LG Watch Urbane: All-Metal Luxury Android Wear Timepiece Will Have LTE Capability

Your move Apple. The LG Watch Urbane has been tipped as the only smartwatch that could possibly take on the Apple Watch. Pundits are especially impressed by its all-metal luxury design. But LG Electronics has taken the Urbane one step further. It plans to announce a version with LTE capabilities at the upcoming World Mobile Congress.

With LTE, the LG Watch Urbane will be able to connect to mobile carriers and have a push-to-talk (PTT) feature, essentially making it a walkie-talkie on your wrist that has unlimited range and allows for multiple-party conversations.

Additionally, LG Watch Urbane LTE will include near field communication (NFC) technology, which will allow wearers to use a virtual wallet on their smartwatch. Payment opportunities include meals, movies and transit fares, according to LG. “Imagine being able to purchase movie tickets with the LG Watch Urbane LTE and then receiving a reminder of the movie a few hours in advance, all based on the payment information,” the manufacturer said in a press release.

While some smartwatches on the market do have cellular connections, the LG Watch Urbane is the first to feature an LTE connection. It’s also the first all-metal luxury Android Wear device. To power its advanced technology, the Urbane LTE will feature a 700mAh battery, much larger than the 410mAh battery in the base model LG Watch Urbane.

But all other hardware features are the same, including its Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 chip and the Android Wear operating system. It has a 1.3-inch (320 x 320 resolution) P-OLED display, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of internal storage. Its sensors include gyro, accelerometer, compass, barometer and heart rate. The LG Watch Urbane LTE is also dust- and water-resistant, with an Ingress Protection rating of IP67.