Alphabet-owned Google is planning to take another step toward becoming a genuine hardware company later this year with the release of its own smartwatch.
The search engine giant plans to take on Apple Watch directly, with not one, but two Android Wear smartwatches that will be deeply integrated with Google Assistant. Plus, it will pack some hardware features Apple Watch can’t match.
Google plans to unveil the new wearable sometime after it unveils the Nexus smartphone it is also rumored to be making. The new watches may also be part of the Nexus brand.
“One watch will be larger, sportier, and more fully featured (LTE, GPS, heart rate),” reports Android Police. “The other will be smaller and lack the aforementioned mobile data and GPS.”
The site says it is extremely confident in its sources and believes the company is well into the prototyping phase. Of course, Google could always delay or completely cancel the devices’ production, so don’t get your hopes up quite yet.
Both watches will allegedly have circular displays, with the higher-end model resembling the Moro 360, though it won’t have a black bar at the bottom of the display. The body of the watch curves where the housing meets the band, giving it a subdued but sporty look.
Taking some cues from the Apple Watch, Google plans to have a large circular crown button centered on the right side, with two smaller circular buttons on both sides. More details on the device can be found on AndroidPolice, but you’ll probably have to wait until the end of 2016 or early 2017 before the real deal is unveiled.
Hopefully Apple Watch has some big upgrades on the way.
