Alpina AlpinerX Alive Smartwatch In-depth Review

Described as their “first smartwatch for urban sports aficionados”, Alpina revealed a brand new collection of high end wearables last year named the Alpina AlpinerX Alive. It’s fair to say, from the design to the specs, they have really gone all out on this range combining their technical prowess for traditional watchmaking with contemporary functionality including an AMOLED digital screen, GPS feature, heart rate monitor, chronograph and personalised training programmes.

This is certainly not Alpina’s first move into the smartwatch world. Their first wearable, the famous Horological Smartwatch, made history as the world’s first Swiss Made connected watch back in 2015. Then a few years later, the AlpinaX Smart was launched in 2018 after an incredibly successful Kickstarter project which raked in over 1.5 million Swiss Francs. The appeal of a true Swiss Made smartwatch has never been clearer and with the release of the new AlpinerX Alive, it appears Alpina are showing off their most advanced technology to date. Let’s take a look at the Alpina AlpinaX Alive in more detail…

SMART FEATURES

The Alpina AlpinerX Alive boasts a host of improvements in comparison to its previous smartwatch counterparts, particularly in its functionality that are described as supporting everyday professional people in their day to day lives while assisting their wellbeing and sporting activities. One of the biggest improvements is the addition of a new heart rate monitor which has been achieved by integrating the very latest Philips Wearable Sensing sensors. The Philips heart rate sensor hasn’t been used on many luxury smartwatches to date, but it gives remarkably accurate pulse readings taken from your wrist. Your heart rate is taken every 10 seconds in “Workout” mode and special notifications are issued if your AlpinerX Alive detects an abnormal heartbeat.

Another new addition is integrated GPS. Unlike the AlpinaX Smart before it, the new Alpina AlpinerX Alive smartwatch collection can now track your location and record your outdoor adventures, whether it’s a run, walk or cycle. In combination with the heart rate monitor, you can then analyse your outdoor workouts in detail through the Alpina Smartwatch app. To help ensure each session takes place in optimum conditions, the AlpinerX Alive also now shows you the weather.

For athletes looking for even further analysis of their performance, the Alpina AlpinerX Alive smartwatch collection also delivers the Dynamic Coach which has been designed exclusively by the Alpina team. It features a personal assistant that will suggest a range of exercises in relation to your performance alongside recommendations for improving your overall wellbeing, health and muscle tone. The more wear the watch, the more accurate  the app becomes by taking into account your sleep quality, heart rate measures etc.

The Alpina AlpinerX Alive also boasts get-active alerts for keeping you moving if you have been sat still for too long, sleep monitoring, smart sleep alarms, breathtaking exercises, hydration tracking, VO2 max, cardio fitness index and a fantastic range of smart notifications when paired with a compatible smartphone. These include messages review and notifications for calls, messages and emails. For standard timekeeping, the Alpina AlpinerX Alive watch displays hours and minutes, the day and date and a Worldtimer function for presenting a second time zone. There is also a chronograph counter for count up, count down, chono split and chrono lap.

MOVEMENT

Powering the abundance of functionality on the Alpina AlpinerX Alive smartwatch is the AL-284 movement. This Swiss made calibre has been developed internally and comes with a rechargeable battery with an average of seven days autonomy.

The AL-284 took almost two years of development before it was ready, but its construction is truly remarkable and is like anything we’ve seen before in a smartwatch movement. Unlike many other luxury smartwatches, the GPS and Bluetooth features have an antenna each. The GPS antenna is also designed to be longer, making it much more precise in tracking location. The antenna has been built completely bespoke by Alpina and can pick up at least nine satellites for optimal functionality.

DISPLAY

The Alpina AlpinerX Alive watch displays its remarkable range of functionality on a new high-resolution AMOLED touch screen display which is then paired with analog hands. To activate the display, you simply touch the screen or press the crown. Each variation of the Alpina AlpinerX Alive is presented with a matte finish dial in black, blue or grey enhanced by luminescent hands and indexes for the hour markers. Arabic numerals are used to display the hours between 9 o’clock and 3 o’clock while sharp luminescent indexes reveal the hours in between. The dial is also detailed with its water resistant rating of 100 metres.

CASE & STRAP OPTIONS

The exterior of the Alpina AlpinerX Alive watch is just as impressive as the technology within and again, we are spoiled with a plethora of different design combinations to choose from. Measuring to 45mm in diameter, the fibreglass glass is incredibly light on the wrist yet still extremely durable and resistant to scratches. The case is paired with a choice of three bi-directional bezel materials available in black PVD coated steel, blue PVD coated steel or natural steel. At 12 o’clock, you’ll find the Alpina symbol, a white triangle on the bezel representing the Alpine peaks.

To pair with your choice of bezel and case, a range of straps are available including rubber and topstitching calfskin leather straps. The rubber straps come in two shades of red, black, navy blue, light blue and grey. The leather straps are available in dark brown, tan brown and blue leather with red stitch detailing. All Alpina AlpinerX Alive watches are finished by a matching PVD or natural steel folding buckle.

PRICE & AVAILABILITY

All variations of the Alpina AlpinerX Alive are available to order now at a retail price of £895. You can discover the entire Alpina AlpinerX Alive watch collection on the Jura Watches website here, now available with interest free finance and free delivery. Get in touch with the team for any assistance on 01335 453453 or at help@jurawatches.co.uk.