Magellan Echo smartwatch review

A smartwatch with a year's battery life? Surely some mistake?
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Published on 23 February 2014

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Magellan Echo

The Magellan Echo is an exercise-oriented smartwatch with a difference; instead of a couple of days of battery life from a rechargeable battery, the Echo will give you between six and 12 months’ use from a standard disposable £1 CR2032 cell. The reason the watch can last so long is due to its specialised nature. Most of the time, the watch just works as a normal digital watch, and its smart functions only come alive when you want to get stuck into some exercise and fire up a fitness app.

Magellan Echo
When you open a compatible app, such as Strava, MapMyRun or Wahoo, the app can communicate with the Echo via Bluetooth, and it will display info about your workout on your watch. Your watch’s buttons can then control the app, and certain apps even let you change what’s displayed on the Echo’s screen; Wahoo, for example, lets you select which information is displayed on the watch via the app, by tapping different bits of an on-screen representation of the watch. You can also control music playback using the Echo’s buttons.
Magellan Echo

It means the watch is limited without an app to talk to, and means Magellan is reliant on app developers continuing to support the Echo, but it does mean Magellan has produced a watch with more power than your average fitness tracker at a price significantly lower than your average smartwatch; the Echo will be on sale for $150, which equates to around £90.

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Chris has been writing about technology for over ten years. He split his time between ExpertReviews.co.uk and Computer Shopper magazine, while obsessing over Windows Phone, Linux and obscure remakes of old games, and trying to defend Windows 8 from its many detractors

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