Microsoft’s canceled Xbox smartwatch has resurfaced online

As far back as 2013, Microsoft began working on wearable tech, including smartwatches. One of the company's many ideas was actually an Xbox smartwatch, which first appeared on the web in 2017. Now, just a few months later, more details on the prototype have surfaced, alongside a wealth of images.

The Xbox smartwatch was being worked on by the same teams behind Xbox accessories and the Kinect. An insider on Twitter posted images of the watch this week, showing that the watch included GPS tracking, dedicated workout apps from back when Xbox Fitness was still a thing, and a heart rate monitor. The user interface was similar to the one found on the Microsoft Band, one of the company's canceled wearables.

Here are the images posted by Twitter user Hikari Calyx:

At this point, it seems clear that Microsoft has given up on the idea of smart bands and smart watches, at least for the time being. Instead, Microsoft is focusing more on software, bringing Cortana to smarthome devices and pushing Windows 10 to more devices.

KitGuru Says: Analysts and tech giants once had high hopes for the wearable market, to the point where Google and Apple even jumped in. However, it hasn't proved to be as big of a boom as once thought. Do you guys think Microsoft was smart to abandon the smart watch idea when it did? I don't really think that an Xbox branded watch would have really been a breakthrough product, particularly after how things went with the Kinect.

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