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Huawei’s subsidiary Honor is presently developing a new wearable called the Watch Dream, as indicated by newly emerged intellectual property documentation reviewed by Android Headlines. No details about the device are currently known, though the Chinese technology juggernaut obtained a Bluetooth certification for an unspecified smartwatch just last week. The device in question bears the model number ELF-G10 and is clearly labeled as a smartwatch and not a conventional fitness band, a product category Honor was more focused on in recent years.
The company already released an intelligent timepiece in the form of the Honor Watch Magic (pictured above) this October, making it unlikely that the newly certified device is a direct successor to the thereof. As the Honor Watch Magic was presented as a more accessible (i.e. cheaper) alternative to the Huawei Watch GT, the Watch Dream is likely to target a different demographic, assuming it’s released in the coming months. In the context of smartphones, Honor often focuses on a younger audience and providing great value for money, so the Watch Dream is likely to be based on the same product philosophy. The Bluetooth-certified ELF-G10 is powered by a MediaTek-made chip, an unsurprising choice for the Chinese consumer electronics company that’s been moving away from Qualcomm’s silicon tech over the course of the last several years. The recently debuted Huawei Watch GT also relies on a non-Qualcomm solution devised by Huawei’s subsidiary HiSilicon. The same certificate also reveals that the ELF-G10 supports Bluetooth 4.0 which is far from the latest wireless standard and gives further credence to the possibility that the company’s upcoming wearable won’t be a flagship offering but a value-first affair targeting budget-conscious consumers.
Besides the Watch Dream wearable, Huawei’s sub-brand may presently also be working on an updated version of its FlyPods headphones and an eSports initiative called Honor Hunter, Android Headlines has learned. The newly unveiled ambitions suggest Honor will be diversifying its operations in an aggressive manner moving forward and may share first official details on the matter as early as late February, which is when the next iteration of Mobile World Congress is scheduled to kick off in Barcelona, Spain. Honor’s parent is expected to announce the P30 lineup of Android flagships around the same time as well.
Diversification continues, but not unopposed
Honor’s growing ambitions in the wearable segment are indicative of Huawei’s broader business strategy that saw the Shenzhen, China-based original equipment manufacturer expand into a wide variety of consumer electronics in recent years. While the firm is already the world’s largest telecom equipment manufacturer, it now also holds the title of the second-largest smartphone maker on the planet and is one of the rare few wearable players that managed to grow throughout 2018, according to numerous industry trackers.
Wearables are also a sector where Huawei sees an opportunity to strengthen its brand in the West, particularly in the United States where the government is preventing it from doing business in other segments such as wireless tech and smartphones. Washington still doesn’t appear to have major issues with smartwatches, so that’s what Huawei will be focusing on in the immediate future, a company official told Android Headlines this fall. Granted, things got a lot more complicated for Huawei and its subsidiaries in the meantime, with the company ending up in the center of another scandal that saw its CFO Meng Wanzhou arrested in Canada and pending extradition to the U.S. over allegations of a conspiracy to commit fraud and violate trade sanctions imposed on Iran. The current state of affairs is extremely tense, with Huawei already cutting back on its Washington lobbying funds and downsizing its stateside operations in other respects, though it’s still showing no indication of actually considering pulling out of the U.S. altogether.
The company’s diversification endeavors aren’t focused exclusively on hardware, either; just several weeks back, Huawei confirmed it’s undertaking one of its most ambitious projects yet – developing an alternative to Google’s Android operating system. By most accounts, the company is still pushing toward a future wherein it doesn’t just dominate a variety of consumer electronics segments in terms of physical products but has them contained within a proprietary ecosystem, similar to the goal Samsung has been pursuing in recent years with limited success. While it remains to be seen how wearables will fit into those ambitions, it seems they’re definitely part of Huawei‘s long-term plans, especially as the company is now even tackling that particular segment with Honor, traditionally a smartphone-focused brand.