Ressence’s Type 2 smartwatch, which Nest and iPod co-creator Tony Fadell served as a “tech coach” on, finally has an official price and release date, via Hodinkee. The good news is that it’ll be available as early as April 2019. The bad news is that actually getting your hands on one will cost you $48,800. That’s somewhat typical for the brand, whose watches never cost less than five-figures, but it’s a lot more than almost every other smartwatch out there.
Although the cost is mainly justified by the Ressence’s status as a luxury watch manufacturer, there are a few interesting tech features in the Type 2 that are worth mentioning. The first is a set of photovoltaic cells, which can automatically recharge the watch when its 36-hours of battery life runs low. When they’re not in use, these solar cells are hidden behind a set of micro-shutters.
Then there’s the “e-Crown,” which looks a lot like another watch complication but actually contains some pretty interesting functionality. Up to two time zones can be stored in the watch, and you switch between them by tapping once on the face of the e-Crown. These time zones can be set either via a physical lever on the back of the watch, or else via a companion app that connects over Bluetooth.
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The Type 2 is also able to self-adjust its time to the minute. When you’re wearing it that means it keeps more accurate time then a typical mechanical watch, and when you’re not it means that the watch can stop ticking after 12 hours to save battery. The company says that even after leaving it for months, you can immediately start the watch up again by putting it on and tapping the e-Crown.
Outside of keeping accurate time and being able to store two time zones, that’s about as smart as the Type 2 gets. It’s pretty neat, but we’ll leave it up to you to decide whether it’s $48,800-worth of neat, or else as cool as the oil-filled watch-face of the Ressence Type 3.