Skagen Hagen Connected: hands-on with the seriously analog-looking hybrid smartwatch
When the world transitioned from using standard cellphones that did little more than make calls, send texts, and maybe play a little Snake to full-blown, sky's-the-limit smartphones, it was a big adjustment, but one we quickly embraced. Sure, form factors changed, and batteries didn't last quite as long as they used to, but our relationship with mobile phones was still new – and as a society, we largely found ourselves happy to make the adjustment.
An easy-open back helps facilitate battery changes
Perhaps the most striking thing about the Hagen Connected watch is how very un-smartwatch it looks like. Case in point: there's no display to be found. Earlier hybrid watches that attempted to give us some smarwatch-connected features (while stopping short of anything like app support) tried cramming in tiny screens to convey their information – think models like the Martian Notifier. Instead, the Hagen Connected communicates with its wearer through analog watch-hand positions, as well as a vibrating alert motor.
Say you're getting an incoming call on your smartphone from your mom; rather than using a text display to spell out mom's name, the Hagen Connected can point to a pre-set position on one of its dials to signify her identity. While that limits the number of contacts you can easily identify in this manner, it should suffice for the most important ones in your life.
It's a shame a watch this otherwise stylish is still so comparatively thick
As for battery life, you can forget about charging. Thanks to its streamlined feature set and lack of a display, the Hagen Connected runs on a regular non-rechargable watch battery. It's designed to be easily replaceable without complicated tools, and should net you about six months of operation before needing to be swapped out. That alone gives it what could be a huge lead over other connected wearables.
If there's one big downside, beyond the limited feature set, it's that despite all the effort gone into making the Hagen Connected look and feel like a traditional watch, it's still noticeably thick. Maybe some shoppers dig the chunky-watch look, but for as stylish as the rest of this model looks, it's hard to get over a profile that looks more like a big-ol' Android Wear model than a slim tracker. If you can get over that issue, though, there's a lot to like here. Pricing starts under $200, with the Hagen Connected arriving later this month.
Things that are NOT allowed: