Recently pegged for obsolescence, alongside things like the cassette tape or rotary phone, wrist watches aren't going down without a fight. Sure, you can just pick up your smartphone to see the time. On the flip side though, a new wave of smart watches let you lift your wrist to see notifications from your smartphone. The two connect wirelessly via Bluetooth. Adam Balkin has more.

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The space is getting a boost now because the Pebble watch is starting to ship, the most funded project to date on the social funding site Kickstarter. But there are lots out there from big companies like Sony and Motorola to small ones like Cuckoo or MetaWatch.

MetaWatch’s Bill Geiser said, “It's really designed to give you what we call ‘hands freedom' a simple vibration in your watch and a glance tells you about an incoming notification, whether you need to deal with it now or later. You've got the ability to configure the face of the watch, with time, date and certain kinds of widgets, might be weather, stocks, sports, or other information.”

Many are open for app developers to write new software for them, from remote camera shutters to fitness functionality.

Now two of the big questions people will probably want to ask themselves before springing for one of these watches is first, do I want to look here when I can just reach in my pocket and look there and two, the obvious question, how well do these things work?

TechCrunch’s John Biggs said, “Is it easier to look at your wrist rather than pull out your phone? I think so, but are these working as well as they should? Not yet. When you have something this small, the battery wears down fairly quickly. Also, it's connected to your phone; so that battery wears down. So, you're running out of battery almost immediately in some cases, if you're using this thing a lot. All of them have their plusses and minuses. So, take a look and wait for a while. Give it a good year before you invest in a smartwatch.”

If you are interested in being an early investor though, the watches generally cost somewhere between $150 to $200.