Introduction, design and interface
Smartwatches have gotten a lot better looking over the past year with new attractive models. Some devices even look the part of a traditional timepiece including the Moto 360 and LG G Watch R and Samsung Gear S. But if you're looking for something even more old school, Martian has created a set of wearables that integrates a mechanical clock face with an electronic display for notifications.
The Notifier sits on the low-end line of Martian smartwatches currently on sale at Best Buy for $99 (about £63, AU$117). At first glance it looks like a standard analog watch. But towards the bottom of the Notifier, there's a discreet OLED screen that lights up with scrolling notifications. The Notifier also has the ability to use voice commands - though it's not what you think. More on that later. The wearable also lacks a pedometer and many apps you can typically find on Android Wear devices.
The Martian Notifier has a style of its own, but let's see if it's enough to make this hybrid analog timepiece-smartwatch worth a purchase.
Design
The Martian Notifier is on the chunkier side compared to other wearables I've slapped on my wrist. It's not quite as big as the Samsung Galaxy Gear S or the Puls Smartband, however with a 1.7-inch round face, it looks big even on my moderately sized wrist. It's also well on the thick side sitting half an inch (12.7mm) above your wrist, which makes taking off a heavy jacket in the winter a real chore.
Although the Notifier has such a large face, it's fairly barebones as an analog watch. For one, there's no second hand at all. The watch does not have a mechanical calendar either and it's missing several numerals at the bottom of the clock face to make room for the electronic screen. What's more, the lines for the 20 and 40 minute marks have been offset to accommodate the LED, which makes it practically useless for keeping time.
Thankfully the shortcomings of this just-for-show analog watch can be remedied by flicking on the OLED screen. You'll also be relying heavily on the electronic display to check the time because the only illuminated part of the watch are its two hands - making reading time in the dark nearly impossible. The good news is that the digital display is nice and clear to read even in bright sunlight.
As far as aesthetics, my Martian Notifier looks like an everyday - though extremely basic and inaccurate analog watch. My particular review unit came with a black frame and band, but the smartwatch is also available in other colors with a white or red face. You can also customize your watch by swapping out the default band by choosing one of Martian's many hued bands that range from red to violet.
Unfortunately, comfort is a huge (literal) sticking issue with the Notifier thanks to a thick, yet narrow plastic band. Worse yet, the inside edge of the band comes to a sharp corner that digs into your skin as you wear it.
While it's possible to replace the wrist strap with another standard 22mm watch band, it will stick out like a sore thumb. The band is attached to the Notifier by way of two long forks, which extend and dip below the watch's main body. By extension, Martian's bands are made with an extra bit of material to cover this gap, so any third-party strap you attach with look incredibly unseemly.
Features, app and battery life
Pairing the Martian smartwatch is easy enough on iOS and Android. The latter requires an extra step of buttoning through the options on the watch to put a checkmark for Android. After that, all you'll need to do is launch the app and follow the instructions.
The main feature of the Martian Notifier is of course, notifications. Whether it's an email, phone call, text, Facebook update, Twitter DM or what have you, if it pops up as a notification on your mobile device, you'll get the same ping mirrored on the Notifier. Beyond system apps, there's also support for third party apps including ESPN and Snapchat.
The smartphone app picks out every compatible app from the get-go, but there's the option to disable any unwanted updates filtering the list to a shorter stack. You can also set up custom vibration patterns for every type of notification letting you identify them without looking at your wrist.
While the system works well enough, it's also annoying waiting for the scrolling text to show the entire message. Even with the speed set to max, I find it's much simpler and easier to read the whole notification at a glance on wearables like the Pebble Smartwatch. Since the Martian Notifier only has a tiny sliver of a digital screen, this also makes it useless for anything aside from text notifications.
Features and app
Another problem with the Martian Notifier is its bare bones simplicity. Aside from notifications, you can launch your smartphone's voice control, Siri on iOS and Google Now on Android, with the push of a button on your wearable - but you're still saying commands into the handset's microphone. Essentially, you're already holding your smartphone or wearing a pair of microphone equipped headphones connected to the device - most of which can trigger the same command with a long press of the remote button. Ultimately this makes the feature redundant since you're not actually speaking into the smartwatch.
Aside from this you can program the app to push the current weather forecast to the smartwatch, set up a silent alarm clock, or remotely trigger the smartphone camera. There's also a panic button for finding your paired smartphone as well as an option to leash the wearable to the smartphone - which will cause the Notifier to buzz when you've gotten too far from your handset and disconnects. That wraps up everything you can do with the Notifier.
By comparison, the lower priced $99 (about £63, AU$117) Pebble has all of the same features as the Notifier and can act as a pedometer, thanks to a Misfit app, while throwing in music controls and much more. The same goes for the identically priced Samsung Gear Fit, which does even more as an activity tracker equipped with a heart rate monitor.
Battery Life
In my testing, the Martian Notifier died after a surprisingly short four days, considering the only smartwatch bits include a bluetooth module and one small LED panel. The maximum specified battery life is five days, which you should be able eke out by limiting the number of notifications that appear to a select handful.
Luckily even if you forget to charge the smartwatch, the analog watch runs on a separate battery rated for five years. Charging the device, meanwhile, requires the included micro USB cable because the charging port is seated further inside the Notifier's chassis.
Compatibility
One of the great things about the Martian Notifier is that it will work with practically any device you throw at it. iPhone 4S and any model above are all good to go. Android phones are also almost universally supported, so long as you're using a device with at least Android 2.3.3. I can also personally vouch that the Martian Notifier works well with the iPhone 6 and HTC One M8, as well as the Nvidia Shield tablet.
Verdict
We liked
As far as smartwatches go, this is one of the simplest devices to pair and set up with a smartphone. Once you've gone through tweaking your settings in the app it's pretty much set to go all on its own. The Martian Notifier also reliably sent over every notification without a single hiccup.
We disliked
Ultimately the Martian Notifier feels like a pile of compromises. It meets the bare minimum requirements to be an analog watch with smartwatch features, all the while making too many trade-offs to achieve both its goals at the same time.
The analog watch is unreadable due to both the missing markings and the displaced notches on the bottom of the watch. At the same time, the tiny sliver of a digital display is only really useful for text notifications while the Martian Notifier is sorely lacking in features. Even if it is an entry level wearable, there are other smartwatches and activity trackers that also show notifications and do much more for the same price point.
Final verdict
While it's great the Notifier works as promised, it's simply not worth it even with its currently discounted price at Best Buy. A regular, completely analog watch as mechanically simple as the Notifier would only cost about $25 (about £15, AU$29) by itself. Even taking the extremely limited smartwatch features into account, it still does not make any sense why the Martian Notifier costs as much as it does.
You could pick up a more feature packed Pebble Smartwatch or Samsung Gear Live for the same price. Sure it won't have an analog clock face, but you'll still get your notifications, a silent alarm, remote camera trigger and everything the Notifier can do. Plus these other competing wearables also have a pedometer, music controller and many other features that the Martian Notifier lacks.
from www.techradar.com
