It's not a particularly thrilling time for wearables, it seems.
Obviously, this dispiritedness springs from a number of factors, including general market disinterest for wearables and often lofty price points for something not starkly different features-wise from smartphones.
To add insult to the market's injury, Android Wear 2.0, Google's second iteration of its proprietary operating system for smartwatches, has been postponed until 2017. Motorola has taken a hiatus from smartwatches altogether. On top of all this, smartwatch profits saw a significant wane in Q3, and Pebble has officially closed up shop.
One Less Android Wear Smartwatch
Now, Google has also pulled the Huawei Watch from its store, thereby decreasing Android Wear-powered smartwatch options once more.
Huawei's debut smartwatch has already proven itself as one of the best smartwatch options around, with its sophisticated premium build and performance, making it still a worthy wearable option even if it's now more than a year old. In fact, it's so robust that it was one of the only two smartwatches Google handed with Android Wear 2.0 Developer Preview access.
All variants of the Huawei Watch, including the Women's editions, have now vacated Google's online store. It's still available to view via a direct link, though it's now listed as unavailable.
Only Five Android Wear Smartwatches Left On Google Store
The Huawei Watch's departure leaves only five smartwatches in Google Store able to run Google's smartwatch OS: the 2015 Moto 360, Polar M600, Michael Kors Access Dylan and Bradshaw, and the Nixon Mission.
The Huawei Watch might not be available at Google Store, but interested customers may still get it elsewhere, such as Amazon.
Huawei Watch Specs
The Huawei Watch is a dust and water-resistant stainless steel smartwatch rocking a 1.4-inch AMOLED touchscreen display with 286 ppi. It's powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 processor and an Adreno 305 chip for graphics. The Android Wear-powered wearable comes with 4 GB of internal storage, 512 MB of RAM, and a 300 mAh battery. On board is a gyro sensor, accelerometer, heart rate sensor, and a barometer.
There's no telling when exactly Android Wear 2.0 will arrive, and even if it does, there still a bigger problem for smartwatches in general: are majority of consumers interested in owning a smartwatch? Are smartwatches still niche products not everyone needs? Market behavior obviously plays a huge role here, and it's an ambitiously tall order predicting it. But we'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
