To welcome the giant crowd at Baselworld, Rolex, Patek Philippe, Breitling, Hubot, and just about every other high-end watchmaker has built huge booths to show off their latest timepieces. David Singleton, Google's director of engineering for Android Wear, sounds almost giddy to be there, among the giants at the premier event for watchmakers everywhere. "So many booths, all of them with many, many different designs---different shapes, different colors, different straps," he says. "The actual industry out there is all about trying to suit the needs of every individual customer, every individual person out there."
Not surprisingly, so is Google. It's announcing a partnership today with Intel and luxury timepiece brand Tag Heuer, promising that together the companies will launch a luxury Android Wear watch in 2015. None of the three partners would offer many specifics, except to say they're particularly interested in the intersection of the small details that make mechanical watches so beautiful, and the new technology that comes from Android Wear and smartwatches in general. But this, they seem to think, is the start of something big.
As Singleton notes, this will be just one of several partnerships Google has entered since Android Wear's inception. Tag Heuer isn't even necessarily the only high-end brand Google will partner with; it's just the first. But make no mistake: This union is, in distinctly open-armed Google-y fashion, an attempt to compete with the Apple Watch on its level. It will be a high-end device, through and through, and though Singleton didn't offer pricing details it's almost certainly going to be expensive.
Tag Heuer, Singleton says, has a history of technological innovation. "They were the first to launch a watch that had a chronograph," he explains. "A stopwatch that could measure to hundredths of a second, using a mechanical movement. That is actually a huge feat." Partnering with a company that is both deeply embedded in the luxury watch market and interested in the forefront of technology is a perfect fit for Google.
It also offers access to a market Google has so far mostly ignored with Android Wear. Its best smartwatches, from the Moto 360 to the Asus ZenWatch and the new Huawei Watch, are relatively cheap; even the ones that look nice do so in Timex or Seiko fashion. That's a far cry from Rolex-level lust. For Google, Tag Heuer opens up a new price range, a new kind of user, and a wealth of understanding of the high-end watch market that Google sorely needs and currently lacks.
Apple's Watch presents a unique challenge by targeting every level of the market, from $350 to $17,000. Ultimately, though, it's fundamentally the same product across the board. Google is betting that there are buyers who won't want what the Apple Watch offers, and it plans to provide something to truly meet every different need. Including, for the first time, the high end. "We think just like Android on phones, the sum of our parts is greater than any of us could accomplish on our own," Singleton says. "We’ve already been working together for a while, and I’ve already learned so much."
Intel is a slightly less obvious partner, since it hasn't yet established a strong presence in the field of wearables. Still, it's an intriguing one. Singleton says that the union is as simple as recognizing Intel's history of making great products, and that one thing Intel will focus on is the sheer size of a smartwatch's key components; so much of what Google and Tag Heuer can do is limited by the physical space afforded to them.
Google's Android Wear push has been relentless. It's enlisted tech company after tech company, trying new things and learning what users want from a smartwatch. With Tag Heuer on board, Google's going to quickly learn a lot about how to partner that learning with truly exceptional hardware. That's going to be very good for Google---and for you, if you're in the market for Android Wear brains in a luxury body.
