❤ LG Watch W7 has mechanical hands and the latest Wear OS
LG has been a major part of Google’s Android Wear and Wear OS ecosystem, launching several smartwatch models over the years. Today the folks at LG introduced its latest Wear OS model, and it’s got an interesting twist.
The LG Watch W7 is a “hybrid smartwatch” that includes high-precision quartz movement and physical watch hands. LG is harnessing those features to give you an option for super-long battery life, bundling in a mechanical watch-only mode that’ll give the Watch W7 up to 100 days of battery life on a single charge.
If you hear “physical watch hands” and think that they could get in the way of viewing notifications, LG has included a feature for that. If you press the top right button on the watch, the hands will move out of the way to help you better see your alerts.
LG is enabling the physical watch hands to display additional information beyond just the time. They can also show info related to the altimeter, barometer, stopwatch, timer, and compass directions.
Of course, the LG Watch W7 is also a smartwatch, and there are smart features included like a round 1.2-inch 360×360 LCD screen, 768MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage. LG has included the Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, not the new Snapdragon Wear 3100 chipset, and there’s a 240mAh battery powering the whole package. All those features are packed into a stainless steel case that’s IP68 water resistant.
Rounding things out is the Wear OS software. This is LG’s first wearable with the new Wear OS platform, which offers swipe-based navigation from the watch face to help you more quickly get to important parts of the software. Swiping up will get you to your notifications, swiping down will go to Quick Settings, swiping right will go to Google Assistant, and swiping left will send you to Google Fit.
The LG Watch W7 will be available in the U.S. from Best Buy. Pricing will be set at $449.99. If you want an LG Watch W7 on your wrist, you’ll be able to pre-order a unit on October 7th, and the full launch will happen on October 14th.
