Luxury Smart Watch Companies Announce Partnerships at Baselworld

Luxury watchmakers announced smart watch intentions at the start of the Baselworld watch and jewelry showcase event in Switzerland Thursday. They were as reluctant to provide product details as they were eager to trumpet their technology partners. At a news conference announcing a relationship among luxury watch icon TAG Heuer, Google and Intel, TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver called it “my biggest announcement ever” in his 40 years attending Baselworld. Biver prefaced a brief Q&A with the caveat that he wouldn’t provide pricing, availability or product features of the TAG Heuer smart watch. Biver called the announcement something he could “never have imagined,” a partnership that would “give birth to the greatest connected watch.” The Silicon Valley companies supplying the technology to TAG Heuer also are providing the tech foundation for Fossil Group’s upcoming smart watches (see 1503060058). That led to a question in Q&A on how the partnership with TAG Heuer differs from that with Fossil. Michael Bell, general manager-Intel's new devices group, responded for the group and said, “What we’re talking about here is a very nice luxury Swiss smart watch” and called Fossil “also a phenomenal partner.” The TAG Heuer smart watch will reside on a software platform called Android Wear, a version of the Android operating system tailored for the connected watch, said David Singleton, director-engineering of Google's Android Wear. The brains of the watch are made by Intel. Because of the collaboration among the three companies, and the fact that the watch's "brain" is made by Intel, the upcoming watch won’t be able to be labeled what has been a point of pride for TAG Heuer’s other watches: “Swiss Made.” Also at Baselworld, Gucci Timepieces said it partnered with i.am+ and will.i.am to develop wearable technology. In announcing the collaboration, Gucci Timepieces CEO Stéphane Linder, who left TAG Heuer as CEO in December, said he coined the term “fashionology” to describe the merging worlds of fashion and technology. The Gucci device will operate as a “completely standalone smartband, untethered from any smartphone,” said the company. The feature list of the smart device includes: the ability to make and receive phone calls, send and receive text messages and emails, music, maps, calendar, fitness functions and a “sophisticated personal assistant activated by voice command,” the company said.