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Verdict
The Kate Spade Scallop is a fashion-focused accessory with lots to shout about. It’s playful, cute and feminine with shiny metallic finishes and customizable watch faces.
It’s designed for those who like Kate Spade, style or getting the seal of approval from a fashion brand.
It’s not enough for fitness fans and its one day battery life is bound to be frustrating if you’ve tried longer lasting wearables before. But it’s a bold accessory from Kate Spade and a great sign of things to come from the New York fashion house.
Who's this for?
If you sit in that sweet spot and both like Kate Spade and the idea of trialing a smartwatch, it’s a no-brainer. The brand has managed to craft a wearable that stands up against some of the best smartwatches on the market - and looks really damn good while doing it. Well, if your idea of damn good is playful and feminine.
It’s not for everyone. The aesthetic certainly took us a few days to get used to and it’s a little style over substance at times. For example, it lacks fitness-focused features, like GPS tracking and an optical heart rate monitor. It’s created to count your steps, but it doesn’t really care how hard you worked out on the rowing machine earlier.
Should you buy it?
If you want a device that’s created to streamline your life with notifications, reminders and cool apps all from your wrist that happens to look as cute and stylish as any other Kate Spade accessory, this is the watch for you.
But you really have to want that high-end jewelry look and feel, otherwise opt for something a little more sporty, simple, functional and maybe even cheaper.
First reviewed: April 2018
The competition
Not sold on the Scallop? Consider one of these three smartwatches instead:
Apple Watch 3
Competition is fierce in the smartwatch space at the moment. You could argue the Kate Spade Scallop comes up against less fashion-focused smartwatches that still score top points for design, like the Apple Watch 3.
Although the Apple Watch may not have the seal of approval from a design house, it scores top points for minimalist chic and has plenty of customizable options, elegant-looking metal straps and accessories to choose from. It’s also the same price as the higher-end Scallop model at £329 / $329 / AU$459.
Read our full Apple Watch 3 review
Skagen Falster
The most obvious products we’d put the Scallop up against are others from the Fossil Group. There’s the Skagen Falster, which is a super minimal design from Skagen and also the first device from the brand running Android Wear.
It’s got a similar offering to the Scallop in that it puts looks before functionality, there’s no NFC payments and the battery life is also around a day.
Read our full Skagen Falster review
Garmin Vivoactive 3
For those on the fence about whether they want more advanced fitness tracking and heart rate tracking, competition could include the likes of the Garmin Vivoactive 3.
If the thought of charging the Scallop up every night already sounds irritating, a device like the Vivoactive 3 with a transflective memory-in-pixel display would be ideal as its battery lasts for (literally) days and days.
Read our full Garmin Vivoactive 3 review
