Alcatel's Go Watch is a rugged smartwatch that claims to measure your mood

BERLIN -- These days, tech giants are no longer content to own your pocket -- they want to dominate your wrist too. French firm Alcatel has lifted the lid on its new smartwatch, a colourful offering that touts 2- to 5-day battery life.

Tough tech

The Go Watch is, Alcatel asserts, waterproof, dustproof and shockproof, which makes it more durable than most of the smartwatches currently on the market -- on paper, at least. That could make it a solid choice for sporty types looking to keep an eye on incoming texts while scaling mountains, or just those who have a history of accidentally dropping gadgets into the sink.

The Go Watch is white by default, but a range of front casings and wristbands will be available, should you want to liven it up a little. Once it's connected to your phone, the Go Watch puts extra information on your wrist, notifying you about incoming texts, calls and emails as well as the weather.

Mood measurer

One intriguing feature is the power to trigger what Alcatel calls an emotional pulse measurement. Essentially, the watch collects data from its heart rate sensor, accelerometer and gyroscope, then puts a graphic on screen that attempts to sum up your emotional state. Examples include graphics that tell you it's time to eat, time to love and so on.

In our hands-on time we didn't find the mood-measuring feature to be consistent, so this app definitely feels like it's meant as a bit of fun, rather than offering any serious metrics or analysing your emotions in any meaningful way. A note of caution -- we found some of the icons for the various mood graphics were a little raunchy or crude. Alcatel said it would be reviewing the inclusion of these before the watch goes on sale, and planned to remove one particularly suggestive icon we spotted during our hands-on time, but that's something to look into if you were going to buy this product as a gift for a child, for instance. Once the Go Watch has measured has decided what mood you're in, you can then share this to social networks or set it as the watch's wallpaper, should you please.

Plays nice with Android and iOS

The Go Watch is compatible with both Android and Apple smartphones, so chances are it'll work with your mobile of choice. This would have been a more interesting feature if not for Google's recent news that it's making its Android Wear smartwatch platform compatible with iOS, which immediately broadens the choice for iPhone owners considering a wrist-borne gadget.

The fact that the Go Watch is running its own operating system, rather than Android Wear, also means it won't have as many apps available as other smartwatches. That's not good news, but more encouraging is that Alcatel's promising 2-5 days of battery life, which is longer than many smartwatches manage.

There's no word on a release date or price yet, but stay tuned.

For more of the best of IFA 2015, see CNET's complete coverage.