Swarovski is putting their Android Wear smartwatch on hold according to a statement from Robert Buchbauer who is one of the company’s executives. The watch didn’t have a release date as it was still very early but it was initially announced by Swarovski back during CES in the beginning of this year, and although the plans for its further development are now taking an indefinite break, Swarovski doesn’t seem to have given any in-depth explanation as to why they are choosing to take a step back from entering the smartwatch market with their own Android Wear offering.
What they did say is that they are just not ready to present or launch the device, and that they don’t have any information to share on when the launch time frame might be. While that doesn’t mean that the Swarovski won’t be releasing an Android Wear smartwatch as planned, it does seem to suggest that they are at the very least a long ways out. The plan was to bring the new watch to the upcoming Baselworld 2017 conference and show it off for the first time, as its presence earlier this year was merely to announce its existence and mention a few specifications about the device.
Since most of the hardware was still kept under wraps, and it was to appear at Baselworld 2017, this is likely when Swarovski was planning to unveil the remaining details about the watch like all of the specs, pricing, and availability. It reportedly was powered by a Qualcomm chipset and was to be set up running Android Wear 2.0 once it launched, and it was aimed at women for the potential market, which, makes sense given that it was being developed by Swarovski who specializes in jewelry. You can even see Swarovski’s contribution to the wearables market with the likes of the Huawei Watch models that came out for women shortly after the original model, which were encrusted with jewels around the display and watch case. There’s even the more recently announced Sugar F7, which is a smartphone that has Swarovski Zirconia crystals embedded around the rear-facing camera sensor. So while Swarovski may be putting their wearables plans on hold for now, it seems they’re still involved in mobile tech in one way or another.