First Look: ConnecteDevice Cookoo Bluetooth Watch

Packaged in a clear plastic birdhouse and pitched as a Bluetooth 4/Smart-based wristwatch, ConnecteDevice’s Cookoo ($130-$250) is certainly one of the most unique iOS-ready accessories we’ve seen. Offered in five colors that range considerably in price for reasons unknown, the watch is substantially metal and glass in the center, with a rubber, plastic, and metal housing and band. The face looks like a traditional analog wristwatch until you press a Light, Command, or Mode button, at which point you’ll notice that there’s a black and white LCD screen hidden behind the hour, minute, and second hands. This screen provides iPhone call alerts, iPhone or iPad calendar/reminder alerts, battery alerts, and Facebook notifications — all in simple icon form, rather than with a more sophisticated text or other display. You can also use Cookoo with an iOS app as a camera remote shutter release, or to locate a misplaced phone or watch, or for Facebook check-ins; additional features are coming soon. Two separate batteries are inside the housing, one for the low-power Bluetooth 4 chip, the other for the timepiece. We’ll have more to say on Cookoo soon, but it does provide an interesting alternative to more power-hungry color screen-laden watches we’ve seen over the last year. Established Bluetooth accessory maker Bluetrek appears to be assisting with development and manufacturing.

Updated: Two days after we began to test Cookoo, the unit malfunctioned, with all of its on-screen icons flashing endlessly on and off for roughly one day. No button presses or other things we tried were able to get the flashing icons to stop; we suspected that they ended on their own when the battery ran down. When we attempted to replace the battery, however, the screen wouldn’t turn back on.