Popular fashion brand, Michael Kors, has announced an update to its long-serving Runway series of watches. It’s reviving the Runway watch as a Wear OS smartwatch, adding new silicone band option while retaining the familiar design, case and steel bracelet options.
Michael Kors Runway smartwatch
The Wear OS version of the Runway watch by Michael Kors features some serious changes feature-wise but sees no significant changes in design. There’s hardly anything we haven’t seen before, and it’s not bad either. The watch looks fairly small with a 1.2-inch circular display of 390 x 390 resolution. It retains the good-looking metal casing with three lugs on the right side. The only notable change in the aesthetics is the addition of a silicone watch band. This is a great idea as a silicone band will be much better-suited for physical activity than the traditional steel one.
The new Runway smartwatch, of course, still uses the old Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor (they don’t have a choice either). However, they won’t be hurting for features. The new watch offers features such as heart rate monitoring, NFC for Google Pay purchases, and GPS tracking. The watch has a 3 ATM water resistance rating, making it “swim-proof”. The watch also has new customizable watch faces that emphasize your heart rate. Battery capacity isn’t specified yet, but the company claims the watch to offer “approximately” a day’s worth of battery life.
The watch runs Google’s Wear OS, meaning you’d get the same set of features as the other Wear OS smartwatches. However, the announcement somewhat seems ill-timed, as Qualcomm’s holding an event on September 10 where it’ll likely announce the long-awaited successor to the Qualcomm 2100. This also means that many potential buyers would want to hold off buying any Wear OS watch until then.
But for those who don’t care, or can’t wait until watches with the new chip arrive, the Runway smartwatch is available for purchase now. The watch is available in a number of color options, with prices starting at $295, and going as-high-as $450. Learn more at Michael Kors website.
