Wear OS hasn’t been as successful as Google may have hoped. The platform received a lot of attention ( back when it was called Android Wear ) but recently it has only received attention from budget devices , fashion designers , and older watchmakers. Regular Android OEMs have seemed to stop releasing these devices and have either developed their own wearable OS or simply dropped out of the wearable market entirely. However, we have a new report that says Google will finally be launching their first Wear OS device and a new Google Home could be revealed alongside it.
We’ve heard rumors about a Pixel watch for quite a while now with us reporting on 3 different models back in May of last year. However, a few months later it was revealed that the Pixel Watch was delayed so the software team could focus on Wear OS as it seemed to be what was holding the platform back. Since then, things have been relatively quiet up until earlier this year when we learned that Google was acquiring $40 million worth of smartwatch tech from Fossil.
Not too long after that, we learned of some possible codenames that Google is using for upcoming Pixel Watch models. This week a new report from Nikkei focused on a less expensive smartphone, but also mentioned some information about a Pixel Watch and a new Google Home slated for release later this year. Sadly, the report doesn’t reveal any details about these two new products that Google plans to release (presumably with the launch of the Pixel 4). Instead, the report focuses on how Google is catching up to Amazon in the smart speaker department (29.8% compared to 31.9% during the July-September period of last year).
As far as the Pixel Watch is concerned, the source cited in this report says Google is prepared to use it to directly compete with the Apple Watch. This would mean the company could go head to head feature wise (as well as pricing is concerned too). However, we’ll have to wait until later this year to officially find out what the Mountain View tech giant has in store for us. As for the Google Home, we’ll have to wait and see if this is an update on the original or a new device entirely.
Source: xda developer