Kitkat based Intex iRist standalone smartwatch with 3G support wants to replace your phone

At the Mobile World Congress Shanghai 2015, Intex has announced the Intex iRist – a standalone smartwatch which can work independently off a smartphone and can also work being paired with it.

The Indian based OEM is expected to sell the device for Rs 11,999 ($188) in Black, Orange and Pink colour options. The iRist is expected to be available on eBay exclusively in August for a while before it can be purchased at Intex’s retail partner stores. 

To make it a fully standalone smartwatch, Intex decided to use Android 4.4 Kitkat OS on the smartwatch rather than the Android Wear OS which is meant for wearables. It comes with Google Play store and is touted to be able to run popular apps like Whatsapp and Twitter effectively. 

It comes with a custom voice assistant which let’s you interact with the watch, supports on-screen keyboard input and you only need to double tap the display to wake it up. Packed with a micro SIM slot, the Intex iRist support 3G and comes with a built-in dialer, which means it can make calls and receive calls by pairing it with a bluetooth headset, it can also send texts, watch videos, track steps and do more phone functions. 

For pairing with a smartphone, it comes with an app called iConnect, this syncs informations like Contacts, bookmarks, photos, music and more, to and fro the iRist. The Intex iRist is powered by a dual-core Mediatek MT6752 CPU clocked at 1.2GHz, 512MB of RAM, 4GB space of internal storage (1.3GB user available) and a microSD card slot for storage expansion (up to 32GB). 

It sports a plastic body build, a 1.56-inch OLED display with Sapphire glass protection, and a resolution of 240 x 240 pixels. There is a 5MP 720p camera on the right edge of the watch and two physical buttons on the right side. It is IP65 certified for water and dust resistance. 

Connectivity options on the watch includes – Bluetooth, built-in Wi-Fi, Wi-Fi Hotspot micro USB and GPS. Sensor options includes – accelerometer, ambient light sensor, compass, gyroscope and pedometer. The Intex iRist comes with a dock for charging it’s 600mAh battery which is tipped to last 200 hrs of standby time and 4 hours of talk time.