Google is making its first in-house smartwatch that could launch in 2022

Google is lastly making its personal in-house smartwatch that’s set to launch in 2022, in response to an individual aware of the matter and a new report from Insider.

Whereas Google has made its personal smartphones for years below the Pixel line (which has since prolonged to different equipment, like wi-fi headphones), the corporate has by no means designed its personal smartwatch, even though Google has had a companion wearable platform for Android since 2014.

The watch is being labored on by Google’s Pixel {hardware} group individually from Fitbit, which Google purchased for $2.1 billion earlier this yr. Based on Insider’s report, the brand new upcoming Google watch — it’s not clear whether or not Google will really be calling it a “Pixel Watch” but — will serve a lot the identical position because the Pixel telephones do for Android: an instance for each customers and {hardware} companions of what Google’s software program is really able to when given the proper {hardware}. The system is predicted to value greater than a Fitbit and compete extra straight with the Apple Watch, in response to The Verge’s supply.

The watch could have fundamental health monitoring options, together with step counting and a coronary heart fee monitor, with Google additionally reportedly engaged on debuting a Fitbit integration into Put on OS (codenamed “Nightlight”) with the brand new watch when it launches.

Google is at the moment in the midst of the most recent reinvention of its smartwatch platform with Put on OS 3. Not like the sooner variations of Put on OS (or Android Put on), Put on OS 3 was developed as a partnership with Samsung, merging the Tizen platform into Google’s personal. However to date, Put on OS 3 has solely launched on Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 4, which runs a closely custom-made model of the brand new working system that eschews most of Google’s providers and apps for Samsung’s personal.

Photograph by Dieter Bohn / The Verge

Google practically had a “Pixel Watch” up to now, according to a 2019 report. The LG Watch Sport and LG Watch Model, launched in 2017, had been initially purported to be marketed as a part of the Pixel model, however an worker advised Insider that Google {hardware} boss Rick Osterloh axed the concept as a result of they “didn’t appear to be what belonged within the Pixel household.” Each units didn’t impress us after they got here out.

The information of a Google-built smartwatch isn’t a whole shock, nevertheless. Osterloh told The Verge’s Dieter Bohn earlier this yr that an in-house Put on OS wearable was already on the horizon, noting on the time that Google’s acquisition of Fitbit was nonetheless “fairly early within the integration.” Osterloh did point out that “you’ll see them [the Fitbit team] construct wearables on Put on OS sooner or later,” with the workforce already “onerous at work at that,” — though it’s not clear whether or not Osterloh was referring to the Rohan watch or a distinct, future product.