14 DAY TRIAL // Preparing for Rio Olympics in August next year, the well-known Swiss watch maker decided to dump the idea of a smart "computer for the wrist" device and keep to better, failsafe designs suited to sports enthusiasts.
According to Tages-Anzeiger, Swatch CEO Nick Hayek hopes that the company's next Touch Zero Two smartwatch will be the beginning of a new series of multiple smartwatches that the company releases with NFC-equipped watches clients will be able to use in tandem with their sportswear. Swatch plans for these devices to become a more mainstream line that will be known for their reliability instead of their "smartness."
Nick Hayek believes that it's useless to jump on the smartwatch bandwagon these days since there are already 8500 apps available for that device and frowns upon the fact of having his blood pressure, blood sugar levels and other personal biological data being stored in the cloud and surveilled in the "Silicon Valley servers."
The Swatch CEO also believes that connectivity is an advantage that allows the watch to display enough info about your activities without being connected to the Internet in some way or another, while its battery lasts not just a few hours but nine months, which he believes is a serious advantage over smarter, more energy-hungry smartwatches.
It's interesting to see how Swatch will develop this line of products and how the company will be able to compete with the larger smartwatch manufacturers like Apple and Sony. We'll probably see the results of these speculations next year during Rio Olympics in August.