The wearables market is expanding, and we’re seeing more competition from tech companies trying to create fashionable accessories.
Primary in the Android Wear ecosystem, circular displays are becoming equated with “premium”. Leading up to MWC this year, Huawei took the wraps off their smartwatch solution. Huawei Watch will sport a higher resolution display than the LG G Watch R or Moto 360, but to keep the device slim, will use a smaller 300mAh battery. The smart guts powered by a Qualcomm 400, 512MB of RAM, and 4GB of storage.
The stainless steel housing will arrive in three different colors, black, gold, and silver. I’m really happy to see that the front face will not be clad in glass, but sapphire crystal, which we know is far more resistant to abuse. While we don’t have pricing or shipping info yet, we can be pretty sure that combo means this is targeting a “premium” market.
I’ve already published a video editorial talking about fashion and design as it relates to “geek” data driven products. It’s still telling that traditional watch manufacturers are only starting to flirt with adding smart features to their timepieces. While we await more tech company wearables like the Apple Watch and LG G Watch Urbane, one has to wonder if smartwatches will succeed as the fashion statements traditional watches currently represent, or if wearing notifications on our wrists will befall the same fate as Bluetooth ear pieces.
The nice thing about tech companies though, they learn fast, and iterate faster. You can see Huawei’s design teaser video below.