It appears that Sony has decided that it doesn’t want to deal with the difference between a smartband and smartwatch with the announcement of the Sony SmartBand Talk and Sony Smartwatch 3. Both feature similar fitness tracking abilities, GPS tracking, and even voice commands. With that being said, the two are both interesting additions to Sony’s list of announcements from IFA 2014.
The Sony SmartBand Talk adds an e-paper display to their existing smartband design, which increases its capability to provide notifications and updates. Inside is an ARM Cortex-M4 processor with 2MB of RAM. Also included is an integrated microphone and speaker which will allow users to make and take calls, how this work isn’t exactly clear yet; although it would be interesting to see if Sony can convince us that we won’t look silly talking into a watch. The SmartBand Talk has three days of battery life before needing a recharge and is IP68 water resistant.
Similarly, the Sony Smartwatch 3 adds the ability to provide voice commands to the next generation of Sony Smartwatch. This is courtesy of working closely with Google to ensure full integration with the Google Wear operating system. An improved battery will also allow the Smartwatch to last up to two days of constant use. It is also IP68 water resistant in accordance with everything that Sony makes these days.
Sony is also apparently preparing to ship the SDK for its prototype smart eyewear device at some point this year. Although there are almost no details about what it does at the moment.
Both the Sony SmartBand Talk and Smartwatch 3 will be available this autumn.
