Sony Smartwatch 2

[donb2010]

I was thinking of getting the Sony Smartwatch 2 because it's cheaper than the Galaxy Gear and it's compatible with more phones. Has anyone owned or have tried it out just curious to know how well does it work?

 

[chimphappyhour]

I've got the 1st version (Sony's 2nd attempt after the Liveview) of the Smartwatch. It's not bad. The big thing you'll see is that there are several apps you have to download to make the thing work with whatever phone you have. And if it isn't a Sony phone, not all the features will work properly as far as the phone goes from what I can tell. (Although, I couldn't tell you for sure as the most prominent problem people have is the phone calls. Hmm, and I don't really do all that much with the actual phone part of my phone.)

It's nice and simple. It looks pretty good and I think the SW2 looks even better. My SW1 gets a lot of compliments and it has that silly white plastic clip going on on the back. The tap twice to wake feature on the SW1 is a bit hit or miss. Hoping it is better on the SW2.

There's a few 3rd party apps out there worth getting and one I've not convinced myself of yet as it is a bit much and a bit convoluted to use. It does add notifications from pretty much anything though. It's just that it's not very clear.

All that said, I was definitely looking at picking up the SW2 but Sony took so long to get it to the US market that I might as well wait and see what Google is cooking up and then decide.

 

[radman2020]

I have it and it is good for vibrating when I get texts, fb posts and calls. That is what I wanted it for. It is a little bulky and I had to enlarge my sleeve button hole so my shirt cuff would slip over it. It took the Augmented Smartwatch app to allow me to make the font big on the text messages and control the number of vibrations. Maddingly, the sony apps and settings don't allow you to modify fonts or number of vibrations... The alerts wake the watch... but to wake it otherwise, you annoyingly have to hit the button, then the touch controls. You can see the time without touching anything though.

My only big issue is that I seem to be getting intermittant interference in my car with my voice bluetooth where caller's voices are a bit garbled.. It stops if I turn off the watch.

 

[chimphappyhour]

Saw an add for the SW2 at Best Buy and it was showing they were selling the version with the metal wrist band for the same price the original rubber wrist band sold for. So I went in to look at it to see if that's what they really had. It is!

First off, the metal band really makes this into a nice feeling watch. Had to go to a couple of jewelry stores to get it resized. Of course, anywhere I stopped in someone would do a double take and want to know more about it. I suspect I've sold a few more of these due to that. (You can thank me later Sony!) The SW2 next to the SW1 makes the 1 look and feel like a toy. The SW2 comes off as a real watch.

The SW2 is much easier to read and gives a tad more info than the SW1. I miss the tap or shake to wake but like that the screen is always showing the time. I'm hoping Sony hurries up and gets more watch faces out soon but I have found the analog with date looks pretty good. (Note, don't bother getting any of the watch face apps out of the play store. They'll only work while the watch is awake and the watch reverts to one of the standard faces once the phone goes into "sleep" mode.)

WatchNotifier is a must as is the calculator app that has a yellow = sign in its icon. The Magic 8 Ball app is fun too.

Overall, I think this watch is worth the $200 that BB is asking for right now with the metal band.