LaMetric Time, a smart watch for your desktop

We are already used to smart watches on our wrists for a long time. Receiving notifications, reading messages or seeing the results of our favorite football teams with a flick of the wrist is already common for many. Nevertheless today we present a new concept: the desktop smart watch. LaMetric Time is just that, a smart watch that we can place on our work desk, on our bedside table or on a shelf.

Personalization, application installation, integration with automation platforms such as IFTTT, compatibility with Amazon Alexa, view notifications, read messages or see who's calling your smartphone. All this and much more is what this fantastic gadget that we analyze below can do.

Design and Specifications

LaMetric Time is more like a portable speaker than a conventional clock. With its small dimensions (20,1 × 3,6 × 6,1) it is very similar to those small Bluetooth speakers that we can buy to listen to music with our smartphone. But once connected to the USB cable and its charger, we see that things change radically because su front lights up in a multitude of colors. By the way, the charger includes adapters for different types of plug, a detail that you appreciate if you travel a lot and want to take it with you.

As we say, the front lights up, with two different zones. The 2/3 on the right are made up of 29 × 8 white LEDs, while the 1/3 on the left has 8 × 8 colored LEDs. A light diffusing glass makes LEDs look like colored squares rather than lights themselves, and together with the excellent clarity with which they are seen even in broad daylight, it achieves a visually very well achieved effect. The light sensor on the front, just above the LEDs, is responsible for adjusting the brightness of the LEDs.

In the upper part we have three buttons whose operation we will detail later and in the video that accompanies this article, and in the back the microUSB connector, necessary for it to work because there is no integrated battery. On the sides we find the speaker grilles, the power button on the right side and the volume buttons on the left. We complete the specifications with WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. The material used is simply plastic, with no more frills.

As you have read, it has WiFi and Bluetooth connectivity. Why two types of connection? WiFi connectivity is used to show us all the information that we configure through the applications. It will connect to our home network and without the need for our iPhone to be nearby it will be able to show us everything we want thanks to the applications that we can install, as we will see later. Bluetooth connectivity is used for two functions: showing notifications from our smartphone and listening to music.

Settings and applications

Everything is done from the application that we can download from the App Store for free (link) and basically consists of giving you access to our WiFi network. From there we can install the applications from the gallery that we find within the application itself, configure them with the options that each app offers us, and establish what type of visualization we want to have: carousel, show only one app, change apps manually or establish a schedule to change the applications that are shown.

The use of the application is very intuitive, so with only a few minutes we will be able to configure it and then little by little we will be polishing the details of each application and the display mode. The application gallery is really extensive, and we have countless applications and categories. Applications for home automation accessories stand out a lot, like Philips Hue, Netatmo, Belkin WeMo, Amazon Echo and even IFTTT. What are these applications for? Just one example, we can turn on a light with the push of a button, receive weather or security alerts, or see the air quality in our house.

But without the need for any other accessory you can also offer us information of all kinds, such as current weather conditions, full day forecast, La Liga results or the latest news that have been published on your favorite blog thanks to your RSS feed. We can even listen to internet radio, although in Spain there are very few stations available. Twitter, Facebook, YouTube… there are applications of all kinds, and as anyone can create their application and upload it to the LaMetric store, the possibilities are enormous thanks to the great community that is already behind this device.

In addition to the applications we can also show the notifications that arrive on our iPhone. Thanks to the speakers it has, we will hear a sound with each notification and we will see what it is about on the screen. We will see the identity of the person calling us or we will be able to read the WhatsApp that they have sent us. The display of notifications is configurable, and we can choose which applications can show them and which cannot.. For this function it is necessary that we are close to the device because it uses the Bluetooth connection for it.

It is really necessary to always be connected to the same network to be able to interact with this LaMetric Time, except to use another application that we have available in the App Store. LaMetric Smile (link) is an application that allows you to send messages with funny pixelated images that will appear directly on the screen of your LaMetric Time, wherever you are. It's a fun way to communicate with who you know is in front of the clock. You can also send those messages through iMessage, Facebook Messenger or share it with other applications. The app is not yet adapted to the iPhone X, that's why you see those black bars at the top in the bottom.

An average speaker

We have said that LaMetric Time has two speakers on the sides, which are used for the sounds of the notifications, but also to be used as a loudspeaker. Through Bluetooth connection we can listen to the music of our iPhone, but do not expect a quality comparable to a speaker of a similar price. It is clear that the appeal of this device is different, and the power to be used as a speaker is almost more anecdotal than anything else., because it also does not have a battery, so we will not be able to take it with us wherever we want.

But if you want to listen to music, there is that option and it is something that can come in handy at specific times. The operation is like that of any bluetooth speaker, you will have to connect to it (a different connection than the one that is usually used) and start playing music on your iPhone.

Editor's opinion

LaMetric Time takes the concept of smart watches to a different environment than the one we are used to. Ideal to place it on a bedside table, on the work desk or on a clearly visible shelf, it will offer us much more information in addition to the obvious clock function. Personalization through applications from the iOS application itself, its very intuitive use and the clarity with which you see the information from any angle and with any light they are its great virtues, and you can only find a defect when we use it as a loudspeaker, a function that is by no means what it is designed for. Available in Amazon for € 199 and in zococity, a store specializing in speakers and headphones, it is an accessory that, as in the beginning with smartwaches, seems more like a whim than a necessity, but when you have it, you cannot do without it.