The Apple Watch is coming soon, which will inevitably cause a brand new wave of attention on wearables, and with it we’ll see plenty of other devices from just about every other manufacturer. And we’re going to see a lot of newcomers, too, because now that Apple is officially in the game, the floodgates will open.

It won’t all new faces, though. A lot of second-generation devices are going to make the rounds this year, too. That includes iterative upgrades from Motorola, LG, Samsung and so on and so forth. There are going to be a lot of options out there, which is good news all around. The question is, which one’s going to take the lion’s share of attention?

Well, that’ll probably go to the Apple Watch, because let’s face it, it’s a new product from Apple. I think we can all assume that it’s going to have plenty of faults, like a terrible battery life, but that won’t matter. It’ll still get praised for what it is: a first-generation attempt from the Cupertino-based company, which will see plenty of upgrades over the years, for many of them to come.

Montblanc has actually just unveiled something new. It isn’t a smartwatch, not technically, but it certainly can turn your watch into something smart. So to speak. They’re calling it the “e-Strap,” and while it’s not the best name for just about anything, it’ll have to do. The e-Strap is designed to work with a certain lineup of watches, and it’s a 0.9-inch OLED display that fits directly into the band of the watch. You connect this band to the analog watch, and suddenly your luxurious timepiece that used to be “dumb,” is receiving notifications, letting you control music, and counting steps.

There are a lot of different designs when it comes to smart devices and wearables. Some try to bridge the gap between an analog watch and a smart one just by giving you little lights that indicate an incoming notification type, while others offer a whole suite of features that ultimately hide the watch itself more often than not. It’s proven a hard bridge to cross, and even harder to bring those two worlds together in a meaningful, worthwhile way.

But for some reason, this e-Strap has my attention.

As it stands right now, it seems that the Montblanc e-Strap only works with one lineup of watches and right there’s a bit of a deal breaker, but if this is something that could eventually work with more analog timepieces, I think this is something I could really get behind. I like the design, at least, and that’s more than I can say for my feelings about Apple’s upcoming Watch. (First impressions matter!)

Have you tried and kept a smartwatch or other wearable yet? Or are you waiting for the Apple Watch? Or are you sticking with your analog timepiece? Let me know!