The smartwatch that begins where the Apple Watch ends

Photo credit: Witworks.

Sitting in a Bangalore Starbucks, I can’t help but feel a little like a secret agent awaiting my newest gadget. Across from me, Somnath Meher sits. He’s brought with him Blink, a smartwatch that launches on Friday.

Somnath Meher, along with fellow IIT-Kharagpur alums Ankit DP and Chandrashekhar Iyer, has founded Witworks, a Bangalore-based consumer tech company that creates connected devices for the home and lifestyle spaces. The company currently sells Rewind, a headphone cord detangling device. It raised seed funding in August. However, Blink is its product that’s been under development since November last year.

When I ask to see it, Somnath holds out his wrist – he’s been wearing it the whole time.

Blink is unassuming at first glance – Somnath sports the black watch face on a leather strap. It’s not until he hits a button on the side that I can see the analog clock face glowing against the device’s black background. He unlocks the device, and for the next hour, I’m James Bond.

Time for a change

Smartwatches are nothing new. Consumers that want access to apps on the wrist need look no further than the Apple Watch – which gets an update in October – Android Wear, Samsung Gear S2, and Sony’s Smartwatch 3.

Apple is certainly one of Somnath’s inspirations – he lauds its “reimagined” construction. Blink’s scroll screen navigation method, a circular motion, is vaguely based on Apple’s early designs as well.

According to him, that’s where the similarities end – and with good reason. One of the things holding smartphones back, he points out, is that smartwatch makers tend to be smartphone makers. But a smartwatch isn’t supposed to be a phone on your wrist.

“[We want to] retain what is essential and not – what is essential to be on the wrist,” he tells Tech in Asia. For example, Blink doesn’t play YouTube – or any videos, for that matter. Swiping on a watch didn’t make sense to the team either.

“You open [the Apple Watch] and see 50 things you don’t know what to do with,” he explains.

A watch has traditionally been something that lets you access very critical information on the go.

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