14 DAY TRIAL // You may have heard of Martian Watches, but if you haven't, then you should know it's a pretty successful maker of voice-activated wrist devices capable of connecting to your smartphone.
The new device that the company brought to CES 2014, however, lacks voice control. That's not too big a loss, though, since you'll still be able to activate Apple's Siri iPhone voice assistant, or Google Now, by pressing a button.
Everything else that Martian Watches built it success on is still around: an OLED screen showing contact info (when you get a phone text), the ability to engage a device's camera shutter remotely, support for Android and iOS phones, Bluetooth (though, admittedly, this one is indispensable).
Notification alert is the focus here, and it's not as simple as just vibrating every time something happens.
You can select exactly what will trigger the watch, and the companion app (has to be installed on the phone/tablet/whatever) can set up vibration patterns. One long buzz, for example, can signify a Twitter alert, or one long buzz preceded by two shorter ones.
What's more, you're not at the mercy of apps specifically made to include support for any of this. Any software that uses the iOS or Android notification back-end will be able to connect directly to the smartwatch.
Add to that the look of a mechanical wrist-mounted timepiece and this thing from Martian Watches arguably possesses more allure than other smartwatches out there. It looks unique, if nothing else.
The name of the newcomer is Martian Notifier, but you won't find it for sale anywhere until the second quarter of the year (Q2 2014). We don't know what the price is either, unfortunately, but at least we don't have to wait until the second half of the year like for Intel's odd stuff.