Sure, you can spend $10,000 on a top-end Apple Watch if you want, but to the casual observer it’ll still look like every other Apple Watch out there. If you want exclusivity and smartwatch functionality there are options from the likes of Tag Heuer, Michael Kors and Mont Blanc… and now from Louis Vuitton. But it’s the LV-branded options that might prove most appealing to image-conscious travellers.
The new Tambour Horizon range starts at around $2,500 (roughly R32,500) and has a range of travel-focused features. For starters, there’s the 24-hour dial around the edge of the customisable digital faces that shows the time in your home city, the one to which you’re headed, or the one you’re considering making an impromptu layover in.
Then there are the Louis Vuitton-created city guides for some of the world’s most popular cities that’ll use your geolocation to suggest the best spot to see (or be seen) given your current location.
An accompanying app called “My Flight” also lets wearers plug in their flight details and then serves them with pertinent information about terminals and gates, any delays, and a countdown to arrival if they’re in transit.
The Tambour Horizon runs Google’s Android Wear operating system and offers 30 strap options for its unisex body. While it’s fitness-tracking capabilities are limited to step counting, it’ll serve up notifications for calls, SMS, email and instant messages, display local weather… basically all of the annoyances that put us off smartwatches generally (but which have attracted others to the likes of the Apple Watch, Samsung’s Gear range or Huawei’s Watch and Watch 2).
Do we want one? Not really, but we have to admit it’s one of the better-looking smartwatches we’ve seen. Assuming one doesn’t mind an advertisement for LV strapped to one’s wrist, that is. But then, given the branding of LB’s other kit, we suspect that’s actually part of the appeal.