The Misfit Vapor was announced in January at CES 2017 as the wearable company's first touchscreen smartwatch. But the specs left many of us scratching our heads: Snapdragon Wear 2100, 4GB of memory, heart rate sensor, GPS, Bluetooth and Wi-Fi, microphone, 2-day battery life... those looked an awful lot like other Android Wear watches. But Misfit was mum. It didn't demo the watch a lot and the few hands-on we saw depicted an OS that didn't look like Wear. So we moved on.

But now Misfit is officially announcing that the Vapor will run Android Wear. Walk back with me one second and let's reconsider the specs I already mentioned, plus those I didn't:

  • Snapdragon Wear 2100, 4GB storage, Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, microphone: par for the course.
  • Heart rate sensor: some Wear watches are removing that, so it's good to see it here.
  • GPS: oh, not bad, many new watches don't have it.
  • 2-day battery life: at least it should be better than the LG Watch Style.
  • 44mm body with 1.39" fully round AMOLED display at 326ppi: no flat tire, thank goodness, plus the screen is bigger than the Huawei Watch 2!
  • "touch bezel" to browse through watchfaces, apps, notifications, without obscuring the screen: you mean like Samsung's Gear watches? Not a bad alternative to the digital crown on LG's watches.
  • Water resistance up to 50 meters: well, well, well, that's relatively rare.
  • $199 price: Oh boy. Do we have a winner?

I think we have a winner there. I have yet to see one Android Wear 2.0 watch with that many specs, including GPS and that level of water resistance, at the $200 price tag. Correct me if I'm wrong, please.

Add the fact that this is a Misfit product after all and should replace a standalone activity tracker and you have an even better deal. The Vapor running Android Wear 2.0 should be available in late summer in Jet Black or Rose Gold satin-finished upper casing. And it does look mighty fine if you ask me.

UPDATE: 2017/03/23 2:41pm PDT BY

We reached out to Misfit regarding NFC and a possible ambient light sensor. The company confirmed that the Vapor indeed does not have NFC for Android Pay, but it does have an ambient light sensor:

Source: Misfit