Martian Notifier review

We liked

As far as smartwatches go, this is one of the simplest devices to pair and set up with a smartphone. Once you've gone through tweaking your settings in the app it's pretty much set to go all on its own. The Martian Notifier also reliably sent over every notification without a single hiccup.

We disliked

Ultimately the Martian Notifier feels like a pile of compromises. It meets the bare minimum requirements to be an analog watch with smartwatch features, all the while making too many trade-offs to achieve both its goals at the same time.

The analog watch is unreadable due to both the missing markings and the displaced notches on the bottom of the watch. At the same time, the tiny sliver of a digital display is only really useful for text notifications while the Martian Notifier is sorely lacking in features. Even if it is an entry level wearable, there are other smartwatches and activity trackers that also show notifications and do much more for the same price point.

Final verdict

While it's great the Notifier works as promised, it's simply not worth it even with its currently discounted price at Best Buy. A regular, completely analog watch as mechanically simple as the Notifier would only cost about $25 (about £15, AU$29) by itself. Even taking the extremely limited smartwatch features into account, it still does not make any sense why the Martian Notifier costs as much as it does.

You could pick up a more feature packed Pebble Smartwatch or Samsung Gear Live for the same price. Sure it won't have an analog clock face, but you'll still get your notifications, a silent alarm, remote camera trigger and everything the Notifier can do. Plus these other competing wearables also have a pedometer, music controller and many other features that the Martian Notifier lacks.