With smartwatches taking off the way they are and especially with the recent launch of the Apple Watch, the industry is certainly heading in the right direction. Not only are smartwatches catching the attention of gadget lovers everywhere, but the more traditional watchmakers have their eyes set on the industry as well. While it is probably true that they are at risk of losing some of the market share of prospective watch buyers to smartwatches, there is also opportunity for the companies as well. In a recent announcement, Swatch has confirmed that they possess intentions to produce a smartwatch this year. More specifically, they plan on launching the product for sale this summer.
The new smartwatch destined for release from Swatch will apparently be capable of connecting with both Android and Windows Phone smartphones. Additionally, the Swatch smartwatch will possess an embedded NFC chip giving it the capability of making mobile payments. With this feature built into the smartwatch, users could potentially enjoy increased convenience making mobile payments without even taking anything out of their pockets. To complement this mobile payment feature, Swatch has even officially confirmed planned partnerships with Visa and China UnionPay. Apart from this information there is not much else known regarding specifications of the smartwatch.
This move from Swatch may indicate that there is more to come out of similar companies, as Tag Heuer announced plans earlier this year to a smartwatch as well. The smartwatch from Tag Heuer will reportedly run Android Wear and will be powered by an Intel processor, while the Swatch smartwatch is unconfirmed. With the announcement that it will be able to connect to both Android and Windows Phone smartphones, it would be logical to assume that it may not be powered by Android Wear. That is, unless there is an unreleased future version of Android Wear that may open up the platform to Windows Phone users. The initial launch for the Swatch smartwatch is reportedly going to include only one major country which will likely be either in the U.S. or China. More details will likely surface as the summer comes to a close.