This week, we are testing the new Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon Light Up, a connected watch that combines the French luxury brand’s sense of design with some pretty cool smartwatch technology. Let’s see what the team thought.
Jean-Christophe Teignier
A truly beautiful luxury & digital watch! Yes, it is possible and Louis Vuitton just did it. The packaging alone is incredible and hints at a very nice surprise. Once you discover the watch, its size is perfect. Not too big, not too small. It is beautiful and fits perfectly even on a small wrist. The connection is quickly made to your cell phone. And most importantly, thanks to its three operating systems, you can connect it to your iPhone – Finally! In 5 minutes, the watch sends you your first messages. Easy! The handling is very intuitive even if the user manual could be useful from time to time. On this watch, you can find everything: your heart rate, the outside temperature of your city and the rest of the world, but also your emails and messages from your favorite social networks. So, you don't miss a thing! In fact, within a few hours, and even more after a few days, it's impossible to live without it.
Jordy Bellido
This is our second week of watch testing and we already have a smartwatch in our hands! It was extremely easy to connect with a smartphone and simple to use, unlike some of the other smartwatches I have tested where you can easily get lost in all the functions. The Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon Light Up concentrates more on the travel aspect and focuses on making the watch as simple to use as possible. I liked the second time zone feature, the dial with world time indications, and the travel guides to 30 cities around the globe. This watch is a must for travel lovers. Its many bright and flashing colours bring an exotic side to the watch that will brighten up even the greyest of days.
The watch is super smart, and by “smart”, I mean that it has been well thought out, especially in terms of displaying information on the dial according to the time of day. This greatly facilitates the user experience. For example, the weather, next to each hour, is a drawing of the weather; this allows you to have a clear overview of what is happening outside throughout the day. The same goes for the air quality (a feature I think is brilliant). As for the city guides, they suggest activities according to the time of day: at noon, a restaurant suggestion will be proposed, while at midnight, it will be a nightclub, for example. It would be a pleasure to take this with the Horizon Light Up abroad and get to really test it!
Brice Lechevalier
Who would think of loaning me a connected watch? If it is to measure my aptitude for connected objects, let’s get things straight, I haven’t even synchronized my new iPhone, received in October, with my old one, which I am still using. And it is important to note that I ran my first marathon with my Nautilus, so there is no need to expect me to discover all the features! Having said that, the Louis Vuitton Horizon Light Up is simple enough to use that no one had to help me set it up or sync it with my phone, and I was even able to pick my favourite coloured dial! Not bad for a 50-year old! The changing lights and colours on the dial bring a playful effect punctuated by text messages, incoming emails, and notifications from other applications (depending on the configuration requested) that you either find super practical or distracting, depending on your preferences. The little hearts sent to me by a friend that pop up on my wrist during a meeting make me smile, and the display of my planned dinner at the Café des Amis in Choulex with Claudio and Roberto reminds me that it is time to leave the office. In the end, this little connected Louis Vuitton detour turns out to be quite handy indeed, although I’ll probably continue training for my next challenge – the Zermatt Ultrak – without a connected device.
Sophie Furley
I have tested quite a few smartwatches over the last few years and setting them up and figuring out how all the functions work is almost always an exercise in patience! This was not the case with the Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon Light Up as getting it going was easy peasy lemon squeezy! Download the app, log in your name and details, and it connects. The functions were also very intuitive. You can swipe left and right, use the crown and the pushers, and in five minutes, you have figured it out. That’s not to say that there’s not much on it, on the contrary, there are a whole host of functions. What I particularly liked was the reasonable size (most smartwatches are humungous on a feminine wrist), the curved sapphire crystal that spills over onto the caseband (and lights up too), and the city guides where you can choose a city and see what venues are cool depending on the time of day. I discovered a new bar in my hometown of London where British actor Idris Elba is the DJ. Now, what other watch can do that?
