Japanese company Sharp is a tough brand to buy in South Africa. The new Karada Mate Watch wearable could be worth going out of your way for, though. The device makes one particularly impressive claim — that it can track your calories without needing its user to input details.
That’s a big deal. Calorie tracking isn’t unusual for wearables, but it typically involves user input. The Karada Mate Watch reckons it does away with much of that by natively registering how much you’ve eaten. That’s… pretty ambitious for Sharp’s first-ever smartwatch.
Karada, Mate. Watch.
This is due to a new bioelectrical impedance sensor that “measures changes in electrical resistance by applying a weak electric current, automatically measures calorie intake based on the movement of water and changes in sugar within the body” (via Google Translate). The sensor also facilitates hydration tracking. The Karada Mate Watch also handles more conventional measurements, of the sort you’d expect from a tracker.
The watch design is rather slick, almost concealing its capabilities. The casing around the 1.32in 466 x 466 OLED display is stainless steel, while the screen is protected by Gorilla Glass 5. It features IPX8, IP6X, and a 5ATM waterproof rating, so it should prove fairly rugged. Bluetooth 5.4 sorts out connections, and the Karada will support Android 14 and iOS 17 devices and above.
But, like we said, finding one will be tricky. Sharp’s new wearable is scheduled for a 9 July release in Japan, with no indication of when (or if) it’ll release elsewhere. Pricing in that country works out to around R6,100. For lazy calorie trackers, it could be worth the effort to acquire one anyway.
