Will.i.am to Release its Own Smartwatch to Take on the Apple Watch

[RaduTyrsina]

The smartwatch market will get a signifcant boost once Apple release its much-awaited Apple Watch, but it seems that it will face competition from an unexpected player. The rapper and frontman for The Black Eyed Peas, Will.i.am, will launch its own smartwatch product on Thursday in San Francisco in direct competition with the new Apple Watch.

Anna White from Telegraph UK said the following:

Rapper, producer and director of creative innovation at Intel, Will.i.am, demonstrated a futuristic new smartwatch on Channel 4's Alan Carr: Chatty Man on Friday, and again on the BBC's The Voice on Saturday, that is capable of making and receiving calls without a supplementary phone.

The majority of smartwatches available today – including the Samsung Galaxy Gear, Sony SmartBand and fitness bands like the Pebble and Jawbone UP – rely on a smartphone to operate. The processing takes place on the phone and information is then relayed to the watch using a wireless technology like Bluetooth.

Will.i.am's latest creation, which appears to be a black plastic cuff with a small screen, carries out the processing on the watch itself, so there is no need for a separate smartphone.

Will.i.am said the following:

"I don’t carry my phone any more. I just use this as my phone. There’s a lot of these smartwatches that need a phone, mine doesn’t need a phone. This is the phone.

"I started the company myself. I funded it, I used my own money to develop it. It’s a phone, it has all my music in it. If I’m working out I could work out with it without wires, with Bluetooth headphones. It’s got Twitter, Instagram, Facebook."

The upcoming smartwatch will have Bluetooth capability for wireless internet connection but it won't need to be linked to a smartphone for full functionality, unlike Apple's upcoming product.

The watch will feature apps such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, which hints that it could un on Android software. The product will also come loaded with a music service to be delievered by UK firm 7digital.

It sports a curved, not a flat screen like Apple’s watch, but a final product is expected to be released tomorrow.

Source: Telegraph

 

[Ser Aphim]

I'd like to see where this going, fingers crossed this will fail.

 

[col.bris]

Why should it fail?

 

[scifan57]

If his watch is almost ready for release, he must have been working on it for several years at least. As to whether or not it will succeed or fail, only the marketplace can determine that.