With its brand new Smartwatch, Huawei is following the wearable tech industry trend of designing Smartwatches which look like traditional watches and not like mini phones on a wrist. In fact, LG started this movement with the launch of the LG G Watch R at IFA last year, and, most recently, with its even more elegant LG Watch Urbane LTE powered by WebOS.
More quietly two days ago, FullPower Technologies lead by Philippe Kahn announced a partnership with Union Horlogere Holdings and launched MMT (Manufacture Modules Technologies), a new Swiss Joint venture SARL to bring MotionX Horological Smartwatch Open Platform to the Swiss watch industry. I have been predicting this type of partnership for the past two years (during wearable tech panels) , knowing that watch manufacturers are the only ones to know how to make beautiful watches, while technology innovators make them smarter.
Jumping in the bandwagon for the first time, Huawei delivered a quite impressive device with a beautiful design. Powered by Android Wear, and featuring a fully circular 1.4-inch touch AMOLED display, the Huawei Watch is highly elegant and features a great built quality. The frame is made of cold-forged stainless steel that houses a built-in in heart rate monitor and 6-Axis motion sensors. The lens features scratch-proof sapphire crystal.
“We have responded to consumers’ requests from around the world asking for a smartwatch featuring a timeless design that is truly smart from within. Through Huawei’s continued commitment to ‘Make It Possible,’ the Huawei Watch delivers on that promise and gives the consumer a premium smartwatch that is technologically innovative,” said Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group.
According to the company, the Huawei Smartwatch has been designed “by a team of experienced watch designers”.
On the outside, the AMOLED 1.4-inch display (400 x 400 pixels resolution/ 286 ppi) with a 10,000:1 high contrast ratio is the star of the show. Huawei claims that the scratch resistant cold-forged stainless steel crown, frame and hinge make the device 40% harder. The Huawei Watch is equipped with a press button and comes in three colors: gold, silver and black.
On the inside, a Qualcomm 1.2GHz processor with 512 MB RAM makes the clock tick. There is 4GB of storage, which is equivalent to 1000 MP3 songs. It connects to your Android smartphone via Bluetooth 4.1 and keeps track of your activity with a 6-Axis motion sensor and a barometer sensor. The Huawei Watch is able to know whether you are walking, running, biking, hiking, sleeping, and they can monitor how many calories have been burned, their heart rate, the climbing height, the number of steps taken, and the distance traveled.
Huawei did not share any information on the pricing yet, however we know that the Huawei Watch will be available in more than 20 countries including United States, United Kingdom, Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Italy, Japan, Norway, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates.
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