In Huawei’s latest smartwatch, the company has reached a decision not to use the wearable tech version, but instead chose to use an in-house operating system.
According to the company, this decision was made as one way in which the battery life can be maximized, and it marks a setback to Android-based wear OS from Google – which has been used in the last two generations of smartwatches from Huawei.
A new smartphone model which features unique wireless power facility was also unveiled by the company. This new model is known as Mate 20 Pro and it has the ability to wirelessly power other compatible devices. Its battery can be recharged without plugging in the phone to the charger.
Extended Life
Currently the smartphone market has been dominated by Android, and by estimation, it accounts for almost 85% of all shipped handsets. This is according to IDC.
As per the market research company, though it is true that smartphone market had been dominated by Android, its dominance has not affected smart watches. In other words, it did not extend to smartwatches.
At the moment, there is no any of the known five top-selling smartwatch brand uses Wear OS. That data extracted from IDC shows that of all smartwatches that were shipped to the West Europe between the months of July and September this year, Wear OS is only installed on about 10.3%. Garmin, Samsung, Apple and Fitbit form the list of the companies which have adopted proprietary platform, and now, Huawei is joining the list as this company is doing the same for its watch GT.
Previously, Huawei was using Lite OS to power a more basic tracker. Just to add, it had been licensed by other companies which used this operating system to power, streetlights, smart energy meters, interconnected letter boxes, doorbells among others.
Huawei also insisted that its move was very beneficial as it make use of Watch GT’s dual chipset architecture. This means that there would be a more battery-hungry segment which is meant for complex activities like providing tips that can be used in sport coaching. Also, there would be a low battery-consumption section which is meant for simple tasks such as sleeping analysis.
With different battery life, this watch can offer three modes:
- 22 hours if the user turns off all the sensors and the screen is kept lit
- Up to a period of 30 days if the smart capabilities were limited to only show the notifications that are received via smartphone and monitoring the heart rate of the user
- If sleep analysis is also provided, the phone can last for at least two weeks. This is in addition to 180 minutes of active exercise- tracking
The company also said that the timepiece of this device is also compatible with both Android handset and the iOS.
“It has been very clear from Huawei that it want to actively compete with Garmin and Fitbit that true smartwatches with their own (data) connectivity”, Claims Marta Pinto from IDC.
