The entirety of the new watch by Fashion Entertainments is a screen -- wristband and face. But while it uses e-paper, enabling the wearer to change the watch's appearance, it has limited functionality compared to other smart watches.
E-paper, also called intelligent paper or electronic ink, is a display technology that offers the appearance of ordinary paper -- in this case, an electronic, adaptable screen that looks like a regular watch. Perhaps the most impressive of its limited features is that it turns on or off depending on how its positioned. As a user turns his or her wrist to check the time, the smart watch's screen clicks on. Reportedly, this trick allows its battery to last 60 days with one charge.
In a review of the e-paper watch, which can take on 24 appearances, CNET's Rich Trenholm writes that it looks "more like a prototype or even a toy than devices such as the Apple Watch or Samsung Gear S."
But the e-paper watch essentially is a prototype. It has not yet been mass-produced, and it's not clear if it ever will be. The product was recently featured on Makuake, a Japanese crowd-sourcing site similar to Kickstarter. In three weeks, the watch earned $30,000.
It's a good haul for a small Japanese startup, as the venture portrayed itself on the fundraising site. Only Fashion Entertainments isn't a startup, but a branch of Sony.
"We hid Sony's name because we wanted to test the real value of the product, whether there will be demand for our concept," a person involved in the project recently told The Wall Street Journal.
Fashion Entertainments says it's also working on using e-paper to develop other wearable products, including shoes, glasses and bow ties.
"One of my predictions for next year is that fashion is going to play a huge part in shaping the tech industry," Stuart Miles, a gadget writer at Pocket-lint, said. "Having a phone that's big and square is one thing, but if we're actually wearing things, it has to look good."