Huawei launched its own Android Wear smartwatch at Mobile World Congress back in March, with the company stating at the time that the watch would be available ‘around the middle of the year’ but as June is now upon us, it seems that this may no longer be the case.
Reports have surfaced from Chinese media that the company has decided to delay the availability of their Smartwatch until September or October.
The reason for the delay according to these reports, is apparently because of certain “incompatibility issues with Android Wear”. What the exact incompatibility issues could be was not given any further details about, however it is believed the delay could be something to do with the fact that most Google services aren’t easily accessible in Huawei’s home market of China.
Android Wear is a more closed version of Android than what is available for OEMs for mobile phones and tablets. GSMArena has speculated that Huawei has found it harder to replace some of Google’s services and apps for Android Wear with its own which it would be required to install on the Huawei Watch to have any sort of chance of selling the smartwatch in their home market.
However the reports also state that this delay may not affect the Huawei Watch coming to other regions of the world and the delay may have no affect on a global rollout with the exception being its home market.
I was at the Huawei HQ in Shenzhen this week (thought I’d drop that in 😉 ) and there was not a trace of the watch anywhere and nobody would even talk about it. Disappointed. From what I’ve seen about it, this looks like it could be the one.
Oh, that’s interesting. Were you part of the press contingent that was almost forcibly ejected from Huawei HQ and told not to report on anything relating to Huawei?
I’ve never heard about that! They were very open with us and apart from a few sensitive areas, we had no issues taking pics.
BTW the Chinese government has no stake in Huawei.
The PRC government was taking the press around a number of high tech facilities. Google “Financial Review Huawei tour” – the first hit should be “Huawei’s Epic PR Fail”. I think that the article is making a bit of a mountain out of a molehill, but it’s amusing none the less.
Wow! That’s so different from my experience. Interesting though. I was in Shenzhen, not Shanghai FWIW. I went to 5 or 6 different parts of the campus and was only asked not to photograph inside their corporate data centre and some specific 5G items. Anything else was fair game.
son i am disappoint
I love the way this thing looks, but September – October means it’ll be DOA with Gen 2 Products coming out