Just an Apple-friendly smartwatch

Unlike the global smartphone market that is divided into either Apple or Android, the Japanese market maintains a strong alliance only with Apple. Maybe because of that, a smartwatch but not smart enough, Sony’s Wena did not connect to my Galaxy S9. I went through some materials to find that apps can be downloaded only from Google Play Japan. A differentiation point of Wena is that it provides a digital currency payment system in Japan which I think is for the purpose to prevent financial incidents. Anyway, I had to use my wife’s iPhone to connect and experience for a few hours. 

A smartwatch made by, according to and only for Japan

Opening the case, you will only find Japanese in the included manual. It became obvious that Wena was a product for the domestic market with the least thought about exporting. As the overall look of the watch was quite nice, I looked up for some information to find out that the watch part was manufactured by Citizen Watch Co., a leading Japanese watch maker. It was a very wise decision to entrust the production of the watch part to the more professional Citizen Watch, since most of Wena’s smartwatch functions are realized by the bracelet buckle. However, this Sony-designed watch has a fatal flaw. The way it shows the time, which is the purpose of its existence, is viciously set up with a dark grey dial and light grey index and chronograph hands along with black time hands. Since chronograph is an ancillary function, one could understand, but the time hands should have been either silver or white for the sake of better visibility. Because of this, I became sure that Sony did not ask for the opinions of a watch expert when developing the Wena. A watch expert would have definitely pointed out such color combination of the dial and hands. 

The watch is run by the Chronograph Quartz Caliber 0S20 of the movement maker Miyota, a subsidiary of Citizen. This movement gives an obvious feeling of ‘click’ when the start and reset function of the chronograph pusher is activated. But, it is a shortcoming that nothing else can be felt when running the stop function. I have a clear reason why I would call this a shortcoming. If the chronograph cannot be accurately controlled due to poor handling, measurement errors can occur. A movement of which the user cannot feel whether or not the stop function normally operated for one second, would disqualify as a chronograph. Both Miyota, which made the watch and Sony, which wasn’t able to recognize such flaws, made a huge mistake. For the reference, various chronograph movements that are much more superior can be found at Miyota. But with the Wena, it is easy to understand where Sony cut the manufacturing costs. 

Couple of trivial advantages

After all, this review turned out to be a report about Wena’s cons, but there are also a few pros that I had to strive to find. It is the digital currency payment function (confined to Japan) and the high compatibility of the bracelet. With a lug size of 22mm, Wena’s bracelet can be combined with various big size watches (the standard is 20mm) by having applied an all-new pin that enables the watch to be integrated and separated without any tools. If the bracelet is simply replaced to Wena, the watch can perform smartwatch functions no matter what the watch is. However, here, Sony made another critical mistake. The finishing of Wena’s bracelet is just a level that can be seen by watches below 500,000 KRW. As a result, only the size of the lug would fit the high-end watches above the price of 2million KRW, but the finishing would not match at all. This means that the surface luster will look completely different despite the same stainless-steel material. This is a part where watch lovers might react quite sensitively, because it contradicts with the excelling finishing of the Apple watch that fabulously goes well with the perfect finishing of the Hermes’ leather strap. Nevertheless, compliments should be made about the charger as it is not to be inserted like the charging socket of the smartphone but to be picked by a charger that looks like tongs. Nothing, that has to do with charging, appears on the exterior. Compared to other products, this looks sup erior in terms of design. But another flaw is that it is not easy to find the exact chase.

* The product used in this review is Wena Wrist Silver Band & Chronograph Silver Head.