Luxury brand Montblanc hasannouncedits first foray into the booming wearables market with the ‘e-Strap’. The German company, which is known for making fine pens, watches and other jewelry, hopes the accessory will allow traditional mechanical watches and wearable tech to co-exist.
The e-Strap is an Italian leather watch band that features an embedded tracker with a tiny 0.9-inch monochromatic OLED touchscreen display (128×36). That display is capable of showing activity-tracking data and a variety of push notifications from a connected iPhone, or similar device.
Supported notifications include e-mails, text messages, incoming calls, reminders and social media updates, which are all signaled by a light vibration on the wrist. And as for activity-tracking, the band can record number of steps taken per day, calories burnt, as well as your distance traveled.
Rounding out the e-Strap’s features are a remote control, which you can use to trigger your smartphone’s camera shutter or control your music, and a Find-Me function that will locate the watch or phone within 30 meters. Montblanc says the accessory should last for 5 days on a complete charge.
While not particularly groundbreaking, the e-Strap does serve as the first entry into the wearables space by a luxury company. It’s also a unique approach to the concept, as Montblanc says it plans to sell the band both attached to its Timewalker Urban Speed watchesandas a standalone strap.
The Timewalker Urban Speed with e-Strap will be available soon, starting at 2,990 Euros ($3,600 USD), and the standalone e-Strap will sell for about 250 Euros. Timex, Fossil and TAG Heuer are also expected to join the wearables fray this year, and of course theApple Watchis nearing launch.
