Huawei still believes in smartwatches, eyes 1 week battery life
If you were hoping Huawei had something more to show off at IFA last week, you might have come away very disappointed. That said, the Chinese OEM did tease its upcoming October event where it will showcase the power of the Kirin 980 processor in the Huawei Mate 20 series. That event, however, will still lack one Huawei annual staple: a smartwatch. Smartwatch and Huawei fans need not worry, though. The company's still invested in the wearable device. It's just taking its time to develop a better one.
Although they paved the way for smartwatches, smartphone OEMs have all but dropped out of that market. Only two remain, Samsung and Huawei, and only Samsung has a new smartwatch to flaunt this year. Responding to an interview with Digital Trends, CEO Richard Yu assured fans of its smartwatch that it's still in the running. It's just taking time to make the improvements the company wants.
Smartwatches are caught between a rock and a hard place when it comes to desired traits. They need to have good features but also need to have good battery life. Given the limited size of the device, the two are almost mutually exclusive. At least by today's technologies. And Huawei apparently isn't satisfied by today's technologies.
Yu's goal for its next wearable is definitely ambitious. He wants it to have a week-long battery life, something that no standard smartwatch has been able to achieve. With the exception of special gimmicks or e-paper screens, the longest that's usually achieved is two days. And Yu doesn't want to increase the battery size to the point that the Huawei Watch would lose its fashionable design. Nor does it want to skimp on features. In fact, Huawei would most likely want to push its HiAI engine to its next-gen smartwatch.
Of course, that doesn't tell us much about Huawei's next wearable, which is probably still in the very early stages of research and design. Suffice it to say, don't expect a Huawei Watch 3 this year. It might come soon, unless the company loses faith along the way.