GOOGLE PLANS TO release a luxury smartwatch and it has teamed up with one of the world’s top watchmakers to make this a reality.
Tag Heuer, one of the most prominent luxury watchmakers in the world, will work with Google and Intel to create a luxury Android Wear device. The smartwatch will be released this year although no date has been provided yet.
The partnership, which was announced at the luxury watch show Baselworld in Switzerland, is expected to be the first of many as Google continues to push its smartwatch platform.
No details were shared about how the watch would look – instead, the announcement focused on the partnership between the three companies – but Google’s Director of Engineering for Android Wear David Singleton said the partnership would help “bring a unique blend of emotion and innovation to the luxury market”.
The announcement comes shortly after Apple revealed the final details for its own smartwatch. It will release three versions of Apple Watch. The price of the entry level version, Apple Watch Sport, will start at $349 while the luxury version, Apple Watch Edition, will start at $10,000 and go up as far as $17,000.
Apple Watch will be launched in nine countries on 24th April including the US and UK. No release date for Ireland has been provided yet.
Roughly 720,000 smartwatches powered by Android Wear were shipped in 2014, according to market research firm Canalys. Motorola was said to be the clear leader in the field with its device, the Moto 360, but other competitors have entered the market.
Huawei recently announced its own smartwatch that takes inspiration from luxury watches while Pebble, which originally started off as a Kickstarter project in 2012, announced its latest version Pebble Time last month. It managed to raise €1 million in half an hour and raised €17.8 million with eight days to go.
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