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Here's a Brilliant Idea: A Smartwatch That Doesn't Look Like One

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The Blink smartwatch has an old-school look, but it's packed with the features you'd expect from some of the best, though less attractive, wrist-worn smart devices.

Finally, there's a smartwatch that looks like a classic watch, one that's not like a bulky computer on your wrist.

Called the Blink and made by Witworks, you can set the watch's face to have a minimalist look, reminiscent of an old Movado watch. But it's made with materials that you'd find in tech-packed watches.  Being launched in India, the Blink has a curved Gorilla Glass 3 touch screen, a built-in speaker, an AMOLED display and 1GB of RAM. Plus, it runs on the company's own Android-based Marvin OS.


While it has fewer features than you might get from an Apple Watch, the Blink sports a more attractive and traditional circular watch design, with metal and leather wristbands available. Plus, the battery lasts longer: about two days on a charge, according to Witworks, vs. about 18 hours for the Apple Watch. And, thankfully for Android phone users, the Blink can be paired with Android or iOS phones.

MORE: Best Smartwatches - Top Picks for Android and iOS

When paired with your phone, you can get call and text notifications, plus email alerts and calendar reminders. And impressively for such a simple-looking package, you can reply to WhatsApp and Google Hangouts messages and even hail and Uber with it. There's 8 GB of storage for music, too.

Thanks to its 9-axis motion sensor, the Blink tracks steps and how long you've worked out, and it tracks and displays estimates calories you've burned over time.
 
At retail, the watch will cost about $188, but if you pre-order on the company's website, you can snag one for less than $38. The first batch of watches should make it to consumers this November, according to the company. The bad news is that sales will be limited to India at first.
 
Witworks' Blink Watch is entering a smart watch market with massive and resource-rich competitors, so this watch's sales are likely to be a drop in the bucket compared with those of Apple, Pebble and more. But Witworks sees growth ahead. The company's website it's hiring designers, software developers and PR and sales reps.