India Luxury Market
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In the Swiss watch world, some, like Tag Heuer and Breitling have committed their R&D to make full smartwatches that can connect to your phone and relay data on the face of the watch. While a handful are letting the ‘smartness’ linger on the strap! IWC, a brand we all love, too, has entered the smart watch arena with a ‘smart’ strap-tool. This tool will be embedded in the watch strap and bring select smartphone connectivity features, to the new IWC watches!
The IWC Connect will be introduced with the IWC Big Pilot’s watches. As seen in the pictures, below, the tool size is not big enough to relay all smartphone notifications. To begin with, the IWC smartwatch straps will be built to track fitness data, only.
“Seeing that many of our customers and brand ambassadors are wearing connected devices alongside their IWC watches, we chose to work with a like-minded digital technology company to develop an elegant, aesthetically complementary solution that eliminates the need to have additional devices on the opposing wrist to your IWC,” explains Georges Kern, CEO of IWC Schaffhausen. “But, and this is essential, we do not touch our beautiful watches – an ‘IWC’ stays a mechanical handcrafted timepiece. We’ve engineered an intelligent design solution which perfectly integrates and underlines our product worlds.”
Mont Blanc is another swiss watch brand that introduced a smart strap for similar functions like fitness tracker. Mont Blanc launched the smart strap, last year.
Out of all swiss brands, Tag Heuer is the only one that has committed to making smartwatches with an operating system, custom built for smartwatches. Tag Heuer has tied up with Google and Intel to produce these watches. Tag Heuer smartwatches will be launched before Christmas, this year.
Price of the IWC smartwatch strap will be released soon. The swiss smartwatch straps from IWC will be introduced before the end of 2016.
Shilpa is a world renowned journalist and an expert in decoding India and Asia’s luxury markets for global readers. Her original, in-depth reports and analysis are frequently featured in prestigious international titles across the UK, China, Hong Kong, Switzerland, and Oman.
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