TAG Heuer Connected is a $1500 luxury smart watch

I’ve got to be honest, I don’t get the appeal of "smart" versions of luxury Swiss watches. Buy an analog Rolex, or Omega, and you’ve got a quality timepiece that will last for years, decades even. I have an Omega Seamaster that’s serviced every few years or so which looks exactly how it did the day I bought it, and keeps perfect time. There’s a lot of skilled craftsmanship that goes into making an analog watch, and whipping out those innards and replacing them with a digital interior immediately cheapens the watch for me, and makes it feel like a bit of a knock off.

TAG Heuer Connected, is the first Android Wear powered product from the fabled Swiss watchmaker, and if you’re a fan of TAG Heuer’s stylings, then the Connected has a lot to offer, including a titanium case and signature vulcanized rubber strap in seven striking colors -- green, blue, orange, red, white, black, yellow.

The new watch has a round face and bezel, with a 1.5in 360 x 360 (240ppi) LTPS LCD screen covered in scratch resistant sapphire crystal. The absence of the traditional analog innards means it weighs just 52g.

Inside is a 1.6GHz dual-core processor, 1GB of main memory and 4GB of storage. Connectivity comes in the form of 2.4GHz 802.11 B/G/N Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 4.1 LE.

A 410mAh battery means you can expect up to 25 hours of use on a charge, which is comparable to Apple Watch, and there’s a wireless conductive charger and cradle included.

The TAG Heuer name means a high price of course, although the $1,500 asking price is a lot cheaper than you'd expect to pay for one of its dumb (but, for me, superior) analog Carrera counterparts. Interestingly, TAG Heuer will allow buyers to exchange the smart device for a mechanical version after two years. Provided they pay an additional fee.

If you want a quality Android Wear timepiece to rival Apple Watch, and the likes of the Huawei Watch, don’t appeal, then the TAG Heuer Connected might just be the smart watch you’ve been waiting for.