Google Smartwatch
Did you know that Google has never designed their own smartwatch? Despite their Pixel smartphones and the wearable platform for Android, Google has yet to release its own in-house smartwatch.
According to the recent report published by Insider the company is getting ready to launch their first Google Smartwatch in 2022.
The Smartwatch Market
The wearable technology is exploding. Big tech companies are working on all kinds of devices like: Smart Glasses, fitness trackers, smart clothing and even body-mounted sensors. So it makes sense for a company like Google to aim at this booming market.
Currently Apple’s smartwatch is the clear winner, placing itself as the best selling smartwatch globally. It holds a staggering 55% share of the market. And the numbers support that claim. In fact during 2020 and early 2021, it sold more units than the entire Swiss watch industry.
Apple is having a huge success with this watch because it developed a vision for what this device should be: A high end health, fitness and communication device.
Despite their early success, companies like Samsung, Garmin, FitBit and many others are slowly gaining on them. And now Google Smartwatch is joining the race. With the acquisition of FitBit for $2.1 billion this year, Google announced its desire to be present in the wearables market.
With this, the company is hoping that, their new smartwatch, will be a direct competition to Apple.
Google Smartwatch
The codename for this device is: Rohan and we know it is being worked on by Google’s Pixel hardware team. As of yet, it is not clear if the company will be naming the product as “Pixel Watch”. But the goal is to serve pretty much the same purpose as the Pixel Phone.
We know it will cost more than a FitBit, and like we said, it will compete directly with the Apple Watch.
The Google Smartwatch will have pretty standard features such as: fitness tracking, step counting and a heart rate monitor. All of that will be provided via the latest reinvention of its smartwatch platform Wear OS 3. Unlike the previous versions, this one is developed by merging the Tizen platform into Google’s own. Which started a partnership with Samsung.
As a result, the first glimpse of Wear OS 3 can be observed on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4 but instead of running Google’s services, Samsung runs its own.
According to a 2019 report, Google almost marketed LG Watch Sport and LG Watch Style under the Pixel brand. But the managers killed the idea, by stating that the devices did not feel like they belonged in the Pixel family.
This news does not come as a surprise, keeping in mind that Google acquired FitBit last year. This was a major hint, that Google is aiming at the wearables market. They do intend to make FitBit run on their Wear OS in the future as well. But at the moment the company is “all in” in the Google Smartwatch.
According to Business Insider, Google is already doing some preliminary tests inside the company. To be more specific, Google allowed members of the company outside of the team to wear, test and give back useful feedback on the smartwatch.
Conclusion
It seems like Google has major appetites towards the wearable technology market. And they are finally accomplishing them. Be that through FitBit or Google Smartwatch, the company intends to peek at number one in the wearables technology market. And it seems like next year will be theirs to seize.
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