Motorola is again offering its new Moto 360 smartwatches for sale to consumers on its Website, now that they’ve restocked after selling all the devices that were available after the product launched on Sept. 5.
There is a caveat, however—the black models of the $249.99 smartwatches again sold out the same day they were announced on Sept. 16, leaving only Stone Gray models available for sale on Sept. 17.
The availability of the watches was revealed by Motorola, which is owned by Google, in a Sept. 14 announcement by the company. Motorola did say that quantities of the watches would continue to be in limited supply.
The Moto 360 watches originally sold out on Sept. 5, the day they were first offered for sale, according to the company. The watches, which are powered by Google’s Android Wear app software, were announced back in March.
Prospective buyers can also check with their local Best Buy retail stores to see if they have the watches in stock, a Motorola spokeswoman told eWEEK.
The watches include either a dark metal case with a black leather band or a light-colored metal case with a Stone Gray leather band. The design of the Moto 360 includes a classic round shape, instead of the rectangular shape used by other smartwatch makers, including Samsung and LG. The Moto 360 watch displays timely notifications for users on its face, including weather, flight alerts, traffic reports and more, all using Google’s Android Wear applications. The watches can be configured for left-handed or right-handed users. When looking at the Moto 360, Motorola’s focus was obviously on style and form factor.
The Moto 360 will have even more formidable competition in the future when Apple launches its Apple Watch in early 2015.
The long-awaited Apple Watch was announced at Apple’s new-product event on Sept. 9, along with new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus smartphones, according to an earlier eWEEK report. The Apple Watch screen is controlled by touch, by arm movement and by the “crown”—the circular wheel button on the side that traditionally was used to wind a watch. The watch, which must be used with an iPhone to get full usability, can do everything a smartphone or laptop can do, just on a smaller scale. It can also do things those other devices cannot do, such as track steps, heart rate, blood pressure and other health-related metrics. The device will start at $349.
The Apple Watch has also garnered the attention of Connecticut’s state attorney general, who has requested a meeting with Apple officials to discuss privacy concerns related to the upcoming devices, according to an earlier eWEEK report.
Connecticut’s attorney general, George Jepsen, said that he wants to conduct the talks before the devices arrive on store shelves so that he can make sure that the new product doesn’t intrude on personal privacy. To express his concerns, Jepsen sent a two-page letter to Apple CEO Tim Cook on Sept. 12, asking Cook more about how personal information and privacy protections will be implemented and enforced on the device and on any servers that store or handle the information.
Jepsen wrote that he would like to meet with Apple officials to discuss his privacy concerns about the future product. Among the issues that Jepsen would like to explore are whether Apple will allow consumers to store personal and health information on Apple Watch itself and/or on its servers, and how that information will be safeguarded. He also wants to discuss how Apple will review application privacy policies to ensure that users’ health information is safeguarded.