Sony SmartBand Talk goes official with a 1.4″ curved e-ink display


The gadget fest continues at the IFA as Sony officially unveils its latest piece of wearable kit — the SmartBand Talk SWR30.

Unlike many other full-fledged smartwatches that we’ve seen in the past, the SmartBank Talk doesn’t make calls, nor does it come with a camera and other fancy stuff. Instead, it takes the minimalistic approach (arguably practical as well) and comes with IP68 waterproof certification and an always-on display.

The display that we talk about is a 1.4-inch e-ink panel with a 296 x 128 pixel resolution. There’s also a ARM Cortex-M4 processor to take care of basic processing and timekeeping on the SmartBand Talk, but what you should care about it the radio functionality on this baby that includes Bluetooth 4.0 and NFC.

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Sensors including an accelerometer and an altimeter feature on the SmartBand Talk’s specs set. Primarily designed as a notification assistant, the SmartBand Talk comes with a mic and speaker set that you can use during phone calls. Thanks to a teeny 65mAh battery, such phone calls can last up to 1 hour in duration; the smartband does 3 days of standby, otherwise.

With those specifications, the smartband doesn’t appear to be the most expensive wearable you’ll see this month. While it is going to be hard for any other manufacturer to match the $13 price tag of the Mi Band (which, to be fair, comes with a lot less functionality), we do hope to see more wearable tech around the $30 mark.

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4 Comments

  1. Ruub
    September 3, 2014

    Typo(or something): It does indeed make phonecalls over bluetooth, the band includes both its own mic and speaker

    • Irv
      September 4, 2014

      A bit confusing indeed!
      Other than that, it looks like the ordinary activity tracker with a screen and talk function. Doesn’t look too bad, but the 3 day battery puts me off…

  2. Auggy
    September 4, 2014

    Its going to sell for around 200$.. Thats way too expensive for an e-ink panel smartwatch.

  3. bobo
    September 4, 2014

    This might be the one for me, but I’ll wait to know its price before deciding whether or not to buy it.