Mont Blanc Turns Its Hand To Luxury Smart Watch Straps
For the person who can never get enough luxury and cannot wait around any longer for Apple to finally release their Apple Watch, luxury brand Mont Blanc most noted for its exquisite pens and watches is offering a basic smartwatch strap with its own display with a modest number of functions available.
The Mont Blanc e-strap comes complete with a small display to show notifications, a control to change the music that is being played and a way to access the smart phone camera from the watch.
This e-strap is actually an optional extra for the Mont Blanc Timewalker Urban Speed collection which has a leather strap that includes carbon textured fiber which they call Extreme Mont Blanc Leather. The electronic display sits under the wrist where the watch catch would normally be positioned with the regular watching sitting above in the normal position. The display is available in several sizes and colors to suit the watch series.
No Fitness Tracking
This new Mont Blanc offering does not include fitness tracking which is different to other wearable technology. Given the four figure price tag with this Mont Blanc luxury item that is not too surprising as it is doubtful that the owner would want to risk it when out for a jog in the evening.
Kairos versus Mont Blanc
Not to be outdone, the Kairos watch maker has also developed their own Tband which operates similarly to the Mont Blanc effort with the traditional watch on the top and smart watch display below. The Mont Blanc strap is intended only for existing Mont Blanc customers so it has to be bought with a watch costing between $3,000-5,000 with an additional $300 for the strap alone. The Kairos Tband however can be purchased by anyone which is nice of them.
Avoiding Obsolescence
The effort here is clearly trying to keep authentic time pieces from becoming obsolete as the market for wearables continues to grow as they become better developed. Creating the idea of a dual watch setup with a time piece in one position and a wearable on the underside of the strap is one way to try to stay relevant.
