If you'd like to wear a smartwatch every day, but can't stomach paying hundreds of dollars to purchase one, don't worry, there's soon going to be a $25 option.
As Liliputing reports, Pine64, the company behind the forthcoming PineBook Pro Linux laptop, PineTab Linux tablet, and PinePhone Linux smartphone, is also promising to make a PineTime Linux smartwatch. It will be offered for the incredibly low price of $25, which also gets you a charging dock, 20mm wristband, and multi-day battery life.
In a series of tweets, Pine64 makes it clear the PineTime is a side project and therefore its priority falls below the PineBook Pro and PinePhone. Even so, the company is urging developers and the community to get behind the project, push it forward, and "drive this in the direction they desire."
Since there were questions regarding the body of the watch; yes, the watch body exists and is used by other manufacturers. We decide the internals + and customize the specs. Actual unit in picture below. Hope this clears things up. pic.twitter.com/DUiO6Ww8rI — PINE64 (@thepine64) September 14, 2019
Pine64 says the watch body will be sourced from existing designs already offered by other manufacturers and will use a zinc alloy and plastic casing. The internals will be decided upon by the company and they already have a prototype unit as the image above shows.
Hitting such a low price point will make the PineTime a very popular smartwatch from day one, assuming it has a feature set comparable to what we've come to expect from other smartwatches already on the market. There's no ETA on a release window just yet, but I'm sure that will arrive once the laptop and smartphone are available to buy.
Meanwhile, Apple just launched the Apple Watch Series 5 complete with a display that's always on. However, unlike the PineTime, Apple wants at least $399 for a Series 5 smartwatch.