Tag Archives: Swatch Smartwatch

Swatch is also releasing their own Smartwatch

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swatch-smartwatch

Swatch are more famous for their watches than any other gadget in particular, but that doesn’t mean they can’t dabble their feet in the tech field. See what happens when one of the world’s finest watch makers decides to try their hand at a smart watch.

The tech website The Next Web is reporting that there is a new smartwatch coming to the market, one created by the Swatch team. The idea is to release this model in the next few months to compete head on with Apple and the swarm of watches announced at CES 2015.

A spokesperson at the company explained that “Swatch will launch a new generation of its Swatch smartwatch in the next two to three months. Functions will include communication, mobile payments at stores such as Migros and Coop, and applications that work with Windows and Android – without having to be charged. Separately, Swatch will present its new Swatch Touch at the end of the month.”

The company seems to be pretty proud of the fact that users won’t need to recharge this watch as often as Apple users will with their Apple watches, but is that enough to compete? We’ll see once more information becomes available.

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Swatch Touch Proves that the Swiss Watchmaker Won’t Mingle with Apple

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Swatch Touch Smartwatch

As difficult as it may be, the world’s biggest watchmaker decided that it will launch a smartwatch on its own next summer, even though many claim that a collaboration with Apple would be a golden opportunity for both companies and the customers.

Swatch is better off on its own than collaborating with a company that works endlessly on a product that people might only be teased with next week. Since Apple’s iTime or iWatch will most probably be delayed for next year, while only being showcased at an event on September 9, the Swiss manufacturer has nothing to lose by announcing that it will launch a watch with smart features sometime next summer.

Swatch Chief Executive Nick Hayek stated in an interview at the company’s HQ in Biel that “All the big technology firms want to work with us and I don’t rule out that we are or could be collaborating in some areas. But we can also do many things on our own.”

Because the rumors surrounding Apple’s iTime smartwatch kept piling up this year, Swatch’s shares went south 15 percent. This prompted Bernstein analyst Mario Ortelli to say in a study last month that “For Swatch, this could mean a 2 percent hit to revenue and earnings before interest and tax for each 10 percent share that the iWatch was able to gain in its addressable market.”

Avi Greengart, research director at IT research firm Current Analysis, explained that the perfect wearable is yet to be made, and that the products currently available have all sorts of problems, from poor battery life to overall unreliability: “Nobody has hit on the right combination of problems a wearable should solve and convinced mainstream consumers.”

Hayek wanted to point out that it’s first the watch they’re interested in delivering, and then the smart features: “Our first message for customers is the watch. If they like it, they might also be interested in the extra functions. It is a problem if you only define a product by its technology. Technology alone doesn’t sell, not in watches. (Technology firms) that want to strike partnerships with us also want access to brands. They want (their products) to be more than a commodity.”

Let’s just hope that the Swatch Touch is the solution to most, if not all the problems that plague current wearables.

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