We're learning more about how the legacy watch company Swatch plans to make its products smarter for the wearable age. At a news conference in Biel, Switzerland, Swatch Group AG said it plans to focus smartwatch technology on its more affordable plastic watch brand before attempting to put the technology in high-end devices.
According to The Wall Street Journal, this strategy is in response to devices like the Apple Watch, which live in the under-$1,000 price range (at least, the base models of the Apple Watch do). Since most other Swiss watchmakers focus on the luxury market, Swatch is the company most threatened by sub-$1,000 smart devices taking over its industry. According to IDC, smartwatches will be the most popular type of wearable device going forward, and it's expected that 34.3 million units will be shipped in 2016, which would be up from 2015's expected 21.3 million units.
However, even if Swatch plans to produce smart devices in the same price range as the Apple Watch, Swatch CEO Nick Hayek claims the company doesn't want to compete as a consumer technology company. "We are not talking about competing with Apple,” Hayek is quoted as saying in the WSJ. "They are consumer-electronics people and we don’t want to get into that sector. We are also competing with jewelry; it’s two different worlds."
Swatch has created smartwatches in the past, the most recent being the NFC-enabled Swatch Bellamy. The classically Swatch-looking device is only smart because it lets users pay using NFC, and currently it's only available in China for €80 to €100 (about $88). Hayek claims the smartwatch has been "really well" received in China, and Swatch plans to roll it out in other countries, including the United States, Brazil, and Switzerland later this year. Swatch also created the Touch Zero One smartwatch, an interesting toy-looking device that can track beach volleyball, but curiously it hasn't made much noise since it was announced last spring.
While we don't know what kinds of smartwatches Swatch will debut down the line, the company stated last year that it will release a "revolutionary battery" in 2016. The battery described would be for both wearables and automobiles (which seems like a weird combination of categories to begin with) and would be able to power a smartwatch for six months. This seems like a stretch for any smartwatch with a backlit display and a processor powerful enough to run multiple applications. However, it's more than plausible for low-end smartwatches with analog displays and less power-intensive processors, which might be the types of devices Swatch will create under its plastic brand.
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