The Chronos disc is about the size of a quarter — and about as thick! It attaches to the the back of most timepieces by means of micro-suction.
Chronos sent along the Elliot Havok watch to use for the test. It's a nicely designed timepiece that combines dressiness and sportiness. There's a quartz movement and a comfortable fabric-lined leather strap.
The Chronos device itself is a sandwich of technology. "We made it as sleek as possible," CEO Mark Nichol, a watch enthusiast who previously worked in finance, said. "We understood how important thinness was." The casing is made of the same stainless steel you would find on a Rolex.
The disc comes with a charging cradle that plugs into the USB port of a computer or to a wall-socket adapter. It takes about 30 minutes to fully charge, and a single charge lasts for a couple of days.
I also tried the Chronos with one of my own watches, which has a bracelet rather than a strap. It worked fine. The disc is anti-magnetic, by the way, so it won't interfere with a watch's functioning.
In my experience, this was a breeze. And in several months of testing, the Chronos never lost connection.
Next, you set up the disc to monitor health stuff. "We're watch nuts at Chronos," Nichol said, adding that over two years of development, he and his cofounder determined that a "very limited number of things add value to life." For Chronos, that meant zeroing in on fitness tracking, notifications, and checking the time. The goal was to work with your existing watches, not replace them.
Because the Chronos is connected with your phone, it can alert you to incoming calls, function as a camera remote, control your music playback, and even cause your phone to signal you if you can't locate it.
The core of the Chronos is really the fitness tracker. You can record your steps, measure the distance that you've traveled, and keep track of calories burned.
So what's the verdict?
Well, I certainly enjoyed wearing the Elliot Havok watch, and I liked that the Chronos could adapt to my other timepieces. If you have a see-through caseback on an automatic watch, you might not want to cover it up, but the micro-suction does no damage.
I also liked that the Chronos was limited in its functions. I used all of them, often. Especially useful were the alerts and the media controller.
Initially, the fitness tracker was cool, but then I noticed something: my numbers rarely changed. Admittedly, I wasn't upping my goals or wearing the Chronos while exercising. I liked knowing that I was taking over 5,000 steps each day, but once I learned that was my pace, I quit worrying about it.
That was the only drawback I faced, but that's me. If you are a more fitness-conscious number cruncher, then the Chronos is a perfect way to smarten up your existing timepieces.
At $100, I'd say it's worth it, certainly to try for a few months. I've found myself going back to it over and over again, although I haven't used it consistently, except for about a two-month period. The thinness is a big plus — it makes a bracelet watch snugger, and of course, anything with a strap can be adjusted — but Nichol says he wants to get it thinner.
