ASUS surprised a lot of people last Fall with the launch of the ZenWatch, a really stylish watch from a company that had never shipped a piece of wearable technology. The ZenWatch is a great Android Wear watch and an excellent choice if you prefer a square look to your smartwatch, but also want something good-looking and elegant, too. A little while ago, we reported that ASUS was working on a new smartwatch that focused on offering some of the best battery life available on the market. Now, it looks like this watch might not run Android Wear in order to deliver on that battery life promise.
Focus Taiwan is reporting that ASUS is to produce a smartwatch without Android Wear onboard, along with a new MediaTek CPU in order to get the best battery life out of the device. However, this doesn’t mean that ASUS is done with Android Wear, as it’s reported that the two are to continue working together. I’d imagine something like a cheaper, more budget-friendly option for emerging markets to run ASUS’ own OS and offer much better battery life while a second ZenWatch will be an Android Wear-powered followup to the original.
It is sad to hear to that ASUS is considering launching yet another smartwatch OS into a market packed full of different options, especially when Android Wear is just now getting some excellent apps and watch faces at long last. If ASUS is working on another device without Android Wear, emerging markets would be perfect for it, as the ZenFone devices sell well in India and throughout Asia. Battery life is also very important in these markets, and a companion device that has battery life to last a week or more would really help sell ZenFone units. We doubt ASUS is going to show these new products off during Mobile World Congress, but anything could happen we suppose.