14 DAY TRIAL // A few days ago, rumors claiming that Apple and Swatch had partnered up in order to bring to the market a super smartwatch piqued the interest of many individuals interested in tech.
Sadly, the watch maker quickly denied the report, thus abruptly ending any hopes we might have had to ever see such a great combo in the wild.
But now, in an interesting twist of events, it appears that Swatch might have said no to Apple for a good reason. Apparently, the company is developing its own smartwatch. The company’s CEO, Nick Hayek, has been interviewed by Swiss publication NZZ am Sonntag (as seen at iDownloadblog) and said that the company was working on such a product, all but confirming the device.
What the company is looking to do is equip its line of Swatch Touch plastic watches with a bunch of sensors that will add fitness measuring capacities. It’s unclear at this point whether owners of the updated Touch devices will also be able to receive notifications on their wrists.
“Beginning in 2015, we will integrate fitness function into Swatch Touch. It will remain a watch, but will have all today’s usual function to monitor physical fitness.”
He also goes on to comment on the rumored Apple deal, saying that “we already have all the know-how, we don’t need a partnership.”
Most Swiss luxury watch makers have been skittish to jump onboard the hyped smartwatch bandwagon, but the trend is apparently shifting as the companies are recognizing there’s a potential for business here.
In the past, Swatch rejected the smartwatch idea, fearing it would have to rely on third parties in the software department. As for hardware, the company’s CEO told the Swiss magazine that they were planning to use their own components to bring the new functionalities to the future Touch smart band.
The Swatch Touch is a watch that launched back in 2011, coming with a touchscreen and offering different functionalities like time, alarm, chronograph, and date.
It would be interesting to know whether Swatch actually had this move planned all along or the decision to jump onboard the smartwatch bandwagon came after seeing all the fuss that had been created around this product category.
Major tech players like Samsung, LG, and Motorola are offering – or will soon be offering – smartwatches soon and others are expected to do the same, including ASUS and HTC. But the most anticipated product remains the Apple iWatch. According to an analyst, the device could achieve sales of around 30-60 million units.
Will the Swatch smartwatch manage to impact the growing market?