Traditional watch manufacturers are struggling to find a solution to take on Apple Watch, but Original Grain has taken the ‘if you can’t beat em, join em’ cliche a bit too literal with its newest watch collection.
The company launched a new Kickstarter today for its new traditional watch, The Barrel, that comes with a very non-traditional feature called The Duo Connection clasp that lets you wear you Apple Watch on the same wrist.
Wearing a smart watch and a dumb watch at the same time seems a bit silly to me, but Original Barrel’s solution as admittedly way more elegant than the Apple Watch Plus Jim Cramer invented on Mad Money.
For $169, you get the Duo connection clasp with the Barrel watch of your choice. The company claims the Apple Watch experience is much better on the inside of your wrist, but Darrell Etherington at TechCrunch got his wrist on an production prototype and says that’s not really the case.
“I found that the Apple Watch had trouble detecting a wrist twist to activate the screen when it’s on the underside of your wrist,” he writes. “Notifications are also still detectable, but feel a little weaker to me vs. when they’re topside.”
If you just can’t let go of your fashionable traditional watch, you can pre-order the Barrel watches today over on Kickstarter with orders estimated to ship by October 2015.