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Martian smartwatch still a little spacey

Edward C. Baig
USA TODAY
The Martian G2G smart watch.
  • Lets you use voice commands
  • Melds old-fashioned watch design with smart features
  • Suffers from bugs

NEW YORK — Who knows if and when Apple or Samsung will produce the smartwatches that the rumor mill suggests the companies are working on. But even without an iWatch or Galaxy Watch (or whatever these might be called), there is no shortage of timepieces on the market that go beyond being the clock on your wrist.

I recently reviewed the Pebble smartwatch, a darling on the Kickstarter crowd-funding platform. Lately I've been trying out a lower-profile Kickstarter alum, the Martian Watch G2G. The folks at Irvine, Calif.-based Martian Watches claim it is the "world's first voice-command watch." You can use it in tandem with an iPhone or Android device over Bluetooth to make calls, dictate texts and notes, and then some, letting you leave your phone in your pocket. There's also a potentially helpful "Leash" feature that can notify you if you're about to leave your phone behind.

In other words, it's got some cool features. But it's also a pricey product with limited mainstream appeal, and one with some features that were either too complicated or didn't work at all.

Martian recently updated the "firmware" on the device, and the iOS and Android apps on the phone that help control functions on the watch. You press a button on the watch to answer or reject a call.

Though styling preferences are left to the beholder, Martian Watches to my eye are generally more attractive and not as geeky as other smartwatches I've seen. Martian takes the styling part seriously. This is an analog quartz watch with physical hour and minute hands that move around your standard dial, making it easy to mistake it for an ordinary timepiece. That's in major contrast to the Pebble watch, which employs changeable digital watch faces on the screen. Pebble also is compatible with third-party apps (fitness, new watch faces), while the Martian is not.

The most obvious techie element on the Martian comes in the single-line LED display just below the watch hands, which can reveal the name of a caller, local weather, the time in another location, and notifications and alerts of various kinds, such as when someone mentions you in a tweet. But not all the alerts came through as promised.

There's also a small status light that touches the "4" on the clock dial. The inner workings of the watch include a noise-cancellation microphone, decent speaker and accelerometer. The watch has two buttons on the left side, another on the right, along with a flap that conceals a micro USB port that is used to recharge the watch and update the firmware. Martian promises two-plus hours of talk time and a week of standby time, though the analog clock above the display will go about a month.

The G2G model I tested costs $249. Mine had a white silicone band, though it's available in other colors. Martian also sells pricier $299 models with the same functionality. The phone is splash-resistant but not waterproof.

Martian invites the inevitable comparison with the kind of two-way wrist radio associated with Dick Tracy — yes, it's virtually impossible to write about such watches without the requisite Tracy mention. In fact, you can talk into your wrist with the Martian and hear the person at the other end gabbing right back at you.

But the watch differs in an at least one important aspect from the kind of hands-free Bluetooth headset you might wear in or over your ear. With such a headset, only you hear the other caller. The wristwatch scenario, however, is like using a speakerphone, something you must be mindful of in a public setting.

I tested the watch with my iPhone 5, and that meant I could use my voice to summon Apple's voice assistant, Siri. But anyone nearby could hear Siri as well.

Beyond the ability to make or answer calls, you can use the Martian to hear texts or calendar events read out loud, or to become a remote control for the shutter on your phone's camera, a feature that I don't envision using very often in practice. Each time I wanted to use that camera feature I had to tap an alert on the iPhone screen to allow Martian access, an extra burdensome step.

Through the Android version of the app, you can take advantage of Google Now.

You can also use Martian to read texts — they scroll on the LED, but you can read only the first 40 characters of the message — and to receive notifications of direct messages on Facebook, Twitter mentions, calendar alerts, reminders, and e-mails from a single account. You can tap the watch glass within one minute of receiving your last notification to read it again. The phone vibrates on notifications and calls.

But I never did receive any notifications of the Gmail account that I tried to set up with the watch — the Martians I talked to couldn't solve the problem. Facebook messages didn't come through at first, either, though Martian seems to have come up with a fix.

I encountered other bugs. By turning on a Bluetooth feature called A2DP, you are supposed to be able to play music on the watch, though I'm not sure why you'd want to. Either way, I couldn't get it to work.

I ran into another issue trying to update the "firmware" on the watch through a Mac. I couldn't get that to work either, but was able to successfully update the firmware via a Windows 7 laptop. On the iPhone you can request alerts to appear on the watch within three to 15 minutes of when they hit your phone (frequent checking can be a battery drain, though). On Android, you can receive alerts without a delay.

In the end a lot of little issues add up to a bigger problem. There's potential here. But the Martians haven't quite landed yet.

E-mail: ebaig@usatoday.com. Follow @edbaig on Twitter.

The bottom line

Martian Watches G2G

www.martianwatches.com

$249

Pro. Stylish. Blends traditional look with smartwatch features. Delivers alerts. Leash feature. Lets you dictate.

Con. Buggy. Not all notifications and features worked. Expensive. Not waterproof.

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