This month we’ve had a wearables bonanza with two very cool smartwatches coming our way, plus some very impressive AR books and toys, enjoy!

Samsung Gear S3

I still remember my first watch. A red and blue, plastic, made in China, digital beauty that was also a Transformer. The fact it told the time was incidental. The reason I loved it was because of all the other crazy stuff it did. If we’re honest, smart watches are the grown-up version of that, still targeted at the same people. The difference is that now the “grownups” of my generation have a bit more pocket money to spend on their toys, and those toys can actually do a lot of the things that we couldn’t imagine back then.

Looks are also important, of course. A watch you choose to wear all the time should look the bollocks. I know my Transformer one was the king of the classroom, if only for a week. It’s a great feeling. And that’s the feeling I got as I unboxed the Samsung Gear S3 smart watch, in spite of it looking – sorry Optimus Prime – a whole lot classier than my childhood companion. Papa’s got a brand new toy, and it’s pretty awesome. Read the full review here.

RRP: £349

Tech Trends AR Toy Box:

Fun Educational AR Cards

It’s a good job I am a great big man-child as some of the most exciting advances in commercially available VR & AR are coming to market cunningly disguised as books and toys! So today I’m gleefully rummaging in the Tech Trends AR Toy Box for some STEM-based educational stuff as well something much more terrifying… The Educational option comes from ReTrak who are offering three Utopia 360° 4D+ Augmented and Virtual Reality kits for kids of 5+, The Space, Dinosaur and Animal Zoo 4D+ Bundles are literally amazing and I was blown away by the quality of the AR implementation and the educational content. Read both full reviews here.

RRP: £40

Alien: Augmented Reality Survival Manual

Next in my AR Toy Box is an excellent interactive book from Carlton Publishing featuring my favourite film of all time, Alien. Boy this is a treat for a geek like me, an Alien: Augmented Reality Survival Manual. The book was produced in partnership with 20th Century Fox and is full of detailed content on the marines, the tech and the universe of the films, with lots of high quality images and production artwork, But the AR is the USP here, and it doesn’t disappoint. Read both full reviews here.

RRP: £25

Suunto GPS Smart Watch

Who says that tech folk can’t be outdoorsy? This sturdy GPS smartwatch is the perfect geeky companion for all your fresh air pursuits.

As a Tech journalist I have to admit I spend most of my time staring at a computer screen (or a tablet screen, smartphone screen, TV… well, you get the picture, haha). But living in the great wilderness that is Somerset (it’s in the UK for any Americans that need to look it up) and with no fewer than three lively dogs to my name I also get dragged out of the house in all weathers to get wet, muddy and lost.

While I might not be your typical outdoorsman, however, I still like to think I could hack it in the wild, sharpening sticks, skinning seagulls and falling in rivers, that sort of thing. So I was keen try out the Suunto Traverse smart GPS watch. Very much a GPS navigation tool the Traverse is perfect for Hiking, Mountaineering, Trekking, Walking, Backpacking, Climbing and (less so in the UK as we have killed everything except the cows & sheep) Hunting. Read the full review here.

RRP: £325

Corkcicle Tumbler

Continuing Tech Trends’ crusade for ultimate hydration we took a sip from this very cute Corkcicle Tumbler. Promising at home or on-the-go, triple-insulated beverage security, the Tumbler promises to keep your drink cool for 9 hours or hot for three without freezing or cup sweat, I hate cup sweat, nothing worse! The Corkcicle Tumbler comes in two sizes and 13 colours. I have to say it rather attractive as far as insulated cups go, and it does do the job, as my coffee stayed hot for the two hours it took me to drink it on the train to Cornwall. Note of warning though, be sure to keep the sip slider closed when you are not drinking or all that lovely heat will disappear out the spout! Colours are a bit on the girly side perhaps, but I am secure enough in my masculinity so this was no biggie.

RRP: $24.95

Box Appetit by Black + Blum

Extreme Tupperware Tech! Long day of coding ahead? No time for lunch out? You’re going to need a lunch box full of healthy home made sarnies, celery sticks, and maybe even a Dairylea triangle and an apple to keep you going… Box Appetit by Black & Blum does the job in style, including an inner dish for food separation, sauce pot for dressings or condiments, and a fife (fork + knife) with a cutting edge for easy one handed eating.

RRP: £19.99

Joto the Robotic Drawing Board

Joto is the next generation drawing machine, combining elements of robotics and artificial intelligence with pen and ink. First launched via a Kickstarter campaign in early 2017, it sold over 1,800 units in just four weeks and raised over £362,000 – smashing its original target of £100,000. Joto was named the public’s favourite design at this year’s Beazley Designs of the Year exhibition at the Design Museum, and will be made available to consumers via an exclusive partnership with Selfridges later in 2017. Business customers already using Joto technology include Twitter, Google, IBM, Intel and Liberty of London.

Basically a connected whiteboard that draws with a pen, the Joto is happy sketching everything from works of art to messages. At the push of a button, Joto turns pixels on a screen into pen and ink drawings. Check out the video below to see how it brought the Tech Trends logo to life.

 “Most of the content we love is stuck on our screens, and as a result so are we. We’re seeing a new movement looking to engage people beyond the screen, indulging in both old and new technology, that embraces all the qualities we have lost with digital media. Examples of these success stories range from vinyl to Alexa. It’s the start of a new generation of technology in the home,” Jim Rhodes, the founder of Joto, explained to Tech Trends.

It’s great to see companies exploring the potential of creative robotics, and the design and art community is eagerly embracing the potential of the new technology in their work. Top names already creating exclusive artwork for the new medium include graphic designer Anthony Burrill, Mr. Bingo and Supermundane. To demonstrate the versatility of Joto, the team has launched 365 Days of Art, which will see a network of artists create and share unique designs with the Joto community via the app.

Creative robotics is an exciting new intersection between the worlds of design and technology,” adds Rhodes. “The response has been amazing, and with our ‘365 Days of Art’ project, top artists, designers and illustrators will be able to distribute their work on the Joto platform, letting users discover a new piece of art on their wall every day of the year.”

The post September 2017 Tech Trends Product Reviews appeared first on Tech Trends.

Tech Trends straps on the latest smart watch from Samsung.

I still remember my first watch. A red and blue, plastic, made in China, digital beauty that was also a Transformer. The fact it told the time was incidental. The reason I loved it was because of all the other crazy stuff it did. If we’re honest, smart watches are the grown-up version of that, still targeted at the same people. The difference is that now the “grownups” of my generation have a bit more pocket money to spend on their toys, and those toys can actually do a lot of the things that we couldn’t imagine back then.

Smart watches are about much more than just telling the time
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Looks are also important, of course. A watch you choose to wear all the time should look the bollocks. I know my Transformer one was the king of the classroom, if only for a week. It’s a great feeling. And that’s the feeling I got as I unboxed the Samsung Gear S3 smart watch, in spite of it looking – sorry Optimus Prime – a whole lot classier than my childhood companion. Papa’s got a brand new toy, and it’s pretty awesome.

Packed behind the 1.3” Super AMOLED touch screen and safely sealed inside the IP68 certified steel body are a 1 GHz processor, 768MBs of RAM, 4GB of storage and a huge 350mAh battery that promises a 3 day charge. All of this weighs in at 59gms and is attached via a very nice quality leather strap that is conveniently punched for wrists of all sizes.

So, what is it like to use? Let’s get the obvious out the way first, yes it tells the time but you can choose how, with a multitude of watch faces available and even more that you can download. So whether you’re a classic, analogue or digital person, there’s a watch face for you. So now we’ve got the timekeeping bit out of the way, what else can this baby do? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Initial setup and linking to my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone was very straightforward, and I soon had the watch synched with my calendar, Gmail and WhatsApp, and impressively the connection was rock solid. Over two weeks testing I never once lost the link between phone and watch. Location detection and weather is useful and accurate in my experience but you need to use a third party app like Here WeGo to get reliable maps and directions working independent of your phone. I did feel the lack of Google maps here but Here WeGo is a functional replacement.

Initial setup and linking to my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone was very straightforward
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A key feature expected of smart watches are fitness aids, and Samsung’s own Health apps tend to get good reviews, so the first thing I did when I strapped on the S3 was get out of the house and start moving. Within a few minutes the S3 detected that I was walking briskly, congratulated me (thanks!) told me how long I had been walking and how many calories I was burning, hooray!

When I stopped walking, the watch also detected that, and gave me a quick summary of my walk, and based on the number of calories I had burned, classed it as a healthy walk. Of course, it had no way of knowing that my brisk walk had taken me to the coffee shop where I proceeded to have a latte and a bacon sandwich. It’s not THAT smart.

The fitness app worked well, giving me lots of options and suggestions to make me more active
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After a while the app did warn me that I had been inactive for a while and encouraged me to exercise some more, which I did after I finished the last bit of bacon. As you can tell, I’m not the most active of folks, but joking aside this did get me thinking about my physical activity and caloric intake a bit more, and every little helps! And there are a lot more features and functionalities such as setting reminders to drink more water, easily logging how many glasses you’ve had each day. A quick twist of the dial will also show you more info on number of floors climbed, heart rate, number of steps taken, etc. You can also choose how naggy you like the app to be, so if – like me – you get tired of the constant nudges you can tone them down a bit.

Overall, the wireless charging works smoothly and the battery life held up pretty well even with days of intensive use. The screen is also lovely to look at considering its relatively low resolution. The only downsides to it were that although the buttons were nice, the twist dial that you use to navigate the menus was a bit too delicate, I would have liked a more solid-feeling one like in an old-school watch, but that’s a personal preference. The keyboard was also completely unusable, at least for me.

Downloading new apps for the Samsung Gear S3 via the Samsung Galaxy App Store is easy
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The main complaint I had is the same one everyone makes about Tizen devices – the app ecosystem is nowhere near as advanced as Android or the Apple app store – but having said that, I don’t need my watch to do everything my phone does, I still have a phone for all that, and wearing the Gear S3 I was able to find a good option on the Samsung Galaxy App Store to do everything I wanted, so it’s more of a niggle than a real issue. A huge plus was that downloading new apps via the Samsung Galaxy App Store is easy – done through the Get More Apps option within the S3’s Apps menu – downloaded and installed very smoothly via your phone. Very impressed with that side of things.

The notifications interface is really nice, where they pop up accompanied by a pleasant vibration and are then stored for review. Twist the dial anticlockwise to see them again and simply swipe up to pop in the trash and dismiss. Twisting the dial clockwise to access widgets is also very neat, adding extra app widgets such as calendar and world clock easily.

To add app shortcuts – for example Here WeGo – these could only be added to the App Short Cut Screen, which only allows 4 shortcuts, and that felt rather limiting. You can, however add multiple App Shortcut Screens and edit them so each screen shows four different apps. This is great but needs a bit of setting up and I would like to be able to twist the dial to the app I want and just touch to activate it.

The Samsung Gear S3 Reminded me of how much fun watches can be
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I had stopped wearing a watch years ago, but after trying out the Samsung Gear S3 I have become a convert again. Not only is it really useful to be able to see your notifications and read your emails without constantly having to fish your phone out of your pocket, but it reminded me of just how much fun watches can be – even though it doesn’t become a Transformer. Maybe there’ll be an app for that soon though.

Tech Trends is a Samsung consultancy and media partner and this is a #sponsored post. However, we retain full editorial control and all reviews accurately reflect our experience in testing out the products.

The post Product Review: Samsung Gear S3 appeared first on Tech Trends.