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Watchmaker Tag Heuer has teamed up with Intel and Google to create a device that will take on the Apple Watch.
A digital version of the company’s popular Carrera watch will emerge from the partnership, and will allegedly retain the look and feel of an regular time piece.
It will however track geolocation, distance walked, and current altitude of the user.
Tag Heuer is known for being proud of its “Swiss made” products, however has outsourced the team working on the technological side, drafting in folks from Intel in California.
Jean-Claude Biver, head of Tag Heuer’s parent company’s, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SA’s timepiece unit, told Bloomberg: “We’re not in the communications industry, Switzerland is not, we don’t have the technology.
“We can’t produce the engine, the chips, the applications, the hardware – nobody can produce it in Switzerland. The hardware and the software will come from Silicon Valley. But the watch case, the dial, the design, the idea, the crown, that part of the watch will, of course, be Swiss.”
The device is set to be unveiled at some point today, so smartwatch fans can device whether they want an Apple Watch or, as Biver comments, a “real watch”.
Bier is certainly pulling no punches when comes to comparing Tag Heuer’s wearable to Apple’s entry, saying: “Apple will get young people used to wearing a watch, and later maybe they will want to buy themselves a real watch.”
Ben Wood, chief of research at CCS Insight, comments: "With Apple Watch hitting the market it’s no longer viable for Swiss watchmakers to bury their heads in the sand. Now Tag Heuer has signalled its intention to enter the smart watch market we are certain others will follow”.
Hopefully release dates, prices and specs will be released today as well. We will update here as they emerge.
Check out our coverage of the Apple Watch here.
