While the Danish designed Leikr GPS watch is still in the Kickstarter phase, other GPS watch makers should take notice. In place of typically small, hard to read screens on many GPS enabled watches, the Leikr boasts a 2 inch, high resolution, color display all housed under a protective layer of Corning Gorilla Glass. It also claims that it can connect to the GPS satellites extremely fast, in a time as short at 30 seconds. Considering this is a prototype on Kickstarter, the watch is looking very polished – but what would you expect from a team of former Nokia smart phone engineers?
It appears that the Leikr forgoes touch screen functionality and instead utilizes 4 large rubber buttons on the corners of the watch that seem to be fairly well labeled on the screen for easy operation. Thanks to the color screen, the Leikr can display real time mapping with its onboard maps sourced from OpenStreetMap. Regardless of what kind of electronic training aids you employ, connectivity shouldn’t be a problem with the Leikr being compatible with Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, USB, and ANT+.
The Leikr has been designed for any athlete looking for training data, from running, cycling, triathlon and more. When it comes to cycling though, we would like to see a handlebar mount either included or offered, as I can’t see myself riding with a watch that large.
Leikr is an impressive piece of hardware, that should have no problem finding its place in the market so long as it meets its funding goal on Kickstarter. If it does, let’s just hope they don’t have the same problems delivering the watches as Pebble.
More videos and specs after the break.
