This is what the OnePlus smartwatch was shaping up to be

Long before OnePlus made it clear that the company is focused on smartphones full-time, there were talks of a canceled OnePlus smartwatch. Reportedly, the OneWatch was completed, but never reached production as the company figured its smartphones have better chances on the market.

The wearable leaked back in July 2014, as part of a sketch and in a purported a website screenshot. We saw an elegant circular smartwatch designed to have its straps easily exchanged. We didn't get to hear anything else related to the product for a long while, until OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei tweeted an original design sketch today. It's a newer sketch that dates from 2015, but it illustrates a similar device.

"What could have been, but never will be."

The OneWatch, or however it's called, has a traditional circular look, similar in style to the Moto 360. It boasts an innovative mechanism for attaching and disengaging the watch's circular body to a metallic cradle with openings for threading the wrist band. It would have made for a nice selling point and design showcase, although Apple came up with its own wrist attachment system for the Apple Watch, which would have deprived the OneWatch of the exclusivity.

In his tweet, Carl Pei squashed hopes for an eventual release of the wearable, explicitly stating it "never will be." We're content with that, as long as staying away from risky projects like this helps OnePlus deliver progressively better phones.

source: Carl Pei (Twitter) via Android Authority

ALSO READ