Bellabeat‘s recently launched Time smartwatch offers three noteworthy features besides its health-related technical features. Time is a hybrid analog and digital smartwatch developed and manufactured for women by a women-owned company. It also looks like jewelry. We’ve written about Bellabeat before. In 2015 Bellabeat introduced Leaf, a pendant wearable that tracks stress, sleep, physical activity, and ovulation. Shell, a smartphone app that records and plays back the sounds of a baby’s in utero heartbeat debuted in 2016. The earlier products hold clues for Time’s uniqueness
Time’s tracking and reporting features don’t move the puck very far down the ice from the original Leaf’s functions. Time uses Bluetooth wireless to transmit data to an associated smartphone app where you can access single-screen displays for sleep, activity, meditation, stress, and menstrual period. Each screen reports six to eight factors. When you look at the smartphone’s simple, analog display — it lacks even a second hand — you see nothing but the time. As with the Leaf, you can set Time to vibrate silently with alerts and reminders. Time stays busy tracking and reporting, but no one else will be aware of its covert digital doings.
Time is for sale (four words that are a joy to write) on Bellabeat’s website. Available in silver or rose gold, Time costs $179. Time conceals its digital brain behind an analog dial in the of in-your-face techiness.
