Huawei working on making its next smartwatch more useful with longer cell life and AI
While Huawei did unveil its 7nm Kirin 980 chipset at IFA, some consumers were disappointed by the lack of a new Huawei smartwatch. It last released a new timepiece, the Huawei Watch 2, back in April 2017. Does this mean that the Chinese manufacturer has decided to give up on the product? The answer, according to Consumer Division CEO Richard Yu, is a resounding "No!"
Yu spoke with Digital Trends recently, and says that Huawei is taking time off to work on innovations for the next Huawei Watch. The executive states that he wants to make the next Huawei smartwatch more useful, intimate and functional. He also talks about extending battery life from two days to as long as one week. But Yu notes that AI capabilities and an eSIM (embedded SIM card) on a stand-alone unit could limit battery life to 22 hours. And Huawei doesn't want to make a new smartwatch any bigger because of a larger sized battery. Instead, the company has spoken with Qualcomm about developing a new chipset for wearables that could lengthen battery life.
"We want to make bigger improvements and make the experience much better than today. That’s my target. We want to make the smartwatch more useful, more intimate, more functional, and with much longer battery life."-Richard Yu, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group
It is no surprise that Huawei has a keen interest in adding features to upcoming watches that are based on AI. After all, the last two Huawei designed Kirin SoCs (the 970 and just announced 980) feature Neural Processing Units (NPU). Including AI capabilities on its next smartwatch could help expand the role of a virtual personal assistant on the wearable device.
Back in May, a render was leaked showing a new Huawei timepiece, the Huawei Watch 2 (2018). This was not supposed to be an evolutionary update since it featured the same Snapdragon 2100 chip, 768MB of RAM and 4GB of native storage found on the 2017 timepieces. It also carried the same 1.2-inch OLED screen with a 390 x 390 resolution. If this device was indeed scheduled to be released this year, it seems that those plans have been scrapped.
Back in May, this render of the Huawei Watch 2 (2018) leaked
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