It’s somewhat surprising that we didn’t see any watches from these companies at IFA, which is normally the time when companies unveil new smartphones, and more recently, smartwatches.
There are a few reasons the companies are holding off on new Android Wear devices. They’ve so far been unable to incorporate an LTE radio in the watch without there being trade-offs in battery life and added bulk. Not only that, but Apple still hasn’t turned the smartwatch world into a massive industry like it did with the smartphone and the tablet. Last but not least, research indicates that people are more interested in cheaper fitness trackers than actual smartwatches.
Need more evidence that the industry has yet to blossom into the cash cow many are expecting? Even Samsung admitted to CNET that most people buying its smartwatches are male early adopters.
Of course, this isn’t great news for Google — Android Wear 2.0 is set to be released this fall, and it seems as though Google’s biggest smartwatch partners don’t have any plans with the operating system. There are rumors of a few Nexus smartwatches (or Pixel smartwatches) being released alongside the new Pixel phones, but it’s hard to believe that Google is the only company releasing a new smartwatch with the new Android Wear platform.
It’s important to mention that just because these companies aren’t releasing a new watch this year, it doesn’t mean that they’ve given up. It’s likely that we’ll see a slew of new smartwatches in 2017.
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