The What? Watch Calendar Watch, which is not a gadget from Doctor Who, marries an E-Paper display to a connected watch movement with beautiful results.
At first glance, which is the most important glance when it comes to watches, the Calendar Watch appears just a gorgeous and minimalist analog timepiece, albeit with a huge face. But this watch is also a calendar, and represents your upcoming meetings (or fun?) by darkening portions of its E-Paper face.
The Calendar Watch is stainless steel, sapphire glass, and real leather, but weighs in at just 2.7 ounces. It’s also waterproof to 50M, has a battery that lasts up to eight weeks, and continues to function even if your phone dies.
The included band is a hybrid of a clasping mechanism and standard leather strap, and while it works, getting the Calendar Watch on your wrist can feel like solving a puzzle. We love what we see from their selection of alternate watchbands, though we only got our hands on the one that was included.
Syncing calendars using the app is issue-free, and watching the analog hands of the watch set themselves using your phone’s time is a little bit magical. At $300, the Calendar Watch is pricey for its feature set relative to the smart competition, but a drop in the bucket in the world of premium timepieces.
I often joke that the calendar was the only feature I used on my Apple Watch, but I’m not actually joking. The Calendar Watch packs in that, beautiful design, and nothing else, and brings some desperately needed subtlety to the Internet of things.