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China’s largest consumer electronics and home appliance company, Haier, has been a bit of late starter when it comes to the world of new age connected devices like smartphones, tablets and indeed, smartwatches and activity trackers. While it does have smartphones and tablets in its product lineup, the company has found it tough going in the category even in its home country of China. With the emergence of the wearables industry, however, the company jumped on the bandwagon, and unveiled two versions of its first-ever smartwatch. While one of the variants is meant for children, the other is aimed at senior citizens. Both the models come with specialized features and have integrated microphones and speakers to facilitate phone calls.
While both those devices were announced as far back as in April last year, it was only earlier this month that the gadgets were launched at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, Nevada. Now, the company has officially announced its entry into the smart wearables segment, but smartwatches are not the only wearables the company plans to offer to its customers this year. Along with the HaierWatch, the Chinese multinational firm apparently also has plans for an activity tracker called H-Band, which, the company claims, will also work as a Bluetooth headset. The company plans to unveil its latest offerings at Mobile World Congress 2016 to be held at Barcelona, Spain, from the 22nd to the 25th of next month.
While not much is known at this stage about Haier’s upcoming wearables, reports indicate that the company is planning to demo not one but two versions of its second generation smartwatch at the MWC 2016 next month. Dubbed the HaierWatch, the wearable will be an analogue device that will reportedly be offered in two distinct models. While the first version will come with a metallic strap and sport a silver colored bezel, the other version will come in rose gold and have a white face. Both versions, meanwhile are expected to come with features that have become almost ubiquitous these days, like pedometers and vibration alerts, along with incoming call and message notifications. While the company is yet to announce the hardware specs, pricing and availability details of either of the gadgets, the upcoming trade show will likely clear up at least some of those queries.
