Last year, luxury watch brand Michael Kors launched its Access Sofie and the Access Grayson smartwatches. As part of its Spring 2018 collection, both models are officially available for purchase in a variety of new colors variants.
Michael Kors introduced four new colors for the Access Sofie — a blush rose-gold tone, brilliant blue sky, two-tone rose gold, and a gold-tone with white silicone-wrapped links. As for the Access Grayson, the new colors include a black and silver tone, along with a dark green.
On a technical level, they’re fairly comparable. Both the Sofie and Grayson boast colorful AMOLED touchscreen displays, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, and Android Wear 2.0, the latest and greatest version of Google’s Android Wear operating system.
Android Wear 2.0 is sort of a big deal. It’s a major upgrade over the last generation of Google’s wearable operating system, featuring customizable watch faces, a stand-alone app store, improved fitness tracking, and Google’s super-smart digital Assistant.
It’s also one of the only similarities between the Sofie and Grayson.
The Sofie is described as “sleek” and “feminine,” with a thin, lightweight case body, pavé, and full round display. Michael Kors describes the Grayson, in contrast, as a “luxury” watch with “sporty looks.” To that end, it sports a full-round dial with a rotating crown button that scrolls Android Wear’s lists and menus.
The Michael Kors Access smartwatches start at $350.
For folks who prefer a simpler brand of smartwatch, there is Michael Kors’ hybrid wearables. The brand introduced new analog watches that feature vibrating alerts, fitness and sleep tracking, and pusher buttons on the side that remotely trigger selfies and control music.
Both the men’s hybrid smartwatches and the women’s watches are currently available for purchase. They start at $250.
The Michael Kors Access app is available on both the Access Sofie and Access Grayson. Through the “My Social” section on the app, users pull from their Instagram feeds to create their watch face background. Using it is easy — simply sign into your Instagram account, pick your photo, select a filter and watch style, then set it for a fully customized look.
Both smartwatches also now feature a new microapp called ‘My Next,’ which can be found through the Michael Kors app. With ‘My Next,’ you can view a countdown to an important event which will appear in a sub-eye on your dial. You’ll be able to illustrate the event with corresponding icons such as a birthday cake, airplane, wedding rings, and more.
Update: Michael Kors Access Sofie and Access Grayson smartwatches are available in new colors for Spring 2018.
The OnePlus Buds Clip are a new pair of open-ear earbuds built around a simple convenience. They join Sony’s LinkBuds Clip in the growing ear-cuff category, but either OnePlus bud can go on either ear.
Sensors recognize how the earbuds are being worn and route the audio channels accordingly. There’s no label to check before putting them on, and the feature also works when only one bud is used.
We buy fitness bands and activity trackers to keep tabs on our exercise, but it is easy to forget to start tracking or switch modes when moving between different activities. For Fitbit and Pixel Watch users, that could soon become a lot less annoying, as Google is rolling out a major upgrade to automatic activity tracking that can recognize more than 100 types of exercise, up from just 10 before.
Google first showed off the improved tracking earlier this month alongside the Fitbit Edge. It is now coming to Fitbit Air and the Pixel Watch 3, 4, and 5, and Google claims the added context behind the system makes workout detection nearly twice as accurate while cutting missed activities by more than half. Fitbit Edge will support it too.