How to Turn Your Watch into a Smartwatch (Video)
So what if you want the features of a smart watch but you don’t want to actually go out and buy a smartwatch? Maybe you have a watch that you already love or maybe you don’t need all the features of a fancy touchscreen smartwatch and don’t want to spend the money on one. Is there a way to just get notification alerts, fitness tracking, control your music, etc.? Short answer? Yes.
This little coin-shaped gadget called a Chronos is sort of all about that.
The way you install it is by taking the included wetnaps or whatever these are and wiping the bottom of the watch and sticking the Chronos to it using what the microsuction side and holding it for 10 seconds.
From then on you can now charge it by laying it on it’s included cradle very much like most smartwatches nowadays.
Once charged you pair it using the Chronos app from the App Store or Play Store and you’re good to go.
You can then use it to track your steps, calories burned, set up vibration and LED notifications for calls, texts, emails, etc. and can even setup gestures that allow you to do things like tap the face of the watch to silence a call, take a photo, jump to the next song in your music player, etc.
It also can share it’s fitness with Google Fit and iOS Health Kit so you still get to have all of your data in the places that you normally expect it to be regardless of having to go through the Chronos app first.
It’s not quite the same as Android Wear or an Apple Watch, there is just something to me about being able to interact with notifications that I enjoy about actual smartwatches but for someone who doesn’t need that it definitely did notify me with a customizable buzz and colors and helped me know generally what the notification was at least at a quick glance.
The music controls, something I use my smartwatch for a lot, are a bit limited if we’re honest.
This is simply down to the fact it only has two gestures you can use: Double tapping the crown of your watch to pause and play or triple tapping it to skip to the next song. Obviously not quite as good as a full blown touchscreen but might be enough to get by for some people and at least worked pretty well in practice.
Bottom line though? This type of tech is not as good as a full blown smartwatch in my opinion, but considering it’s only $60 it is a lot cheaper. And really, this is probably more for people that have a watch already or even a collection of watches (it is removeable and can be reapplied easily to another watch).
And even though it’s not quite as good as a full blown smartwatch, it is a huge upgrade to a regular watch.
Check out the Chronos device here if interested.
Let me know what you guys think of this device in the comments below, love to hear from you guys, and follow me on social to be notified when I do new articles. Thanks for reading!
