As a daily watch wearer who appreciates a good-looking, high-quality watch, I really want to like the Apple Watch. But I just can’t get over its rectangular face and short battery life. I think long and hard about design when I buy an analog watch, and Apple’s isn’t attractive enough for me to make the investment.
That said, I’ve been intrigued about smart watches since they were just a design concept, and I’ve wondered if my nerdy tech life was missing out by not having one.
I answered that question when Vector sent me their $299 Luna Smart Watch to review. It’s considered by many to be the most attractive model on the market.
And now, my feelings are mixed.
The Luna really does look a real watch at first glance, although it puts me off by its thickness. From a distance, its screen looks pretty good, but wearing it, I never got past its very low resolution and lack of brightness. That’s a trade off for its month-long battery life, but I can’t help but feel like I’m wearing a piece of technology more like a Palm Pilot than an iPhone.
Without a touch screen, the Luna instead uses three buttons on the crown to go forward, back or select. Almost all the functionality is controlled by the companion app, and until I started turning off notifications, it was buzzing at me nonstop. That, of course, was my fault … problem is now I forget that the watch is even doing anything other than telling time.
While it is a smartwatch, you can’t actually do a whole lot with the Luna. You can read texts but not reply. You can see tweets but not post. It’s like having notifications on your wrist but you can’t interact with them, and that becomes frustrating, since eventually, I started to wonder what’s the benefit of not having to use your phone if to reply to anything, you still need to use your phone?
The other functions are of limited use to me. As a music remote control, it’s just a clunkier way of playing songs. The calendar only partially jives with Google, and the remote camera trigger isn’t something I really use. As for the activity tracker, it’s hard to say, since this isn’t the kind of watch you can take in the shower or sleep with. It’s just too big, and while it’s water resistant to 50 meters, I personally wouldn’t let a leather band get soaked. During normal movement, it shows about 500-1,000 fewer steps than my Jawbone UP2, which I’m currently wearing on my other wrist.
In terms of watches, bigger isn’t always better. At 44mm, it looks big but not huge; however, the Luna has a really wide bezel, which means that the actual screen can’t typically display an entire text or tweet. And even at its brightest setting, it’s not very bright. I can’t read the time in my parking garage when I’m heading home from work. Finally, you can’t store more than a dozen or so companion apps (and watch faces count as apps), so if you want to customize the Luna endlessly, you’ll be disappointed. Those are a lot of limitations for a $300 watch.
But of course, it’s not all bad. If you want a smart watch that won’t rule your life, this may be it. Other than its low-resolution screen and thickness, the Luna is quite attractive, durable and works with both Android and Apple. Thankfully, the watch is always on, and coworkers tell me that from a distance, they couldn’t even tell it’s digital. Setup is very easy, although I couldn’t get the newest firmware to install.
It was a fun test to wear the Luna for a month, but it still feels like an expensive beta product. I can’t get over the screen, but maybe that won’t bother you. Ironically, wearing the Luna makes me less interested in acquiring an Apple Watch; once I realized I don’t have to take my phone out of my pocket to view everything in my digital world, I felt more bombarded by information than simplified by it. Even though the Luna is very attractive watch that barely feels "smart," it almost feels like too much.
Andy is the president, publisher and founder of OnMilwaukee. He returned to Milwaukee in 1996 after living on the East Coast for nine years, where he wrote for The Dallas Morning News Washington Bureau and worked in the White House Office of Communications. He was also Associate Editor of The GW Hatchet, his college newspaper at The George Washington University.
Before launching OnMilwaukee.com in 1998 at age 23, he worked in public relations for two Milwaukee firms, most of the time daydreaming about starting his own publication.
Hobbies include running when he finds the time, fixing the rust on his '75 MGB, mowing the lawn at his cottage in the Northwoods, and making an annual pilgrimage to Phoenix for Brewers Spring Training.
