Photo via Olio
Photo via Olio

It seems everyone is trying to get in to the smartwatch game these days, but one new San Francisco-based company is taking the luxury high road.

Olio is a higher-end smartwatch that launched its first two collections today. The limited-edition pieces feature “top-of-the-line materials and craftsmanship typically found in high-end Swiss watches,” the company states in a release.

One of Olio’s co-founders, Steve Jacobs, has led product development at Apple, Google, Beats by Dre and Amazon. He says that the company’s Model One watch was designed as the “antithesis of a mass market product, produced to be everything to everyone.”

In other words, this isn’t meant to be the average techie’s watch.

Photo via Olio
Photo via Olio

The Olio watches have a very similar look to other higher-end watches, with leather or stainless steel bands and a simple round face, but it streamlines notifications into a “simple and intuitive time-based format” to not overload you with data at any given time. The more you use it, the more it understands what you deem important and sorts information accordingly.

Additional features include Olio Assist, a cloud-based assistant that offers suggestions based on your preferences, a Control Hub that allows you to adjust thermostats, lights and make payments, and the ability to sync it to your Apple or Android phone. As Forbes reports, the company is “building all of its hardware and software from scratch.”

To help develop that image of exclusivity, there are only 500 watches of each model available for pre-order right now, priced from $595 to $745. The first batch will ship this summer. So far, reviews from Forbes and the Verge are fairly positive about its look, functionality and luxe feel.

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