Inside of a growing sector of smartwatches is a burgeoning sub-set of watches better defined as connected chronographs, smart timepieces characterized by the absence of a micro OS such Android Wear and Watch OS. Breitling just released its first entry into that subset.
The $8,900 Breitling Exospace B55 is a connected watch that, like many of the watchmakers other offerings, is designed with aviation experts in mind.
Wearers use their smartphones to adjust the time, time zone, alarm, display, operating parameters and night mode on their Exospace B55 connected watches. They can also use their Exospace B55s to transmit recorded times and flight times to their smartphones.
"An authentic life companion, the Exospace B55 multifunction electronic chronograph also receives notifications of the smartphone's incoming emails, messages (SMS, WhatsApp) or phone calls (with caller's name or number) as well as reminders of upcoming appointments," says Breitling.
While it's technically Breitling's first connected watch, the company's Vice President, Jean Paul Girardin, pointed out that these waters aren't completely unfamiliar to the watchmaker.
"For us, using this technology was pure logic," said Girardin. "The key word "functionality" is very important, as well as precision...in 1995, we had the Breitling Emergency. It was equipped with a distress transmitter to communicate with a satellite. We didn't call it a smartwatch yet."
The market for wearable is still very much unsettled, as new things get smart and connected devices get smarter. The Exospace B55 has entered a market that's projected to ship more than 200 million wearable products in 2019, according to forecasts released by IDC on the same day Breitling announced its connected chronograph.
While many wearables are still fairly basic today, IDC is expecting a "proliferation of form factors" and product types, stated Jitesh Ubrani, senior analyst for IDC's Mobile Device Trackers.
"Smarter clothing, eyewear, and even hearables (ear-worn devices) are all in their early stages of mass adoption," said Ubrani. "Though at present these may not be significantly smarter than their analog counterparts, the next generation of wearables are on track to offer vastly improved experiences and perhaps even augment human abilities."
