Android Wear-powered Huawei Watch officially announced, pre-order start today
Today at IFA in Germany, Huawei officially announced the release of the Huawei Watch. You can also pre-order it starting today from Huawei, Amazon, Best Buy, and the Google Store.
The stainless steel with black leather strap model is priced at $349, replacing a leather band with a stainless steel band bumps the price to $399, and the stainless steel with stainless steel band (also available in black) is $449. These models will begin shipping on 17 September. The gold-plated models will be sold later this year for $699 and $799.
The Huawei Watch has a round face and body, 42mm in diameter, with a physical crown located in the 2 o'clock position. Sapphire crystal glass is used on the watch face with the body made of 316L stainless steel. The lug design lets owners swap out standard 18mm bands.Zhiqiang Xu, President of Huawei Device USA, stated:
Designed first and foremost as a watch, the Huawei Watch is unlike any smartwatch available today. We are committed to meeting U.S. consumers' demands for premium products and the Huawei Watch is a step in that direction. It embodies Huawei's technology innovation heritage, pursuit of premium design and integration of useful functionality that we strive to develop in each product.
Specifications of the Huawei Watch include:
- Android Wear 1.3 OS
- Android 4.3 and iOS 8.2 smartphone support
- 42mm diameter and 11.3mm thickness
- 1.4 inch circular AMOLED display, 400x400 pixels resolution
- 1.2 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor
- 512MB RAM and 4GB internal storage capacity
- Bluetooth 4.1 and WiFi
- Gyroscope, accelerometer, heart rate sensor, barometer
- 300 mAh battery
There is no integrated GPS in the Huawei Watch, but with leather and steel band options it is not designed with a focus on the athlete.
As ZDNet's Kevin Tofel wrote last week, the Huawei Watch leaked pre-order page confirmed that Android Wear support was coming to iOS. Google then confirmed that functionality official on Monday. It turns out its not just the Huawei Watch that has iOS connectivity, but all new Android Wear watches.