Despite the fact that they won’t release a new smartwatch anytime soon, Huawei wants its consumers to know that they’re still very much into creating wearable devices. CEO Richard Yu says that they are not giving up on manufacturing and releasing smartwatches. But instead of announcing a new device at this time, they are instead working on making a better wearable with more innovation and a better battery life. Until such time that they are able to come up with one, then we’ll have to make do with their current one.
The last time they released a smartwatch was April of last year when they introduced the Huawei Watch 2. At that time, it was one of the best in the market. Since then though, there hasn’t been much improvement in wearables, with Samsung being the only major brand that regularly releases devices. Traditional and fashion watchmakers have also released their own, but they often do not have good battery life and even performance-wise, they’re not that great.
The Huawei Watch 2 has a 2-day battery life but Yu is not satisfied with that. What they’re aiming for is to have a smartwatch that can run for a week without needing to be charged. But they also want to have innovative features and make it “more useful, more intimate, more functional”. This also means more artificial intelligence-driven features, which Huawei is heavily into anyway.
But having on-watch AI processing, while definitely will increase functionality, will also lead to greater processing power and faster power consumption. Yu said they have been talking to Qualcomm about a possible new wearable chipset, since increasing the battery size will increase the watch size, which may not appeal to consumers at all.
This is probably highly possible since Qualcomm is rumored to be announcing a new wearable processor by September 10. Their invites included the phrases “it’s time” and “set their watches” so we probably will get a smartwatch related announcement.
VIA: Digital Trends
