Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

Time for a timeout: Motorola is temporarily shelving its smartwatch portfolio

By Julian Chokkattu Published December 1, 2016

It may be time to say goodbye to Motorola’s Moto 360 smartwatch series — at least for now.

Shakil Barkat, corporate vice president of Wearables and Product Development at Motorola, tells the Verge that the company doesn’t “see enough pull in the market to put [a smartwatch] out at this time.” Barkat did not rule it out completely, but he said Motorola will wait for wrist-based technology to improve.

Recommended Videos

“Wearables do not have broad enough appeal for us to continue to build on it year after year,” Barkat said, according to the Verge.

Android Wear has been lagging far behind its competitors this year — hardly any new smartwatches were released running Google’s operating system. Manufacturers may be waiting for the big revamp coming in Android Wear 2.0, which has been delayed until early 2017. Google is also rumored to be working on two new smartwatches to debut alongside the latest iteration of the OS.

The original Moto 360 debuted in 2014 and was followed up by a second generation model in 2015 — both devices have been received positively. Smartwatch sales have been lackluster, however, and Apple has been dominating the market with the Apple Watch. An October 2016 report by the International Data Corporation found that smartwatch shipments in the third quarter dropped 51.6 percent year over year — from 5.6 million to 2.7 million.

Behind Apple, which only shipped 1.1 million smartwatches in the third quarter of 2016, is Garmin, followed by Samsung. These numbers do not take into account Samsung’s new Gear S3 smartwatch, and the report only takes into account a small number of Apple Watch Series 2 sales.

The report indicates that Lenovo’s Motorola “suffered the largest year-over-year decline among the leading vendors … In addition, [the third quarter] marks the first time in which Motorola did not introduce a new smartwatch in time for the holiday quarter, adding to its decline in the market.”

“We believe the wrist still has value and there will be a point where they provide value to consumers more than they do today,” Barkat tells the Verge.

Buy at Motorola

Julian Chokkattu

Former Mobile and Wearables Editor

Julian is the mobile and wearables editor at Digital Trends, covering smartphones, fitness trackers, smartwatches, and more…

Topics

Wearables

EXCLUSIVE: How to ace ‘real’ blood pressure sensing on a watch? Huawei made a big leap and told us the secrets

Blood Pressure Monitoring 1 - Huawei Watch D3 Hands On Early First Impressions

There’s an obvious contradiction at the heart of the Huawei Watch D3. It is thinner, lighter, and more comfortable than its predecessor, yet Huawei has somehow packed even more serious health-monitoring technology into it. Its predecessors, starting with the Watch D, were the first in the industry to measure real blood pressure with a unique micropump system.

The idea is still novel in the industry. Rivals, on the other hand, have shifted to a light-based blood pressure monitoring approach that merely serves as an estimation-based warning system, instead of telling you the real systolic and diastolic values. And with plenty of the usual cautionary messages, of course, and the added hassle of calibration with a real medical-grade cuff. So, when Huawei said the Watch D3 has slimmed down its waistline while getting a sensing upgrade, I was intrigued.

Wearables

Audio Intelligence is the best Apple Watch upgrade you won’t hear much about

Forget Readiness — this is the Apple Watch upgrade I want to try first

Live Rewind on an Apple Watch

Apple has plenty of shiny numbers to sell the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4 with. The new Health Sensing System, the Readiness feature, and more frequent HRV readings are just a couple of things that make these a meaningful upgrade. This is especially true for anyone who treats an Apple Watch primarily as a health and fitness device.

Though the feature that caught my eye has almost nothing to do with workouts. Apple calls it Audio Intelligence, and it essentially gives the Watch another way of understanding what is happening around you. The Series 12 and Ultra 4 can recognize important sounds, automatically identify music, recover the last few seconds of speech you failed to catch, and even create summaries of conversations you want to remember later.

Wearables

Siri is about to hear everything you say, but Apple’s privacy approach has me cautiously on board

Apple's new Audio Intelligence features want to hear almost everything you say. A privacy document released alongside them explains why I am mostly okay with that.

Apple Watch Audio Intelligence features

Apple used its September 2026 launch event to enter a feature category it has mostly avoided until now: ambient listening. Siri Recap, Live Rewind, Music Recognition with Shazam, and Sound Recognition all landed on the Apple Watch Series 12 and Apple Watch Ultra 4. All four depend on the watch microphone picking up sound around you far more often than any previous Apple product has.

Siri Recap listens for conversations throughout your day and turns them into short AI summaries you can check later. Live Rewind is smaller in scope but arguably more useful day-to-day. It transcribes the last 15 seconds of whatever was just said with a double-press of the crown. This is perfect for catching a name, a book title, or directions you missed the first time. Music Recognition uses Shazam to identify songs playing nearby without you lifting a finger, much like Now Playing on Google's Pixel devices. Sound Recognition is a useful accessibility feature that listens for sirens, doorbells, and alarms to alert users who have a hearing impairment.