LG has pulled the Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE from store shelves just a little more than a week before it officially debuted the smartwatch, touting it as the world's first smartwatch equipped with LTE connectivity.
The South Korean smartwatch maker has confirmed in a statement sent to CNET that it has stopped selling its gorgeous new smartwatch because of an undisclosed, "complicated" problem with the device's hardware.
"Late in the quality assurance process for the LG Watch Urbane 2nd Edition LTE, our engineers were made aware of a hardware issue which affects the day-to-day functionality of the device," LG says. "After further investigation, the decision was made to cancel the rollout of the Urbane 2nd Edition LTE due to the complicated nature of the issue."
No word has been made on when LG plans to bring back the hotly anticipated wearable to store shelves, or whether it plans to do so at all. As of the moment, all plans for a re-release are on hold as LG's engineers look into the unspecified issue.
"Whether the device will be available in the future will be decided at a later time," LG adds. "For now, our top priority is to ensure that only products that meet our very specific quality standards are available for purchase."
The confirmation comes just slightly ahead of the expected launch of the Urbane 2nd Edition at Verizon, which was scheduled to start selling the smartwatch on Nov. 20. AT&T was a few weeks ahead of Big Red, but it seems both carriers will have to offer refunds to customers who preordered the smartwatch ahead of release. At the moment, AT&T lists the smartwatch as "Out of Stock" and promises to offer refunds to customers who already bought the device.
Obviously, the recall is a huge setback for LG, but it also poses a problem for Google as well, which is expecting the new smartwatch to demonstrate the LTE capabilities built into Android Wear. As an LTE-equipped smartwatch, the Urbane 2nd Edition LTE would have been able to allow users to send and receive texts and make and receive calls on their smartwatch even when untethered to a smartphone.
Samsung is also getting ready to launch the Gear S2, its first LTE-equipped smartwatch. However, the wearable runs on Samsung's own Tizen platform instead of Android Wear.
