If you had heard that Nissan now has their own smartwatch, you might be wondering why. After all, what does an automobile manufacturer have to do with wearable tech gadgets? Nothing really, unless of course you count connecting drivers to their racecars. Nissan’s new smartwatch, the Nismo, looks cool, and exploits a whole new area of the smartwatch. And because it’s not meant to connect to your smartphone, the device is literally the first of it’s kind. Luckily, it also includes many of the features many of the standard smart watch specifications including push notifications. Unfortunately for drivers everywhere, it’s still a concept design and not yet on the market. Unfortunately, there is no release date yet.
What Does it Do?
The Nissan Nismo connects to your phone and car via Bluetooth, and also features a smartphone app that should be compatible with most if not all major smartphone brands. The Nismo can then be used to get push notifications from your phone for email, texts, and social just like a standard smart watch. The second function is more in line with that of an auto manufacturer. The watch pulls information from a connected vehicle to show data on the driving, speed, and fuel consumption readings.
It also has a 7 day lithium Ion battery that you can charge with a mini USB port. The watch can also connect with the internet to bring you weather, warnings about the roads, road traffic information, and more. Essentially it can tell you everything about how you are driving and where you are driving.
If also paired with GPS, it could be the perfect watch for drivers. However, so far Nissan has not mentioned GPS inclusion and buyers should not expect it. Just the Bluetooth compatibility should be enough to work with some other apps. However, since it already tells the weather and uses location tracking to alert you to road changes, GPS isn’t a huge addition.
What Else?
Nissan says that their watch will be packaged in boxes made out of mostly old racecar tires. This shows not only a dedication to being ‘green’ but is also a definite cool factor for car geeks everywhere. Most buyers won’t be too swayed by the boxing, but Nissan’s Nismo also has a few other features up it’s hypothetical sleeve in that it’s actually one of the coolest designs to come out. The Nismo so far looks closest to many of the popular concept designs floating around the internet, meaning that Nissan is definitely paying attention to what people want.
The watch comes in black, red, and white, and fits over the wrist with a simple snapping mechanism, meaning that it is mostly a one size fits all. However, persons with very large or very small wrists might have trouble with it. The wrap around screen looks as good as the rest of the watch, but like other watches, its screen is relatively small. Other than that, the Nismo could be the coolest smart watch out there.
