My Crappy Life | Syed ™

Many of you showed interest in the Casio G-Shock GB-6900 when we reported its announcement last month. While it is more of an accessory compared to other smartwatches in the market, this device has its lures (mainly its battery life), and we got a chance to play around with it for a while during CES.

If you have not heard of this watch, it’s basically a classic G-Shock, but its functionality is not limited to time, chronometer, alarms and calendar. This little guy pairs with your device over bluetooth, bringing features like call, SMS and e-mail notifications, a phone finder and time synchronization with your smartphone.

Granted, this device is not as sophisticated as the other smartwatches. It does not have access to apps, nor a touchscreen, and the screen is not even in color. This gadget has a battery life of 2 years, though. It uses Bluetooth Low Energy Wireless Technology, which is a standard in Bluetooth 4.0.

After using it for a while, the GB-6900 turned out to be a much better device then I expected. It may not be as fancy, but it offers simple and useful functionality. After receving a call or message, the device lets you know who the sender is, and you can even see the song name when listening to the music player.

My favorite features happen to be the phone finder and the distance notification. Long press on a button in the watch, and the smartphone will start playing an alarm. The signal range is only 2 meters, so it may not be too functional if you are very far from it, but there’s a solution for that as well. When paired to a device, this watch will give the user a notification when walking away from the phone.

When this was first announced, we didn’t know if it would make it to the US. But the guys from Casio have informed us that they plan to release it stateside in mid-2012, and it will go for $150. This price is not bad, considering that G-Shock watches have never been cheap.

If you are in the market for a watch and would like it to have some good interaction with your smartphone, this just might be the way to go.