Tag Heuer officially teased its $1,800 Android Wear smartwatch. It's not as expensive as the most expensive Apple Watch, but it will be the most expensive Android smartwatch come next month.
Apple's highest high-end smartwatch—the Apple Watch Edition—costs $17,000 because it's made out of a solid block of 18k gold. Otherwise, it shares the same innards and performs the same functions as the cheapest $350 variant. On the flip side, the most expensive Android Wear watch right now is the Huawei Watch, which costs as much as $799. Now that's a lot of money for any watch.
But for $1,800? For the average working human being, that's a lot more money for just a smartwatch. And considering most smartwatches have insides that are bound to be obsolete in a few years, these $1,000+ wrist gadgets are quite the hard sell. That's why it seems Tag Heuer, Google, and Intel have partnered together to offer something different to the nascent wearable tech market.
On the outside, it actually doesn't look much different from any other watch or smartwatch we've already seen. In the photo it posted over its Twitter account, Tag Heuer's first luxury smartwatch is mostly covered in shadow. The watch is tagged with "Connected" as its name and a numbered bezel with a crown at the three o'clock position. However, it's what's inside that might make this watch stand out.
Tag Heuer's Connected boasts a running list of firsts: It will be the first smartwatch to have Intel hardware running inside the watch; It will be the first smartwatch to last longer than a day on a single charge (reportedly up to 40 hours). Finally, it will be the first smartwatch that can be upgraded (to bypass the usual tick-tock tech cycle that make most gadgets obsolete after a year or two).
Traditional watchmakers such as Tag Heuer must feel the pinch of the smartwatch market, especially if Apple reportedly sold at least five million watches. On its website, Tag Heuer says it's "pushing the Swiss avant-garde limits even further with the TAG Heuer Connected. Tradition meets innovation, craftsmanship meets savoir-faire, and bold style meets breakthrough technology. The clock is ticking to the major breakthrough." We'll find out on Nov. 9 it it becomes a breakthrough product or not.
