Victorinox, Acer team up for a new take on the smartwatch

Wearables may well be the new hot ticket item, but not everyone goes for a smartwatch, and if you prefer your watch to be more like a watch with the occasional notification, something from Victorinox may suit.

Announced this week, it’s a new gadget designed to go with a regular Victorinox watch, one of those analogue sorts that doesn’t have any electronics inside and instead relies on Swiss-made quartz movement to tell the time.

You know the sort, and Victorinox — makers of the Swiss Army Knife — have been making them for yonks, just like a bunch of other manufacturers out there.

While some of these other manufacturers are looking into smartwatches, the Victorinox approach is to team up with Acer for something a little different, with the end result being a clip on wearable that turns the Inox watch into a smartwatch with analog movement in the centre.

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To do this, Acer and Victorinox have built what is called the “Cybertool”, which is an accessory you mount the Inox smartwatch inside.

The Cybertool featured a round LED display to tell you notifications, and can talk to an Android device or Apple iPhone to get call notifications, messages, event reminders, and fitness notifications, as well as working as a stopwatch if need be.

Inside the Cybertool, you’ll find a 60mAh battery which Victorinox says is good for roughly a week of usage, and while the body is made of plastic, the screen is protected by a layer of Corning’s scratch-resistant Gorilla Glass 3 while also certified for IPX7 water resistance, making it relatively durable, which is kind of the point when the Inox watch Victorinox makes is made for adventuring and durability.

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We’ll admit that this one interests us more than other smart watches, partially because it does what we wish a lot of smartwatches would focus on: the time followed by notifications and help.

The approach with the Victorinox Inox watch and Cybertool is such that it has been built to sit on top of an already solid watch, adding the functionality of the wearable where it is needed.

One thing we can’t give you is the price, but knowing Victorinox it probably won’t be cheap. As a point, the stainless steel Inox watch sits around $975, and that’s without the Cybertool.

If you already have a Victorinox Inox, there’s a good chance we’ll see this for closer to $400 or $500 when it lands locally, so if you don’t have one, expect to pay at least a thousand for the privilege.

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