Citizen's Bluetooth watch

Following on the heels of Seiko's recent Bluetooth watch concept come Citizen, who are set to beat Seiko to the punch with a shipping product. The i:VIRT, which hits stores in Japan on July 7, is an odd-looking beast--"retro", "designed without much consideration for aesthetics" and "fugly" are some of the words that come to mind--but whatever; it syncs with your phone via the Bluetooth handsfree profile to buzz you when a call comes in (with caller display if you've beamed your phonebook to the watch in advance), and gives you the ability to put callers on hold or hang up via the watch. It also warns you when you're about to lose your Bluetooth connection, the intention being to stop you leaving your cellphone behind.

The i:VIRT draws its juice from a rechargeable battery that's charged via a contactless stand. Battery life is around one monnth with vibration/Bluetooth turned off, or about five days with them on assuming 20 30-second calls made/received per day and 10 checks of the time. It apparently will still run for a day even if there's too little power to use the Bluetooth.

Size is 40 x 42 x 14.6mm, weight 55g. Price expected to be around Y27,000.

[Via K-Tai Watch (Japanese)]