Sony Wena smartband to be released, it is not your usual smartband

Sony is not as active as some of its competitors in the smartphone and smart wearables market. Its last smartphone was Sony Xperia XZ3 launched in 2018. While its last smart wearable, an Android Wear Watch, was released back in 2014. Since then it hasn’t released any smart wearables in the market at all.

But the company is going to change that, as it is planning to launch a new smart wearable, and no, its not a smart watch, its a hybrid smartwatch. The new wearable by Sony is called the Sony Wena straps, which allows the user to connect it with their existing watch, turning it into to a smartwatch. Its like an advanced version of Xiaomi’s Fitness band. This smart wearable will bring smart features to your wrist.

Sony Wena will allow the user to do cardless transactions, contactless payments, keep a track of your fitness and also will inform you if your phone receives any notifications. There is a display on the back of the wrist band so that the user can see all the notification from the Wena.

Sony Wena comes in two different styles – Wena Wrist Active, which comes in a silicone option designed for fitness freaks. While the other is called the Wena Wrist Pro, it is a more premium design of the Wena and will most likely have a metal strap. The Wena Weist Active comes with more health features than its other variant. Some other features on this device is the step tracking, inbuilt GPS and also a heart rate tracker. With these many features present onboard, it will give a tough competition to the other fitness bands in the market.

And as stated earlier, the band will have to be paired with a smartphone, so all the data of the band will be able to sync with fitness apps like Apple Health or Google Fit. The band is compatible with both Android and Apple smartwear products. But if a user doesn’t own a smartwatch or hook it to another watch, they can use Sony’s new watch faces which it is releasing alongside the smart band.

But the watch faces won’t have any smart features in them, they will be dependent on the Wena, they will just be monitors to see and use Wena’s features. The watch faces come in three designs – Mechanical, Quartz and Solar.

The pre-orders of these devices are available in some countries like the UK but the company has still not revealed a release date for the product there or in other countries. Following UK, the next countries in line to receive the smart wear might be US or Australia followed by rest of the world.

The pricing of Sony Wena Wrist Active is $450 (Rs 31,700 approx) and the Wena Wrist Pro is a bit costlier at $510 (Rs 35,900 approx). If the user wants to buy the watch faces as well, they start at $130 (Rs 9,100 approx) and go up to $580(Rs 40,900 approx). There is also an option to buy both Wena and the watch face together as a bundle.