The French have a history of coming up with some pretty fascinating ideas. Some don’t work out too well. Some are ingeneous. The VEA Buddy watch looks like it fits in the latter category. What makes it different than the deluge of other smartwatches that have recently arrived: It might actually be brilliantly (French word, by the way) practical.

The Buddy is thin (8mm) and sports a touchscreen that looks large enough to be useful, yet small enough that it doesn’t look like a refrigerator attached to a watch strap. The most appealing feature of the Buddy, though, is its interface.

Large icons make it easy to control things like your phone’s mp3 player, and contact information looks easy to read. The watch will even display turn-by-turn directions from your phone’s GPS.

Right now the watch is an Indiegogo project, and as this post goes live they’ve reached about 10 percent of their $320,000 goal, with 38 days left. pledging $150 will bag you a Buddy when (if) they ship in August.