UBand from Practech is a new spin on smartwatches

As I wandered around the Wearable Technology Show earlier this week, amongst all the smartwatches, one stood out as doing something a little different. This was the UBand from Practech.

Yes, there’s the now familiar unibody design but, when you look closer, this wearable is sporting two screens. Not only that, the main screen rotates!

The spinning 1.8-inch LCD display with a pixel density of over 300ppi enables the UBand to be worn as a slender watch-cum-fitness band that can easily transform in to a widescreen smartwatch thanks to its ability to rotate 90-degrees.

The secondary 0.95-inch OLED touchscreen allows you to swipe through the UB seamless user interface without ever blocking your view, whereas flash notifications will keep you up to date with the constant flow of information. Also, because of how the screen is angled, it means that you can easily see it without having to adjust your wrist.

We’ve all seen and used barcode readers, right? Well, the UB packs just such a thing. This can be used for keeping a live check on your budget when you’re at the shops – swipe your purchases as you drop them in your basket and, through an app, the total will be added to your budgeting record. Alternatively, you could be recording the nutritional value of those snacks you’ve just added to your list.

An interesting idea would be for keeping track of medicines you have to take. You could programme the UB to remind you which tablets to take and when. To double check you could swipe the pill bottle with the watch and it would give you a red cross or green tick to confirm whether or not those are the right meds.

Anyone that has used the Bump app or similar to exchange business card details may like UBand’s handshake utility.

When you’re shaking the hands of another UB wearer, depending if their profile matches what you have told your UB to interact with, perhaps you only want to exchange details with Doctors, Men, Women, celebs, then your details will be exchanged. Obviously the other wearer may have also set stringent filters so…

The materials used for the UBand include magnesium alloy, polymer rubbers and polymer plastic for a premier and comfortable feel and the smartwatch will be both waterproof and dustproof.

Battery life is slated as being a minimum of two-days at 550mAh capacity and you can charge it via the in-built USB (which also has 8GB of internal storage).

The UBand will run on Android Lollipop.

There is no fixed pricing for the UBand as yet but the “planned retail price” is $250-350.

I for one am glad that there are people taking a slightly different approach to tech wrist-wear.