Asus ZenWatch joins the wearables market

Asus ZenWatch

Asus has announced its entrance to the wearables market during the IFA show in Germany. The Taiwanese company unveiled the ZenWatch which runs Google’s Android Wear platform to provide users with notifications on their wrists.

Like virtually all other smart watches, Asus’ device also doubles as a fitness tracker and has a built-in heart rate monitor.Like virtually all other smart watches, Asus’ device also doubles as a fitness tracker and has a built-in heart rate monitor, which could feed-in data to popular Android fitness apps such as RunKeeper and Runtastic. However, its main selling point is design; similarly to the also-new Samsung Gear S and LG G Watch R, the ZenWatch looks more like a regular watch than something only geeks would wear.

That being said, it’s important to add that geeks will be pleased with Asus’ watch, as well. In addition to the standard suite of Android Wear apps, Asus also included some of its own tweaks and features like “Tap Tap” for activating a pre-assigned function by double-tapping the watch, and self explanatory “Cover to Mute,” “Find My Phone,” “Remote Camera” and “Presentation Control.”

Inside, we have Qualcomm’s Snapdragon chip clocked at 1.2GHz, 512MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage and a 1.4Wh battery which should get you through the day. Al this comes packed in an IP55-certified, stainless steel case that makes the ZenWatch dust- and water-resistant.

The ZenWatch is priced at €199, and although Asus didn’t give a release date, it is expected to go on sale before Christmas.