Report: Tag Heuer Android Wear watch will cost US$1400 when it launches

Last month, Tag announced a partnership with Intel and Google to produce a smart watch running Android Wear, and from a report in Bloomberg overnight, that watch will cost US$1400 when it launches.

According to Bloomberg, the watch is expected to launch in October or November and at US$1400 (just over AUD$1750) it’s definitely in the luxury class of devices. At this price level, it more than quadruples the current most expensive Android Wear watch on the market – the LG Urbane, which launched this week.

There will be advantages, with the watch apparently designed to last up to 40 hours, although some Android Wear users are seeing similar times out of their current-gen devices.

So, at US$1400, will it sell?

There’s been a lot of press on the so-called leader of the luxury tech world of late with the launch of the Apple watch. The Apple Watch has various version ranging from US$349 all the way up to US$15,000 and beyond if you’re a celeb wanting something custom. But watch-making is a refined, and very old art which has an established hierarchy and close to the top of that hierarchy is Tag Heuer – so a partnership with Google to produce an Android Wear watch is promising.

Unfortunately, Android hasn’t got the same reputation as Apple in the general consumers view, seen by some as the ‘cheaper’ option – despite some handsets attracting a similar or in some cases larger price tag than their Apple counterparts.

At this stage, Android Wear has been on a 3-4 month update cycle. With Android Wear 5.1 hitting watches in the coming weeks, this means we should see at least one more platform update before the release of the Tag Heuer watch – what does Google have up their sleeve?

At the price the Tag watch will sell for, it won’t be for everyone, but we’ll definitely be lining up to get hands-on with the Tag Heuer watch if it’s released in Australia. We just hope it’s worth the price tag.