Most smartwatches are sold on the premise of convenience. They track your steps, ping you when you get a text, tell you to breathe, and remind you to stand up every hour like a politely nagging coworker strapped to your wrist. I don’t say that as a knock on the category. Convenience is genuinely valuable. But somewhere along the way, the smartwatch conversation became entirely about optimization and lifestyle metrics, and we kind of forgot that the wrist is also a really good place to put something that could keep you alive.
That’s where O-Boy comes in. Developed by Brussels-based design studio Futurewave, O-Boy is a satellite-connected smartwatch built specifically for emergencies in places where mobile networks simply don’t exist. No bars. No Wi-Fi. No backup signal. We’re talking mountains, open ocean, remote job sites, the kind of geography that doesn’t care about your carrier plan. In those environments, O-Boy functions as a direct link to satellite communication, allowing the wearer to transmit an emergency alert regardless of terrestrial infrastructure.
The premise sounds straightforward enough, but the execution is what makes this project interesting. Getting satellite communication hardware into a compact, wearable form factor is not a small feat. Futurewave brought together product designers, electronics engineers, and antenna specialists to make it work, and rethought the assembly system entirely from how conventional wearables are manufactured. That kind of cross-disciplinary collaboration tends to produce things that actually push the category forward rather than just iterating on what’s already there.
Visually, O-Boy reads as deliberate and utilitarian without being overtly tactical or rugged-for-rugged’s-sake. It doesn’t look like a watch that belongs exclusively to climbers or military personnel, which I think is actually the right call. The moment you design something to look extreme, you narrow your audience to people who already identify with that world. O-Boy appears to be reaching for a broader user: anyone who spends time in remote environments, whether for work or adventure, and wants a layer of safety that their phone simply cannot provide.
I’ll be honest about something. I’ve never been fully convinced that the average smartwatch user needs another notification device. The market is crowded, the differentiation is thin, and most new entries end up competing on specs that only matter to enthusiasts. O-Boy sidesteps that conversation almost entirely. It’s not trying to be the smartest watch. It’s trying to be the one you’d actually want on your wrist when a situation becomes life-or-death. That’s a completely different design brief, and it produces a completely different kind of product.
What I appreciate most is that the project seems to understand its context. Conventional mobile networks cover only a fraction of the Earth’s surface. Vast swaths of ocean, mountain ranges, deserts, and rural work sites exist in a communication dead zone that we collectively don’t think about until something goes wrong. The Apple Watch’s satellite SOS feature hinted at this need, but that capability is baked into a device designed primarily for a very different kind of user, sold at a premium price point and wrapped in a broader ecosystem. O-Boy is positioning itself as something more focused, more purpose-built, and arguably more honest about what it’s actually for.
Does it solve every problem in the wearable safety space? Almost certainly not. Satellite communication latency, subscription models for satellite access, and battery constraints are all real questions that any device in this category has to reckon with. Futurewave hasn’t published exhaustive technical specs publicly, so some of those answers remain open. But as a design concept and a signal of where wearables could be heading, it’s genuinely compelling.
The best design doesn’t ask you to change your habits. It meets you exactly where you are, anticipates the moment things go wrong, and gives you a way through. O-Boy feels like it was built with that thinking at its core. Whether it reaches mass production or stays within niche markets, the conversation it’s starting is one worth having.
Sailors used to carry pocket telescopes. Birdwatchers still carry monoculars. Geologists carry hand lenses. What these instruments share, beyond the obvious optical function, is a deliberate relationship to information: you raise the tool when you choose to engage with it, and the world stays unmediated the rest of the time. That’s actually a pretty sophisticated UX philosophy, and it’s one the entire wearable tech industry has quietly abandoned in favor of always-on overlays, persistent notifications, and the assumption that more access to information is axiomatically better. Yuxuan Hua’s Lens concept is a Silver A’ Design Award winner that makes the counterargument in hardware form.
The concept is a detachable AR smartwatch that splits into two objects: a wrist-worn puck for everyday use and a handheld monocular for AR-enhanced outdoor exploration. The back face of the module houses a dual-lens optical array, a wide camera and LiDAR sensor tucked into a vertical pill recess, while the face doubles as a circular display that overlays navigation prompts, species identification, and star charts over a live feed when held up like a field scope. The band itself is Alpine-loop textile, the lug system simple enough to suggest the module can swap across band styles, and the whole thing comes in at 48mm wide and 68g. The rendering detail is strong: the detached module has the cold, machined look of a quality compass or a classic light meter, the kind of object that rewards handling.
Designer: Yuxuan Hua
Hua interviewed hikers, foragers, and stargazers and found three consistent frustrations: devices were too bulky and fragile for rugged environments, and frequent screen interactions broke the rhythm of being outside. The phone-as-field-guide pattern, pull it out, unlock, navigate to the app, wait for it to load, try to hold it steady while pointing at something, is a sequence of six interruptions where you actually wanted zero. Smart glasses solve the unlock problem but introduce the far more annoying problem of a permanent digital scrim between you and whatever you came outdoors to look at. The monocular is the thing you raise when you want to know something and lower when you don’t, which is precisely how attention works when you’re actually engaged with a landscape.
Most AR concept hardware reaches for science fiction: translucent surfaces, glowing elements, the visual grammar of a prop department. Lens reaches instead for the instrument drawer: the detached module has the proportions and material honesty of a quality compass housing or a Leica light meter, machined aluminum with visible fasteners and a lens array that looks like it belongs in an optician’s toolkit. It doesn’t look like the future. It looks like a very well-made tool, which is a significantly harder design target to hit.
Hua began developing Lens in 2021, during the pandemic, which is useful context. Lockdown-era design projects often reveal what designers actually miss about the physical world when it’s taken away, and what Lens mourns, obliquely, is uninterrupted attention. The whole concept is an argument that the best AR device for outdoor use is one that disappears when you’re not using it, one that earns its presence by staying out of the way until the moment it’s needed, then delivers exactly what the moment requires. Whether the engineering can catch up to that vision, packing AR projection, LiDAR, and a wide-FOV camera into a 68g coin of aluminum, is another question entirely. As a design proposition, it’s already done its job.
Huawei introduces a diabetes risk assessment feature on the Watch GT 6 Pro, offering needle-free early detection of risk through advanced wearable sensors.
Je ne suis pas très montre. Je n’en porte pas, je n’en possède pas… Ce temps qui passe c’est l’angoisse mais je me souviens très bien des montres Pebble qui avec leur écran e-ink tenaient des semaines sur une charge et qui ont carrément démocratisé le concept de smartwatch grand public dès 2012.
Hé bien good news, le fondateur Eric Migicovsky a décidé de les ressusciter sauf que c’est en train de tourner au vinaigre avec les bénévoles qui ont maintenu l’écosystème durant 9 ans.
Pour ceux qui ont raté tout le feuilleton, après la faillite de Pebble en 2016 et le rachat par Fitbit (puis Google), une communauté de passionnés appelée
Rebble
s’est formée pour sauver les meubles. Ils ont récupéré les données de l’App Store, monté une infrastructure de serveurs, financé des développements… Bref, ils ont maintenu en vie un écosystème que tout le monde avait abandonné.
Puis en janvier 2025, Google a ouvert le code source de PebbleOS et Migicovsky a sauté sur l’occasion et a lancé sa boîte Core Devices en mars pour vendre de nouvelles montres Pebble : La Pebble 2 Duo à 149$ et la Pebble Time 2 à 225$. D’ailleurs, 70% des premières unités ont déjà été livrées. Bref, jusque là, tout va bien.
Sauf que Rebble accuse maintenant Core Devices de piller leur travail sans compensation.
Selon ce qu’ils racontent leur blog
, Migicovsky aurait “scrapé leurs serveurs” le jour même où il devait les rencontrer pour discuter partenariat. Rebble affirme avoir investi des centaines de milliers de dollars pour maintenir l’App Store et les services backend… et Core voudrait un accès illimité à tout ça pour potentiellement créer un App Store concurrent propriétaire.
La bibliothèque mobile libpebble3 utilisée par l’app Core Devices s’appuie notamment sur du code que Rebble a financé via son programme de subventions. Et c’est pareil pour le portage Bluetooth open source vers PebbleOS puisque c’est Rebble qui a payé les devs. Et bien sûr quand ils demandent un engagement écrit que Core ne créera pas un store concurrent… C’est silence radio.
Migicovsky a ensuite répondu sur
son blog perso
histoire de se justifier. Il nie tout vol et affirme que 90% du code de libpebble3 a été écrit par Core Devices, et pas par la communauté. Et pour le scraping, il explique qu’il construisait juste une petite webapp pour afficher ses watchfaces préférées et que ça n’a rien téléchargé de substantiel.
Et il contre-attaque en accusant Rebble de vouloir créer un pré-carré bien verrouillé emprisonnant les 13 000 et quelques applications que des développeurs indépendants ont créées. Rebble revendiquerait 100% des données de l’App Store alors qu’ils ne sont que l’hébergeur…
Alors qui croire ? Difficile à dire mais la bonne nouvelle c’est que Core Devices a ouvert les schémas électriques et mécaniques de la Pebble 2 Duo sur GitHub et bientôt, l’installation d’apps se fera via un système de feeds multiples, un peu comme les gestionnaires de paquets open source. Chacun pourra alors choisir son store.
Reste à savoir si les deux camps arriveront à s’entendre puisque Rebble a apparemment fait marche arrière sur certaines revendications, notamment sur la propriété du contenu hébergé. Mais le climat de confiance est sérieusement entamé et pour la communauté qui a bossé durement et gratos pendant 9 ans pour sauver tout écosystème… c’est sûr que ça fait mal de voir le fondateur original débarquer et se servir OKLM.
Après pour ceux d’entre vous qui ont une Pebble ou qui lorgnent sur les nouvelles, surveillez le subreddit
r/pebble
et le Discord
Rebble
car c’est là que tout ça se passe.
Smartwatches aren’t just wrist accessories anymore; they’re powerful, purpose-driven extensions of your lifestyle. Whether you’re an athlete, a gamer, a style enthusiast, or simply someone who wants to stay connected, the right wearable can elevate your daily routines. As October 2025 brings fresh innovation and daring new designs, the world of smartwatches is more diverse and exciting than ever.
From minimalist e-paper displays to rugged adventure companions and even a gaming PC for your wrist, this year’s lineup is packed with options that speak to every need and personality. Our list explores the best smartwatches available now, highlighting their unique strengths, standout features, and potential drawbacks. Dive in to find the perfect wearable for your wrist and your world.
1. MSI Gaming PC Watch: A Gaming Rig For Your Wrist
The MSI Gaming PC Watch is a spectacle for anyone who lives and breathes gaming. With its MSI dragon-red theme, transparent façade, and visible hardware, it’s an unmistakable tribute to high-performance rigs. This wearable doesn’t just tell time—it showcases your passion, sparking conversations and envy alike. While it might look like a traditional watch at first glance, its true identity is a full-fledged mini PC strapped to your wrist.
Analog watch hands are visible but understated, hinting at its timekeeping function. Four side pushers let you toggle features, and the construction feels robust with a metal alloy case. Not everyone will need or want a wearable computer on their wrist, but for those who do, nothing else comes close to this level of commitment and flair.
What we like
Visually striking design that turns your wrist into a gaming showcase.
Unique concept that marries PC hardware and wearable tech in an unprecedented way.
What we dislike
Timekeeping is a secondary feature, not the main focus.
Likely to be bulkier and less comfortable for daily wear.
2. Apple Watch Ultra 3: The Pinnacle Of Display Technology
Apple’s Ultra 3 brings a new dimension to smartwatch displays, boasting the largest and most advanced screen ever fitted to an Apple Watch. With wide-angle OLEDs and LTPO3 technology, it’s readable at any angle—even in direct sunlight or underwater. Apple’s design team has maximized the display space by shrinking the borders, so you get a bigger, better canvas without a larger watch.
Always-on features are smarter and more efficient, staying visible without draining the battery. Real-time seconds and instant stats make it a must for athletes and adventure seekers. If clarity, screen quality, and high-tech durability are priorities, the Ultra 3 is at the head of the pack.
What we like
Expansive display with best-in-class readability in all conditions.
Always-on screen with high refresh and low power use.
What we dislike
Premium price puts it out of reach for some buyers.
Large size may not suit those with slimmer wrists.
3. Pebble Time 2: E-Paper Simplicity, Modern Craft
Pebble’s comeback is all about maturity and minimalism. The Time 2 features a stainless steel case and integrated lugs that create a seamless, intentional flow from the case to the strap. The nearly edge-to-edge 1.7-inch color e-paper display sits flush with the glass, inviting you to run your finger along its perfectly smooth edges. This is a smartwatch for those who crave simplicity and customization without sacrificing style.
Available in Silver, Black, and Champagne Gold, the Time 2 lets you swap out standard 22mm bands, making it adaptable for any look. It’s a refined, user-first foundation that feels both nostalgic and modern. The e-paper display also means longer battery life and easy outdoor readability.
What we like
Minimalist, sophisticated design with customizable bands.
E-paper display is gentle on the eyes and extends battery life.
What we dislike
Lacks the premium sensors and apps found on flagship smartwatches.
Refresh rate is slower than traditional OLED or LCD screens.
4. WearPods Hybrid Smartwatch: Earbuds On Your Wrist
WearPods is a clever hybrid, hiding a pair of true-wireless earbuds within the body of a smartwatch. It’s designed for the forgetful and the futuristic, merging two essential devices into one. The 1.93-inch display and smart features are impressive, but the real magic happens when you pop out the earbuds with a satisfying click, ready for calls or your favorite playlist.
This all-in-one approach does come with some trade-offs. Packing both a smartwatch and earbuds into such a compact form means battery life isn’t stellar, and the ergonomics for both components might not suit everyone. Still, for tech lovers who want to reduce pocket clutter, it’s a novel solution.
What we like
Ingenious all-in-one design keeps your earbuds always accessible.
Appeals to gadget lovers and those prone to losing accessories.
What we dislike
Reduced battery life compared to single-function wearables.
Fit and comfort may not match dedicated smartwatches or earbuds.
5. Ollee Watch: A Classic Casio, Supercharged
The Ollee Watch turns the classic Casio F-91W into a customizable smartwatch through a mainboard swap. You keep the retro resin case, LCD, and water resistance, while gaining step tracking, notifications, and Bluetooth. It’s a clever, open-source upgrade that bridges nostalgia and modern convenience.
DIY fans will appreciate the upgrade process, which doesn’t require advanced skills. The result is a connected, functional timepiece that feels both familiar and fresh—ideal for those who want to retain the original’s charm while adding new tech.
What we like
Maintains the beloved Casio design with modern smart features.
Open-source and DIY-friendly for personal customization.
What we dislike
Installation requires some technical ability and patience.
Not as feature-rich as premium smartwatches.
6. Garmin Instinct 3: AMOLED Or Solar For Every Adventure
Garmin’s Instinct 3 offers versatility with AMOLED and solar-powered variants, each available in two sizes. The AMOLED model delivers vivid visuals for gym goers, while the solar model boasts unlimited battery life in sunlight—ideal for outdoor enthusiasts. Up to 24 days on a single charge sets a new standard for smartwatch endurance.
The Instinct 3 is built tough, with extensive fitness tracking and navigation features. While its rugged look won’t win fashion awards, its performance and battery options make it a reliable companion for any adventure.
What we like
Choice between super-bright AMOLED and solar-powered battery.
Outstanding battery life and rugged durability.
What we dislike
Solar models require regular sunlight for the best results.
Functional, utilitarian design isn’t for style seekers.
7. TAG Heuer Connected Calibre E4 45MM x Oracle Red Bull Racing
TAG Heuer’s collaboration with Oracle Red Bull Racing produces a standout luxury smartwatch. The 45mm DLC titanium case, bold racing-themed strap, and dial make it a collector’s item. It’s packed with features for health, fitness, and lifestyle, all wrapped in the prestige of Swiss watchmaking.
This is a watch for motorsport fans and those who appreciate both tradition and cutting-edge tech. While its price and look may not be for everyone, it’s a striking fusion of speed and sophistication.
What we like
Luxurious materials and exclusive Red Bull Racing design.
Offers comprehensive smart features with top-tier build quality.
What we dislike
High price limits its accessibility.
Bold styling may not suit everyday wear or all tastes.
8. Apple Watch Series 11: The Ultimate Health Monitoring Device
Apple’s Series 11 sets a new bar for health-focused smartwatches. With advanced sensors, silent killer detection, and always-on ECG, it’s the most feature-packed Apple Watch yet. Hardware upgrades ensure it’s more durable and connected than ever, while seamless integration into the Apple ecosystem makes it a natural choice for iPhone users.
It’s designed for those who want a blend of style, utility, and medical-grade monitoring on their wrist. The only major downside is its battery life, which still requires daily charging.
What we like
State-of-the-art health monitoring and medical features.
Refined design and perfect compatibility with iPhone.
What we dislike
Battery life is only average, requiring daily top-ups.
Works best only within the Apple ecosystem.
9. Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro: Built For Endurance
The Huawei Watch GT 6 Pro is built for athletes who need their gear to last. Its sapphire crystal display and titanium case shrug off scratches and impacts, while the 21-day battery life is a game-changer for training camps and expeditions. Peak brightness makes it easy to read outdoors, and pro-grade GPS and tracking features cater to serious runners and cyclists.
While its focus is on endurance and performance, it may not have the app ecosystem or lifestyle features of more mainstream smartwatches.
What we like
Ultra-durable with sapphire crystal and titanium construction.
Long-lasting battery ideal for extended use and adventures.
What we dislike
Limited app selection compared to Apple and Wear OS.
More fitness-focused, less suited for general lifestyle use.
Ksana’s hybrid smartwatch puts a small E Ink display at the center, overlaying an analog dial with glowing hands. This battery-saving approach means you get only the essential info, without distractions or frequent charging. The analog movement adds classic charm, while the display excels in any lighting.
It’s ideal for anyone who values simplicity and mindfulness over a barrage of notifications. The pared-back approach means you’ll miss out on richer app experiences, but for many, that’s a feature, not a bug.
What we like
E Ink display provides superb battery life and readability.
Analog-mechanical movement adds timeless appeal and night usability.
What we dislike
Limited information display and few smart features.
Not for those who want colorful screens or app-rich experiences.
Final Thoughts: Which Smartwatch Fits Your Life?
Choosing the right smartwatch in October 2025 is all about matching your personal style, needs, and habits. This year’s lineup is more diverse than ever, from the boldest gaming wrist rigs to the most subtle hybrid analogs. Whether you crave battery life, health tracking, luxury, or sheer uniqueness, there’s a wearable that aligns with your priorities.
The best smartwatch is the one that disappears into your day and amplifies what you value most, whether that’s adventure, connectivity, or simplicity. As innovation continues to redefine what’s possible on your wrist, you have more freedom than ever to choose a device that feels tailored just for you.
Connexion
