Yesterday, Google announced that it would invest 40 million dollars in the purchase of a part of Fossil’s research and development division that was responsible for working on the smartwatch, and which was developing a mysterious and interesting technology, the which we do not know the details to this day.
And although it is a “small” amount if we consider the economic power of Google, the reality is that the fact that the Mountain View company was determined to disburse this amount, and also, hire part of the research and development team of Fossil that was in the project, because it speaks to us of the potential that surely Google sees in this development.
The only clue there is regarding this technology is that Fossil has not yet released it to the market, and began to develop it based on some idea or project that the company had in its possession when it bought Misfit in 2015 for 260 million dollars.
What does this mean for Wear OS?
Although Google has redesigned and even changed the name of its operating system for wearables, the reality is that it still does not have the importance in the market that the company is looking for, and all the rumours suggest that this year we will have the first Pixel Watch, the Google smartwatch that will compete directly with the Apple Watch, the most successful smartwatch today.
It is likely that this technology will be launched with Pixel Watch, a device that Google itself has mentioned exists, but physically, at least it is within its launch plans for the future, so this could be the year in which finally we know said smartwatch.
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And is that after the Apple Watch, Samsung has many interesting models, but they all have a Samsung own system, even Xiaomi uses its own software for their watches, so Google must start to convince manufacturers that Wear OS is the best option to compete against Watch OS and the Apple Watch.
With these 40 million dollars, Google now has an exclusive team specialized in smart watches that will work to make your new watch what we are waiting for, but we will have to wait until October to find out if we really have Pixel Watch this year, as well as knowing the mysterious technology of which so much has been spoken since yesterday.
Photo by Luke Chesser on Unsplash
Also published on Medium.