OnePlus is popular with consumers for its robust smartphone lineup, but did you know that the China-based OEM developed a smartwatch as well?
What happened to the mysterious OnePlus wearable, you ask? The company decided against releasing the smartwatch, which was a part of its expansion plans as it looked to test the waters of the wearable market space.
At the Converge conference in Hong Kong, OnePlus' CEO and founder Peter Lau revealed that the company intended to debut a smartwatch in 2015 but scrapped the plan and instead channel all of its focus on the smartphones instead.
Even though the design for the OnePlus smartwatch was completed, it was not brought to production. With competition in the smartphone space being intense, OnePlus chose to take the difficult decision of not adding another product to its lineup like competing OEMs. This decision was taken so that the company does not deviate from its goal of pushing its smartphones, which, in a short span, have managed to find much favor with consumers.
"We had completed the design but we still decided to scrap it. We have to be focused. It was a matter of survival of the fittest, and adding a possibly weak 'me too' product into the otherwise strong OnePlus lineup would expose the company to a cruel market," revealed Lau.
This is not the first time it has come to light that OnePlus scrapped plans for a product's release. In November 2015, we reported that the company had a fitness tracker and a Bluetooth speaker on the cards but dropped the plans at the last minute.
While a big company can possibly withstand the setback of a few products not performing as per their expectations, for a fairly new one such as OnePlus, the failure or success of the product could have been a game changer. Perhaps this is why OnePlus decided to not take the risk and scrap the plan to release a smartwatch so soon.
Interestingly, in 2014, leaked images of the alleged OneWatch from the company had surfaced online, hinting that a smartwatch was in the works. The images pointed to a circular dial, and the smartwatch's design was reminiscent of the Moto 360.
Lau did not spill the beans on the specs and features of the OnePlus smartwatch, which never saw the light of the day. Considering the company's smartphone lineup runs on Android OS, a possibility exists that the OnePlus smartwatch would have also deployed the Android Wear platform.
The OnePlus CEO did not even disclose the name of the intended smartwatch or offer any details on its design.
Whether the company will look to dive into the wearable space and tap the lucrative market in the near future is anybody's guess.
Photo: Oliver Stewart | Flickr
