I bought a Martian Notifier a while back, and I like it a lot. For starters there's the fact that it's ridiculously discounted by 60 percent over on Amazon right now. But beyond that, the wearable hits a bit of a sweet spot for me. It's not flashy or distractingly tech. It doesn't look like I've strapped a tiny smartphone to my wrist.
It's a watch, first and foremost, with an analog face and hands—the whole shebang, really. You know, those old-timey types that don't go away when the screen goes to sleep? Really, "smartwatch" might not even be the right term here. It's more of dumb watch with aspirations of intelligence, courtesy of Bluetooth connectivity and small monochrome display ticker embedded in the face that offers up notifications from the connected app.
The company's Voice Command line is more iterative upgrade than full-on refresh. There's the titular voice feature, courtesy of a built-in mic and speaker, along with a slew of new watch designs. But the core functionality remains the same. After all, simplicity is what the Martian Watch is all about.
About Face
The Martian Active Collection comes in a trio of distinct styles—the Envoy, Aviator, and Alpha—each a good-looking watch in its own right, with prices ranging from $249 to $299. The theme here is luxury, right down to the fact that the company first made the watches available at Bloomingdale's retail locations.
And then there's the packaging. These watches don't ship like smartphones, they ship like watches, inside a nice box, wrapped around a tiny pillow. It's Martian's not-so-subtle way of telling prospective buyers that this isn't a smartwatch, it's something else entirely.
The model currently resting on my wrist is the Aviator. Here's Martian's J. Peterman Catalogue-esque description:
The Martian Aviator arouses nostalgia with its retro, timeless design. This watch evokes the freedom of open skies and the glamorous days of early aviation. Although equipped with smart watch capabilities and high-tech performance, the Aviator maintains the simple, distinctive style of a vintage or retro pilot's watch.
I know, I know. Point is, it's a nice looking watch, with a vintage style that belies its technological underpinnings. The face has large Arabic numerals at the three, nine and 12, hollowed-out hour and minute hands, and an off-white face that goes well with the black bezel and leather band.
At the bottom of the face is a small, monochrome display that is barely detectable up against the black background when not in use. The tiny screen serves as a sort of ticker tape for text that scrolls left to right when you get a notification. Just above it is a charging light that glows red when the watch is plugged in and green when it's all ready.
Design
On the right side, the large metal crown is flanked by two buttons that serve as the main method for interfacing with the watch's connected features. On the other side is the microUSB port (which, unfortunately, requires a custom long charging cable to access), which is hidden away beneath a removable flap and a small speaker grille for the voice functionality.
The aforementioned functionality seems to be behind the addition of a few millimeters of depth to the watch's size, while maintaining the same diameter as the Notifier. The watch certainly feels a bit chunkier on the wrist, but that's really the only major aesthetic complaint to an otherwise good like timekeeper.
The Aviator's strap is real leather, which may or may not be a good thing, depending on where you fall on the whole making animals into things argument. Fortunately, most of Martian's watch bands are synthetic. It's removable, and the watch fits standard-sized bands from other manufacturers, but unlike the Notifier, this isn't quick release—this one takes a watch tool and some plying to get off.
The watch has an IPX4 waterproof rating, so it's OK to sweat on, wash your hands with, and will almost certainly survive getting caught in the rain, but as the leather band suggests, it's not intended for swim sessions.
The rechargeable battery is solid and should give you a few days of life, no problem. And smartly, the watch's analog hands run on a separate watch battery, so it'll keep telling time even if you forget to charge it up.
Notifications
This is why I bought my first Martian watch in the first place, and the Aviator does the job admirably. Download the company's app after syncing up the watch and you can customize notifications for different apps, including most of the biggies like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, plus other phone features like calls, texts and calendar alerts.
Tapping on each one also brings up an option to customize the vibrations for the alert—sort of a specific Morse code to let you know what's coming through before you look. And when they do arrive, the notifications are crisp and clear on the display, easily read at a glance.
Features
The Aviator features a number of different controls. There's Music Mode, which lets you play, pause and skip songs using the physical buttons, and Camera Mode, which doubles as a shutter button for your watch.
Potentially intriguing features, the both of them, but the limited button and screen functionality on the watch makes for a pretty clunky execution. In both cases, there seems to be little gained from interacting with the watch's minimalist interface, instead of just pulling your phone out of your pocket.
Ditto for the Light feature, which simply illuminates the small charging light on the watch's face, presumably to use it as a flashlight. Instead it just highlights the watch's lack of front-lighting. The Find Phone feature, on the other hand, is legitimately hand, triggering a piano scale tone of your phone when it's lost.
Fitness tracking is the real 600-pound gorilla here. It's one of the main features driving wearable adoption. Martian has been making smartwatches for a while now, and it's hard to imagine why they haven't managed to bake in a pedometer yet.
Voice Command
The first time I saw the Aviator in action, there was a pair of ladies from Bloomingdale's present who were really taken with the watch's voice command functionality. And that's the dream, right? A little bit of the Dick Tracy communicator in our lives. The feature works via a mic on the right side and speaker on the left.
The mic is decent and the speaker is clear enough to hear people on the other end. Martian's user manual describes it as "essentially ... a Bluetooth headset," which is a pretty fair description, and while you don't have to shove it in your ear, like the detective from the funny pages, you'll want to keep it close to your head.
You can take calls and use your phone's voice commands with the watch. Once again, a novel approach, but can't think of too many moments in my own life where a watch would be a better option than a pair of headphones with a built-in speaker—or just speaking directly into the phone itself, like they did in days of yore.
It certainly doesn't strike me as enough to justify the premium over the Notifier line.
Bottom Line
Martian has once again crafted a lovely looking watch that marries the simplicity of analog time keeping with the convenience of display notifications. It's an ideal device for people who want some of the functionality of a smartwatch without looking like they're actually wearing one.
The designs of the new line are great, but the added functionality doesn't really add all that much over the company's simpler, more affordable line. And somehow the company managed to once again skip over fitness tracking, the most glaring omission of all.
