Skagen’s Jorn Hybrid HR is a smartwatch on the sly - British GQ

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Smartwatches are by no means new territory for Skagen. The Danish brand has already successfully channelled its minimalist, functional watch design approach into its full-fat series of Falster smartwatches and its gorgeous Hagen and Holst watches, where it surrounded more basic smart features in leather, mesh and titanium.

The Jorn Hybrid HR is a halfway house between those two approaches, a watch that still has the stature and the price tag of a Skagen and a slate of connected capabilities that go beyond simply telling the time. Crucially, its claimed two weeks' battery life won't have you dropping its case back onto a charging puck every night. If that sounds like an appealing timepiece then you're not alone. We took the Skagen Jorn Hybrid HR out for a spin for a week.

Simply stylish

The appeal of the Skagen's original Jorn is that it’s quite an effortlessly attractive timepiece. This more feature-packed version doesn’t really change that. Whether you opt for the rose gold tone matched up with a metal mesh strap or the stainless-steel case paired with a brown leather strap we had on our wrists, this feels every bit like a Skagen watch. You won’t find any extravagant detailing on the dial or hands here, just on-trend looks that will make you happy to wear it.

That leather strap might look like it only belongs to be partnered up with your informal, casual look, but the silicone interior means it’s one you can happily get a sweat on with too. The stainless-steel crown and pushers only extend its unfussy look and also serve to give you better control of the one design element that tells you this isn’t your normal Skagen watch.

Unlike the full-colour touchscreen displays packed onto Apple Watches, Samsung Galaxy Watches and Skagen’s own Falster 3 watch, this one has more in common with the kind you’ll find on an Amazon Kindle. It’s black and white, offers less drain on battery and works in combination with the traditional watch hands that dynamically make way when you need to read a message or start tracking a workout. You can even give it a gentle double tap when you need to light things up. Matching it with a similarly coloured black bezel is no accident here either. It only helps to make this feel less smartwatch and that’s a good thing.

Stick to the basics

On paper, this is a smartwatch that promises to keep you away from your phone for a lot of reasons. It will show off your phone notifications and even let you fire off quick replies, which you can edit to make them more “you”. It’ll let you skip tracks when a rogue song makes it onto your working from home Spotify playlist. It can behave like a Fitbit to make sure you stay active during the day and aspires to be the watch you can turn to when you want to go for a run or stay indoors and workout.

Its success at doing all of those things with consummate ease, however, is up for debate. Yes, it’s a delight when you see those watch hands shift out of the way to read a WhatsApp message, but it’s a bit slow going using those pushers to scroll through messages that are too big to show entirely on that one screen. Music controls are nicely integrated when you can master the art of adjusting the volume instead of skipping a track and vice versa. If your fitness regime revolves around nailing daily step counts and seeing if you got a little closer to the magical right hours of sleep, it will largely serve you well too.

Fitness freakout

As for when you up the intensity?  It just feels a bit too much for this smartwatch to handle. On the whole, it tracked our outdoor runs accurately, but the screen just isn’t well equipped to show off that data. Back inside, jumping on an indoor rower or burpeeing our way through home workouts, the heart rate monitor in place to measure effort levels doesn’t feel up to scratch on the accuracy front. The bigger issue, however, is that exercise time can often cause the inside of the screen to fog up, partially obscuring it for the rest of the day and maybe even the next.

Skagen promises a respectable two weeks of battery life from the Jorn Hybrid HR, though that will entirely depend on how regularly you’re putting those fitness features to work. Two weeks feels like the dream, but one week feels more like reality. It’s good that you can get back close to full capacity when you drop it on the charger for just shy of an hour.

Verdict

The Skagen Jorn Hybrid HR is a looker, even though it has to make room for a display that could’ve easily broken up that typically sleek, simple aesthetic. If you want to make the most of its added smarts, the best approach is to stick to using it for the simple things: a glance at a notification, a way to change a song or see if you’ve steered clear of slouching on the sofa for large parts of the day. Try to get it to do more and it'll leave you feeling more frustrated to use day-to-day. Still, if you value a smartwatch that doesn’t look like a smartwatch and you’re happy to stick to the basics, then you might well find you’re in good company with the Jorn Hybrid HR.

£189. skagen.com

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February 27, 2021 at 04:00AM
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Skagen’s Jorn Hybrid HR is a smartwatch on the sly - British GQ

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