Michael Bastian Creates a Smartwatch That Looks Like a Watch
High-tech meets high-style in the MB Chronowing from Michael Bastian and Hewlett-Packard.
THE MOST NOTEWORTHY thing about the MB Chronowing—the unabashedly guy-size smartwatch by designer Michael Bastian and Hewlett-Packard—is what’s missing: The timepiece has no touch screen to swipe, no microphone to speak into. It can’t track your steps or measure your heart rate. It doesn’t even beep.
Which is not necessarily a bad thing. “How many times have you been in a lunch and someone keeps checking their phone?” asked Mr. Bastian. His new watch is “intended to make you more polite,” he said, by allowing you to glance more discreetly at your wrist, hopefully less often than if you were wearing a techier smartwatch. It has the gentlest of vibrations to alert you to texts, emails and notifications from apps of your choice. It works with iPhone or Android so that “your phone isn’t dictating which watch you can wear,” and it has a clock dial on the face, because “that’s the thing you’re going to use 99% of the time,” he explained,
That clock does not have traditional hands, however. Those are rendered using the watch’s monochrome LCD display, which can also show messages, the weather, stock prices and other info. Swipe-accustomed millennials will probably marvel at the three chunky buttons, which can be used to navigate the watch’s old-school menus, activate a built-in light and control a phone’s music player. Battery life is an estimated seven days.
“Honestly, I’m not so much of a tech guy,” said Mr. Bastian. As such, the MB Chronowing will go on sale Nov. 7 at the online fashion retailer Gilt, not your local Best Buy. Two versions will be available: a limited-edition, all-black model with a sapphire-glass crystal and an alligator strap for $649, as well as a model that has just as much heft but is made with somewhat less refined materials (its three included straps are leather, rubber and nylon) for $349. gilt.com
