What you need to know
- Skagen launches its latest hybrid Jorn HR smartwatch with five different designs and two sizes.
- The watch features an E-Ink display and two weeks of battery life.
- The Jorn HR will retail for $195 when available.
Skagen is known for its stylish Wear OS smartwatches like the Skagen Falster 3, which are similar to offerings from its parent company, Fossil, yet often offer more simple and modern designs. The company's smartwatches can often be hampered by Wear OS, which is known over the years to offer sluggish performance and short battery life. For CES 2021, Skagen is extending its design language to the new Jorn HR hybrid smartwatch that doesn't run Wear OS but can still perform many of the functions consumers look for in a typical smartwatch.
The new Jorn HR smartwatch features an E-Ink display that sits under the standard watch hands. This allows users to check notifications, track metrics, and monitor their heart rate without the need to sift through various menus and UI elements. And because it's using a low-power E-Ink display, the watch isn't chugging through its battery like on a typical smartwatch, offering more than two weeks of use on a single charge with the always-on display. That's on par with many of the best hybrid smartwatches with E-Ink displays, and a huge improvement from the average day or so of battery life on a Wear OS smartwatch.
In addition to the typical watch functions, the new Jorn HR hybrid smartwatch also features sleep tracking, workout modes and auto workout detection, custom watch faces, music control, notifications and app alerts, and more.
There's no built-in GPS, so it relies on connected GPS through a smartphone. And after a run or bike ride, the companion app can display a snapshot or animated video of your route.
The watch has a 3ATM water resistance rating and can charge up to 80% in just 50 minutes, although you won't be doing too much charging.
The Jorn Hybrid HR comes in five different styles and either 42mm or 38mm sizes, with standard strap sizes of 22mm and 18mm, respectively. No release date has been announced but the watch will retail for $195 when available.
Fossil Collider HR Hybrid Smartwatch
Fossil hybrid smartwatches offer the best of both worlds for those of you who want all the functionality of a typical smartwatch but without all the bloat and confusing menu navigation. Fossil's hybrid smartwatches feature E-Ink displays to track your metrics and can last for more than two weeks on a single charge.
