If you’re ready for another Huawei smartwatch, you’re in luck: the Huawei Watch 3 has been spotted in Bluetooth SIG certification. Four new smartwatches have been given Bluetooth certification with model numbers CSN-BX9, CSN-AL00, CSN-AL01, and ALX-AL10.
The “BX9” is used in the Huawei Watch 2 model number, so presumably, an update to the Watch 2 leads one to conclude the Watch 3 is on the way. The AL00 and AL01 could be a smartwatch such as the Watch GT, though there’s no way to tell. The ALX-AL10 could be a new Huawei kids watch.
Huawei has already released the Huawei Kids Watch 3, Kids Watch 3 Pro, and Disney Kids smartwatch, so a Huawei Watch Kids 4 and Kids Watch 4 Pro aren’t out of the question. Outside of model numbers and Bluetooth 4.2 support, the SIG certifications leave much to be desired.
What may interest some readers is that the Huawei Watch 3 (if it’s really on the way) has been said to launch with Google’s Wear OS (formerly Android Wear) again. The original Huawei Watch and Huawei Watch 2 launched with Google’s wearables platform aboard, so the Watch 3 launching with the same doesn’t seem out of the realm of possibility.
And yet, Huawei finds itself in a different political situation with the US than a year or two ago. Now that Huawei has been placed on the US Entity List and barred from selling its devices here, there’s a strong possibility that Huawei, soon to lose its Android license on August 19th, won’t be able to sell wearables with Wear OS on board, either.
The device may appear to launch with Wear OS, but unless Huawei gets off the Entity List, its fortunes won’t get any better. Huawei, as an Android OEM, must get the green light to release Android software from Google — and Google must comply with government laws regarding Entity companies.
Huawei can’t say for sure with any measure of certainty that the ban on the company currently will be lifted by August 19th, nor can it assume that it won’t be on the Entity List as of mid-next month, either. So with that said, if one of the model numbers listed above is the Watch GT, it’s likely to launch with Lite OS (what the previous Watch GT model runs) rather than Wear OS.
When Huawei announced the Watch GT in October 2018, the company said that it went with its own proprietary Lite OS for the software rather than Google’s Wear because it wanted to give users more than a day and a half of battery life. It’s doubtful that Huawei would turn away from Lite OS, though the current political climate could be an influential indicator.
The Huawei Watch 3 and other devices could run Google’s Wear OS, but right now, Huawei has its Android license revocation staring it in the face. If Huawei can’t use Android, they are just as ineligible to use Wear OS as well.
So, whether or not the Watch GT, the Watch 3, and the kids smartwatches run Google’s software all depends on what happens with Huawei’s Entity List appearance (whether it gets off the list or not) and whether or not Google invites Huawei back to Android and issues a new Android license.
Perhaps, if Google doesn’t renege on its Android license revocation and August 19th comes and goes as planned, Huawei will be forced to use HongMeng OS, that mobile/wearables operating system for IoT Huawei is currently denying is its Android replacement.