Asus ZenWatch2: A Working Con-Goer’s Handy Tool
Saturday morning at 7:40 a.m. my wrist suddenly began vibrating while I continued to slumber heavily with regret. The previous night I had celebrated until 3 a.m. with friends I have not seen in a long time and the drinks flowed readily.
My wrist vibrated several more times before I woke from my stupor to find a fellow photographer at Katsucon 2016 had been attempting to contact me. We had scheduled an early morning shoot at 8 a.m. and I had volunteered to provide the equipment for the shoot. My phone had been set to silent but my trusty Asus ZenWatch 2 had a separate setting that allowed it to vibrate even when the phone’s set to silent. By 9 a.m. my ZenWatch 2 became flooded with messages both from Facebook and text by friends and coworkers who needed updates from the night before or wanted to know the status on my return from inebriation. The flood of information continued yet I seldom ever had to take out my phone to view them as a simple swipe or thumbs up allowed my friends to know that I was up and about.
The ZenWatch 2 is the the 2015 follow up to the original ZenWatch produced by ASUS and both have the Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 1.2GHz CPU running the software/hardware with 512 RAM and 4GBs of on board storage while running off Android Wear. Unlike the current run of smartwatches, the ZenWatch 2 has a square screen instead of a round one. The downside to this screen is the rather large bezel that Asus likes to use on it’s screen. The watch also comes in two sizes – ‘larger’ and ‘smaller’ with the smaller one designed for slender wrists while the larger one boosts a slightly larger battery and screen along with thicker wrist straps.
The screen itself is a 1.63-inch, 320 x 320 AMOLED with a 278ppi density (on the larger model) and 1.45-inch panel with a 280 x 280 resolution and a ppi count of 273ppi (on the smaller model). The straps are completely changeable with a simple pull of a tab at the base of the watch face so you can customize not only the digital screen but also the color and style of the straps. The charger is magnetic and only fits one way so it doesn’t get caught on anything nor can it improperly charged. It’s listed as having a battery life of two days yet on a seven-day week I charge the watch roughly two times and both times at night. This is with some minor tweaks to the UI which included disabling the always-on function as the screen automatically turned on when you raised the watch towards your face which rendered the need for it to be on all the time moot. Currently the watch has other features like a speaker built in but the software hasn’t caught up with the hardware just yet so it’s been disabled.
When it comes to usage at a convention, the ZenWatch 2 really helped to keep me focused on all my various tasks both for Nerd Caliber and for my independent photoshoots. The calendar feature that pulled events from Facebook and my Google schedule kept me moving throughout the day and kept me on schedule. Also the remote camera function on the watch allowed me to take a lot of quick selfies with friends as I moved throughout the convention proper. A simple flick of the wrist allowed me to trigger the camera remotely with a quick countdown to ready myself.
One of the best things about the ZenWatch 2 is the wrist gesture abilities that allowed you to quickly scroll through your apps and messages with a simple pivoting of your wrist forward or backwards. It saved me a lot of time and in a professional sense, it allowed me to update and communicate with other people while still maintaining focus on the model I worked with. Furthermore, the watch and its associate apps boast several protection features. Many photographers I know tend to tuck their phones into their camera bags and then set their bags down as they shoot. Several steps later, they are away from their camera bags or have forgotten them. Once the watch moves out of proximity from the phone, the watch buzzes to remind you that they are separated which could potentially prevent the bag from being stolen. Additionally, a secondary app allows for you to send an emergency message for aid to any friends on your list with only a quick swipe of the watch. Definitely a good function for those who are out and about on their own and might feel threatened or in need of assistance right away but can’t make a call.
Ultimately the Asus ZenWatch 2 is an affordable entry (though definitely a want more than a need) into the smartwatch market and with future software updates can be a worthwhile purchase for the frequent con-goer who’s aiming to keep track of their plans.
