LAS VEGAS—Mobile phones are just now reaching Bluetooth 3.0, but Casio is already working on Bluetooth 4. At the CES trade show, Casio showed off a Bluetooth 4.0 phone along with a Bluetooth watch that can last two years on a battery charge.
Visually, the products are no great shakes. The phone, right now, looks like a chunky, generic Android phone, and the watch looks like the kind of digital watch you can get for $9 on the street. Casio is clearly getting the functionality right first, and then they'll make it sexy.
The paired-up watch and phone did some pretty interesting things, though. When the phone got a call, the caller ID showed up on the watch. Physically tapping on the watch silenced the ringer—the watch has an accelerometer. That accelerometer could also turn the watch into a game controller like a Wiimote, the Casio rep demonstrating the watch said.
When the phone got an email, the sender's address appeared on the watch. It was pretty difficult to read, because it scrolled along a few characters at a time. Casio is going to have to put a higher-resolution screen on this watch to make it more useful.
The watch's long battery life comes from the low-energy mode in Bluetooth 4.0, which has an option to transmit small amounts of data at low bit rates very short distances. You'll need a new phone to work with the watch, of course, though Casio's watch app could potentially run on any Android phone.
The combination of Bluetooth 4.0 and the watch's accelerometer means the gadget could also work as a personal safety system, calling 911 if the user falls down, or a pedometer, Casio said.
Casio didn't have a release date or price for the watch; Bluetooth 4.0 phones are supposed to come this year.