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The LG V40 ThinQ isn’t all LG announced at its event in New York City today. The company also took the wraps off the LG Watch W7, a smartwatch that’s something of a hybrid. Rather than make do with just a color touchscreen, it has mechanical watch hands, too.
LG is pitching it as an accessory for people “who value the look of a traditional timepiece but desire the convenient functionalities of a connected [watch].”
The stainless steel W7’s mechanical hands display altimeter, barometer, stopwatch, timer, and compass directions and automatically update to reflect the current time zone. LG teamed up with Swiss company Soprod SA for the gearbox and worked with Google to ensure the new hands don’t interfere with the display, instead moving out of the way automatically. (If they’re still in the way, the screen will shift up or down to give words more visibility.)
The hands aren’t just for looks. With the display and wireless radios disabled, the watch can last up to 100 days on a charge. (Normally, it lasts two days.)
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The W7 isn’t the first watch to market with those features — that honor goes to the MyKronoz ZeTime — but it is the first to ship with Google’s Wear OS operating system onboard. (Wear OS 2.1, to be exact.)
The Watch W7 measures 45.5mm x 45.4mm x 12.9mm, weighs 2.8 ounces, and sports a relatively small 1.2-inch, 360 x 360-pixel LCD display. And it’s IP68 rated, meaning it can withstand up to 1.5m of water for half an hour.
Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon Wear 2100 system-on-chip — a bit of an anachronistic choice, considering the Snapdragon 3100 was announced in early September — paired with 768MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage, and a 240mAh battery.
In terms of connectivity, the W7 connects to devices via Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.2 Low Energy. A USB Type-C 2.0 supplies power via POGO pins. And rounding out its sensor array is an accelerometer, gyroscope, pressure sensor, compass, and altimeter.
Notably absent from that list are GPS, LTE, and a heart rate sensor. You’re also out of luck on the mobile payments front, since it doesn’t have NFC.
The W7 is compatible with any 22mm band and will be available starting October 7 for $450. It starts shipping on October 14.
At that price point, LG’s targeting the upmarket Wear OS segment that includes the $549 Casio Pro Trek WSD-F30, among others.
But while mechanical watch hands are nice to have, it remains to be seen whether they’re worth the premium. After all, Apple’s compelling Apple Watch Series 4 lineup starts at $399, and the first smartwatch with Wear 3100 inside — the Montblanc Summit 2 — is due to be released this month. (To be fair, it’ll cost $1,000.)
