Ticwatch 2 Powered by Android Wear Is Back on Kickstarter for $99

BY Rajesh Pandey

Published 12 Jul 2017

While major smartphones OEMs might be pulling out of the Android Wear market, new entrants are jumping on the smartphone bandwagon. Mobvoi, a Chinese-based AI company backed by Google and Volkswagen, today announced its latest lineup of Tic smartwatches running Android Wear 2.0: Ticwatch E and Ticwatch S.

Both smartwatches feature a 1.4-inch circular OLED display along with an IP67 certification making them dust and water-resistant. They also come with the usual array of sensors and connectivity options including a heart-rate monitor, GPS, accelerometer, and Wi-Fi. The Ticwatch E is 13.5mm thick, while the Ticwatch E is just a wee bit thinner at 13.55mm.

Interestingly, both smartwatches are powered by MediaTek’s MT2601 dual-core chipset running at 1.2GHz which makes them among the first Android Wear smartwatches to be powered by a MediaTek chip. Other specs of the smartwatches include 512MB RAM, 4GB storage, and a 300mAh battery.

The Ticwatch E, where the E stands for Express, comes with a translucent case design due to which it won the 2016 Good Design award. Then, there’s the Ticwatch S (Sports) which is meant for users with an active and rugged lifestyle. It has also been awarded the 2017 IF Design Award.

For improved GPS connectivity, the GPS antenna is integrated into the band of the Ticwatch S itself. While this does help with GPS connectivity, it also means that the band is not interchangeable. The Ticwatch E, on the other hand, comes with interchangeable watch bands.

Both smartwatches run on Android Wear 2.0 which means they come with their own dedicated Play Store, a mini keyboard, and an improved Google Fit app.

Mobvoi will first be making the Ticwatch E and Ticwatch S available through a Kickstarter campaign. While the early bird price for the Ticwatch E and S will $99, their retail MSRP will be $159 and $199, respectively.