The Huawei Watch 2 is one of the best Wear OS smartwatches, but if Huawei’s latest patent is anything to go by, the company is preparing a new smartwatch — or watches — that seriously steps things up in terms of versatility. Huawei may be on the verge of launching not one but three smartwatches for 2018: the Huawei Watch 3 family.
Here’s everything we know about the upcoming Huawei Watch for 2018.
Name
For the last few years, the Huawei naming conventions have been pretty predictable. The first year smartwatch was called the Huawei Watch, while the second-generation 2017 watch was aptly named the Huawei Watch 2. We’ve assumed that we will see a Huawei Watch 3, but it looks like things may change in 2018.
According to our friends at the Dutch site Let’s Go Digital, Huawei recently submitted applications to the European Union Intellectual Property Office to trademark three names on three different wearables. And since the product names on the applications were for Watch Anchor, Watch Unlimited, and Watch Voyage, it’s a pretty safe bet these are names of upcoming watches.
Release and pricing
When should we expect Huawei’s trio of smartwatches? It looks like the upcoming watches will make an appearance sooner rather than later. Since the Chinese tech giant has already trademarked the names for three wearables, we believe the trio will be released at the end of August at the 2018 IFA show in Germany.
It’s still a little early for pricing to leak out: We may have to wait until the watches are officially announced or even upon their release. And while we typically assume wearable pricing doesn’t fluctuate greatly between generations, this may not be the case for the upcoming smartwatches.
Design
Mobile leaker Evan Blass posted a leaked image of a smartwatch that features a removable earbud for telephone calls. The device is referred to as the Huawei TalkBand B5, and the leak seems to corroborate an earlier rumor about a wearable that housed removable earbuds.
Huawei TalkBand B5 pic.twitter.com/lR0KosP3NP
— Evan Blass (@evleaks) July 5, 2018
In early July, LetsGoDigital spotted a patent filing for the watch and the different ways the earbuds could be stored in it: in a spring mechanism that can open or close, for example, or magnetically. In one example, the earbuds are even stored in the watch’s clasp.
The patent filing also goes into the earbuds themselves, noting that they could be water-resistant and feature active noise cancellation.
Sure, Huawei could do something like this with the Huawei Watch 3, but it’s another topic entirely when it comes to whether the company should do it. Smartwatches have already been criticized for their bulk compared to typical analog watches, and adding storage for a pair of earbuds won’t help much.
While we initially thought it might be a while before Huawei would launch the watch, the leaked image from Blass leads us to believe it may come to market sooner than expected.
Even though the company recently launched a 2018 edition of the Huawei Watch 2, it’s still possible we could see the Huawei TalkBand B5 later this year. The company did confirm in an interview with TechRadar that it was working on a third iteration of the Huawei Watch, so it’s possible this is the model they’re referring to.
In any case, even if the watch can’t actually store earbuds in its body, it would be nice to see it ship with them. Smartwatches are becoming increasingly independent from smartphones, meaning that it can be useful to have a pair of headphones that you use with your watch when you don’t want to take your phone with you.
Updated on July 30: Added names and the possibility of IFA launch.
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