Huawei’s Android Wear running Watch has gone on-sale in the US and review units and retail units are finding their way into hands of customers and reviewers across North America. While it may take a while for the watch to launch here in Australia, we can sit back and stare in awe as the Android Police team decided to open their’s up for a poke around inside, and it’s lucky they did because it may point towards a new feature for Android Wear.
The second generation of Android Wear devices announced at IFA in Berlin was fairly unexciting when it comes to hardware, well, except for Motorola’s Moto 360 gen 2 updating its internals to the Snapdragon 400 SoC used in every other Android Wear device released. But that’s not to say that there isn’t some interesting stuff baked into the devices that they just haven’t announced which is evidenced by the discovery of a speaker inside the unit.
The design of the speaker according to Android Police is surprisingly similar to the part used in the Huawei Ascend Mate 7 and P7. Android Police reached out to Huawei for confirmation that the component was a speaker and though they wouldn’t confirm that it was a speaker it did point to future features being added to the device:
The Huawei Watch is first and foremost a watch, with the added benefit of many smart features and functions. One of the keystones of watches is longevity. We designed the Huawei Watch with this in mind. This forward looking design and component selection is just one of the many ways that the Huawei Watch is timelessly designed and smart within.
We have been getting Android Wear updates on a fairly regular 3-monthly schedule since launch of the platform, though like the development of Android this may slow down to a yearly release at some point. It seems there may be an upcoming feature that uses the speaker, but as to when we’ll see it the answer is who knows. A more important question is: Does the Motorola Moto 360 2015 and Asus ZenWatch 2 have speakers inside them as well?
The Asus ZenPhone2 also has a speaker. Not sure about the Motorola 360 2. But this is awesome news. I don’t think Android 6.0 is out for Android Wear yet. My LG G Watch is still 5.1.1. If 6.0 brings speaker support, I am upgrading today. It is the 1 feature holding me back because without a speaker, they can’t do anything my G Watch can’t do.
Hey Daniel, are you able to do a seperate article on the Android wear watches that were unveiled at the IFA? Like do a side by side comparison of the specs and whatnot? I’m sure a few of us will be interested what the new options are.