With smartwearables picking up heat, Google launched an exclusive software for them in the form of Android Wear in early 2014. Most of the top manufacturers, including Motorola, Asus, Huawei, Samsung, LG, etc. jumped the gun to launch their own smartwatch offerings, while HTC has been fairly silent. It, however, now seems that HTC is also joining the rat race of the wearable market with its very first product.
The long-rumored HTC smartwatch, which was probably in development for the past 1.5 years, has finally leaked on the interwebs. The leaked images, initially picked up by TechTastic, have been uploaded by an anonymous user on Chinese social networking website ‘Weibo’.
These images show an in-development HTC smartwatch, which most likely would sport a 360 x 360 circular display, without the infamous Moto 360 black chin(yay! awesome!). It also sports an optical heart-rate sensor, four charging pins and a not-so-surprising Under Armor branding on the underside of the watch.
The Taiwanese manufacturer has already worked with Under Armor to launch a set of fitness products, and services under the ‘UA HealthBox’ monicker. This fitness-focused healthbox comprised of a fitness tracker, an electronic scaling machine, and a heart-rate monitor.
The smartwatch, from the looks of it, resembles the Casio G-Shock series with its fitness-friendly design and rubber strap. On the side, the watch hosts two physical buttons for navigation purposes. It will run on Android Wear, but what will be important to see is whether HTC will make any software tweaks to increase functionality and make it more fitness-oriented.
The smartwatch has been codenamed ‘Halfbeak’ — which is just another fish that is geographically abundant and has distinctive lower jaws as compared to upper ones. Though we’re sure that HTC is working on a smartwearable, we cannot predict the exact release period of the same. But, the launch of a fresh smartwatch would definitely help the company stabilise and complement its dwindling smartphones sales.
