows you to Bluetooth connect to your camera app and control the shutter from the button there's a fine phone mode but it only works via the Martian app and plays music instead you could also try using the leash mode which lets you know when the phone and the watch have gone out of range and gives you a little buzz reminder most likely you've left your phone in your apartment so that's the Marchman passport watch in a nutshell cool design not really that useful a set of features watch fetishists take note i'm scott stanford CNET