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In the world of smartwatches, they mostly run on one of the two most popular smartwatch OSes, either watchOS for the Apple Watch or Android Wear. There are a few notable exceptions like Tizen OS on the Samsung smartwatches and Pebble watch OS. We may be adding a new OS and new smartwatch to the list of notable exceptions soon. Introducing the new Ticwatch 2 that is powered by Ticwear OS.

Designing a brand new watch OS and an interactive interface for a watch is not easy due to the limited screen size. Last year, Mobvoi, a Chinese start-up company came up with a new smartwatch operating system and their own smartwatch, the original Ticwatch, for the China market. Mobvoi is not just any startup. It was founded by two ex-Googlers and Google is one of its investors.

The original Ticwatch only comes with a Chinese interface but thanks to a successful crowd funding campaign, an English version of the Ticwear OS now powers the updated Ticwatch 2. What makes this smartwatch stand out from the rest is its interaction method or specifically the many different ways you can interact with it.

Like most current smartwatches, it has a touch screen that supports the usual swiping and presses on the screen. It has voice recognition allowing you to interact with the Ticwatch 2 without touching it. Pretty cool but still nothing new. It supports gestures or motion activated functions such as flipping your wrist to make a phone call or knocking your knuckle to shuffle songs. You can cover the screen with your palm to activate stealth mode.

If that still doesn’t impress you enough, the pièce de résistance is the touch strip on the side of the watch face that you slide across with your finger tip, an interactive method that is known as “Tickle” control. Using Tickle allows you to interact with your watch without covering the display with your finger, an important feature when the screen size is only 1.4 inches across.

Besides its unique interactive features, the Ticwatch 2 has a string of other very impressive features as well especially for a smartwatch in its price range. It has a fully round 400 x 400 pixels (287 ppi) OLED display that has great visibility even under the sun. It has 512MB RAM and 4GB storage. Another impressive feature is that it has a sapphire crystal screen. It has Bluetooth, WiFi and GPS. In short, it has most of the bell and whistles that you will only expect from the flagship models of other brands that cost significantly more. Best of all, it works with both iOS and Android smartphones.

To find out more, check out the Ticwear website.
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