Casio Japan has developed a next-generation watch with Bluetooth Low Energy Wireless Technology for its G-SHOCK brand of shock-resistant watches. Casio’s new G-SHOCK watch is the first in a line of new watches that will use Bluetooth Low Energy Wireless Technology, with a function that can adjust time automatically all over the world. Casio is positioning these watches as next-generation wristwatches. The watch supports communication with Bluetooth Low Energy smart phones that will hit the market in 2011, to enable automatic synchronization with smart phone time. Smart phones automatically acquire the local time when moving between countries and regions in different time zones, which means that the synchronized watch will adjust to the time in its present location automatically.
In addition, integration of Bluetooth Low Energy support opens the doors to completely new ways of using watches as new applications are developed for smart phones; for instance, communication between watches through smart phones. The expectation is that these new watches will be able to connect to networks of various kinds of devices that support the Bluetooth Low Energy standard. Casio has designed the watch to offer a battery life of approximately two years from a single button-cell battery. Casio will release the new watch sometime in 2011.