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LVMH, is a French multinational luxury goods conglomerate, has announced pricing of TAG Heuer’s upcoming smartwatch, which it is developing in collaboration with Intel and Google. The first smart timepiece from a Swiss watchmaker will surprisingly not be too expensive because the product is primarily aimed at younger audience.
TAG Heuer’s smartwatch will hit the market in October and November and will retail for $1400 (around £906 today), said Jean-Claude Biver, who heads the watchmaking activities of the brand’s owner, LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, reports Bloomberg news-agency. It is unclear whether TAG Heuer introduces only one connected timepiece, or will offer something more expensive to cater traditional buyers of fine mechanical watches.
The high-ranking executive indicated that the company wants the battery of TAG Heuer’s chronograph to last for about 40 hours, up significantly from 18 hours on Apple Watch. Unfortunately, Mr. Biver did not reveal any other details about the upcoming wristwatch.
When TAG Heuer, Intel and Google formally announced the first Swiss smartwatch earlier this year, they revealed that the device would be assembled in Switzerland, but would not necessarily carry “Swiss Made” label, which may indicate that it would not feature a Swiss mechanical movement, but will completely rely on electronics.
The developers did not discuss feature-set of the connected TAG Heuer timepiece, but it is logical to expect basic functionality found on smartwatches as well as on health and fitness trackers. The wristwatch will be powered by Google’s Android Wear operating system and will be compatible with various smartphones.
At present Intel offers two solutions suitable for chronographs: Intel Quark system-on-chip as well as Intel Curie module. The Quark features one Pentium [P54C] core, an LPDDR2 memory controller and a host of I/O capabilities. The Curie module (pictured below) announced in January integrates one Quark SoC, low-power integrated DSP sensor hub with a proprietary pattern matching accelerator, Bluetooth Low Energy, 6-axis combo sensor with accelerometer and gyroscope as well as battery charging circuitry (PMIC). It is highly likely that Curie will be used for TAG Heuer’s smart timepiece.
While Apple’s Watch and Watch Edition chronographs are clearly competing against LVMH’s products, Jean-Claude Biver hopes that the consumer electronics giant will sell a lot of its timepieces in order to lure new customers to the market.
“I hope they sell millions and millions and millions of them,” said Mr. Biver, speaking ahead of the official opening of a Hublot boutique in Dubai Mall. “The more they sell the [better as] a few people will want something different and come to TAG Heuer.”
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KitGuru Says: Considering the fact that the executive from LVMH already knows launch timeframes and price of the smart timepiece, it is highly likely that its development has been largely finished. At the moment the companies are probably testing the device and are finalizing details.
