The Swiss brand which just this week announced the sale of its one millionth watch will go directly up against the Moto 360, Samsung Gear and forthcoming Apple Watch as well as Pebble. Nick Hayek, the CEO of The Swatch Group Ltd, told Bloomberg: “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.” Hayek was skeptical about the smartwatch’s potential. He said that he didn’t think the smartwatch would be a “revolution” for the industry two years ago. He has repeatedly voiced concern that watch screens are too small for communicating and that such devices might need too much charging. Last year, he said Swatch won’t participate in a race to be first in developing the products because of consumer resistance. He once said Swatch’s luxury brands such as Blancpain are smartwatches because “they make you look smart.”
The device will communicate via a form of technology known as NFC and won’t have to be charged, as in your contactless card, with your smartphone handling security. Similarly, the “communication” alluded to by Mr Hayek could be anything from buzzing to alert you to messages and calls to be able to display texts using a digital watch display, but what would that do to a non-chargeable battery?
To be a smartwatch must mean there’ll be an accelerometer to count steps because there always is these days, needless to say the bright colours are sure to spice up the smartwatch war
