Luxury Android Wear Smartwatches from Tag Heuer to Rival Apple

Ranging from $200 to a maximum of $300, “Android Wear software” is available since almost a year ago, on a lot of different smart-watches. They are mostly built by traditional smartphone manufacturers like Sony, Motorola or LG Electronics. Yesterday, on the 19 of March, 2015, Google announced that they will collaborate with Tag Heuer in order to create the first Android Wear luxury smartwatch.

Tag Heuer in the Android Wear Industry

Tag Heuer is a renowned watchmaker from Switzerland very popular within the luxury watch business and also known for their association with different sports, but mainly with Formula 1. Their collection’s price ranges from a bit under $1000 to their crown jewel called “Tag Heuer Mikrogirder 10000 Watch”, that costs more than $100,000. They are not as renowned as Rolex, but nonetheless they are more than capable of producing amazing watches as well as different accessories.

This partnership also includes Intel. They are responsible for the technical part of the watch, providing the necessary hardware, then Google will come up with the software and last but not least, Tag Heuer will make the design. Previous Android Wear smartwatches came with a Texas Instruments or a Qualcomm processor, so this will be the very first smartwatch that utilizes an Intel chipset. This is not at all Intel’s first attempt to make wearable devices, being responsible for the “Mica bracelet”, released in 2014 with a price of $495, but it was marketed only to women.

So far there is no viable information about the release or cost of the device, but we can safely assume that it will be the most costly Android Wear watch ever made. In a recent interview, David Singleton, who is the chief of engineering at Google regarding Android Wear, said that their watches will mainly “focus on the quality and performance that are expected from Tag Heuer” . He went on to say that the price will be reflected by that.

We can only speculate regarding the design of the watch. Nothing is for certain and all of the companies involved are keeping everything a secret. Reuters released a report that stated that the watch could be nothing more than a digital replica of Tag Heuer’s “Carrera”, a device better known for its large, sporty design.

It is no coincidence that this announcement came just a few weeks after Apple released their luxury watch, but Singleton said that they have been working on this partnership way before the release of the “Apple Watch” in April, 2015. The Apple Watch has a golden version that costs $10,000 or more, so we can only imagine that Google’s version will not be at all cheap.

At this time there is a balance between iOS and Android users regarding smartphones, but there is a big difference on what kind of customers the companies attract. It is well known that iPhone users have more money and generally tend to spend much more on their devices than Android owners. Many may disagree with this assumption, but recent research data as well as both of the companies’ own figures will confirm it.

You can jump over to Mapbox.com and see for yourself that Android users are more common in low income areas while iOS users can be mostly found in richer zones. With this in mind, we can only ask ourselves who will be the targeted customers for Google’s luxury watch and if they will copy certain aspects from Apple’s playbook of business.

At the moment the biggest problem is that you cannot even start the watch without connecting it to an Android device, so it is more than likely that it will face a low popularity among the masses. I can see how Tag Heuer’s customers will definitely be interested for it expands the heritage of the brand by adding a hot new model, but the vast majority of high income iPhone users will probably just stick with Apple.

Some time ago Google partnered with LG and together they made an Android Wear smartwatch called “G Watch R”. It was a huge disappointment and LG had serious problems selling it even at the low price of $300. Now, in the UK if you buy an LG G Flex 2 with a Vodafone sim-card, you will receive the “G Watch R” for free.

They seem to go for a different approach by increasing the price as well as associating with a prestigious manufacturer, but as long as it is impaired by the need of a smartphone with Android OS, it will not work.

Combining iPhone with Android Wear is not unheard of. Android developer Mohammad Abu-Garbeyyeh, better know under the alias MohammadAG, released a short video on the 22 of February, 2015 showing his smartwatch, a Moto 360 taking a notification (for a text message) from his iPhone 6. All he did is use the ANCS (Apple Notification Center Service) to connect via Bluetooth to the device by installing a small application on his smartwatch. This being the case we can conclude that Google’s refusal to make the Android Wear application compatible with iOS has more to do with the company’s polices than technical limitations.

It is most likely that Tag Heuer will remain Google’s only luxury associate in their endeavor to break into high-end watches market, but anything can happen although they did not announce any other partnership so far. Luxury brands seem rather desperate for a younger clientele and in this endeavor they are inclined to partner up with software and hardware developers. Recently Gucci also announced their partnership with “will.i.am” in order to create a smart wristband capable of making phone calls.

As this particular market expands more and more, these types of collaborations are expected. Google’s decision to make their watch incompatible with the iPhone is regarded as a bad marketing move and analysts estimate that at some point they will rethink their position and remove this barrier. Some expect this to happen this summer during the “Google I/O” but there is no official statement as of yet.

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Roxanne Briean

I am a geek, a gamer and a writer. I have always been fascinated with the online community. At the moment I work as a full-time writer and study interior design. When I'm not scouring the net in search of interesting new gadgets and software I spend my time in MOBAs or drawing.