Razer doesn’t want you to call its new smartwatch a smartwatch

Razer has made it very clear that it’s new Nabu Watch isn’t a smartwatch, it’s a regular digital watch that has some smart features, but what makes this smartish dumb watch so special? Well, for starters, it looks like a throwback to the digital watches of the late 1990s, accompanied by Razer’s traditional green and black color scheme. It also has the same features as the company’s Nabu fitness tracker, but the display is the same as you’d find on any other digital watch, and since it doesn’t have all of that high-tech stuff that real smartwatches has, the battery can last as long as 18 months. Basically, it’s a fitness tracker that’s designed to look like a retro watch, which is actually pretty cool. 

Razer, a world leader in connected devices and software for gamers, today announced the Razer Nabu Watch. The full-featured digital timepiece includes a Nabu secondary screen that previews notifications streamed from a smartphone, as well as tracks fitness and sleep activity via an in-built accelerometer. While smartwatches have proliferated the industry in 2015, one of the biggest challenges to the devices have been their battery life and their fundamental lack of capability as a multi-function watch. Razer addresses these issues by focusing first on the digital chronograph as the primary function and the smart features as a secondary addition. The Razer Nabu Watch includes features expected of top-tier digital watches – an illuminated backlit display, countdown timer, stopwatch, World time clocks and alarms – as well as automatic phone time sync via Bluetooth to ensure the watch is always accurate to the global standard. Most importantly, the Razer Nabu Watch digital chronograph component has a 12-month life on its coin cell replaceable battery. A secondary screen outfitted in the Razer Nabu Watch delivers all the features of a Nabu wearable, including discreet notifications, fitness tracking and watch-to-watch communication.