We got the chance to speak with Huawei’s head of Watch Product, Mengran Duan at the company’s headquarters in Shenzhen, today. Of course, Huawei has their own smartwatch in the Huawei Watch, but they also have a few wearables, which Duan is also in charge of, like the Talkband B2 which works with Jawbone’s UP service to track your steps, calories, exercise and much more. Now we’ve seen many other smartphone makers like LG and Samsung, go out and make Android Wear watches but also use their own software on smartwatches like Tizen in the Gear 2, Gear S, and now the Gear S2. While LG has used WebOS on their LTE versions of the Watch Urbane. Which allow them to basically do whatever they want with the watch and help differentiate it from competitors, even their own Android Wear-powered smartwatches.
However, Huawei is looking to keep their smartwatches running on Android Wear. Citing that they have a great relationship with Google and plan to keep that relationship which has helped them build a great smartwatch (and even a great smartphone in the Nexus 6P). And that they don’t plan on making their own software for smartwatches. Although, it’s important to remember that these things can change down the road. As they always tend to do.
Regarding Google limiting manufacturers on what they are able to do with Android Wear, Huawei says that Google is still very open and the company shares plenty of information with Google to help make Android Wear even better. That’s definitely an important aspect of helping the wearable industry grow, and also helping the Android Wear platform grow and get better and better.
Currently there are no plans for a second Android Wear smartwatch from Huawei, of course they are likely working on one, it’s just not ready. Or even near ready. Huawei is also working on even smaller models of their smartwatch for ladies or just people with smaller wrists. As the Huawei Watch is still a pretty large smartwatch. So expect plenty of great things in the wearable space from Huawei in the near future.