My Favorite Apple Watch Competitor Just Got More Competitive

by Andy Faust

November 30, 2015

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about the crowd-funded ReVault Smartwatch, lauding its unique take on the necessity of wearables and lamenting that my wearable would likely never offer the ReVault’s best feature: personal wireless data storage. Of course, the lack of positional sensors and a heart rate monitor meant that said challenger would never truly be able to challenge the mainstream smartwatches out there, as health tracking is a chief consideration among consumers (myself included). Still, the ReVault is so potentially cool that I said — and still believe — the following:

Sure, there’s no heart rate monitor, but honestly, as things stand right now, I think I’d prefer to wear the ReVault all day and just put on my Apple Watch Sport for the gym. I am literally that enthusiastic about this device, and that’s rare.

Now, it seems like I might not have to make that daily switch. A recently-published blog update from ReVault hardware engineer Martin Layley indicates that such sensors will indeed be supported by the device:

Changing processor family was [tough] but it will offer additional useful benefits such as: Access up to 8MB RM, instead of 1MB. A much faster eMMC interface (1600Mb/s instead of 192Mb/s). The CPU can run faster if we need it and there is a hardware block to assist with some of the encryption/decryption functions. The DMA engine is also more flexible. We get more pins which allows more sensors…

What you get from this, is that we have upgraded the accelerometer to include a 3-axis gyro and a 3-axis magnetometer. We have also included a pulse oxiometer, which is capable of reading both pulse rate and blood oxygen levels.

Though I dont expect ReVault’s heart rate sensor to be on par with Apple’s (nobody makes a wrist-mounted solution anywhere near as good as Apple Watch offers), it might be good enough for anyone but the most workout-focused gym devotee.

Here’s hoping the ReVault hits the market sooner than later.

And that it lives up to my hype.