The TAG Heuer Android Smartwatch: Will You Want One On Your Wrist?

This luxury smartwatch is winning notice, but will buyers follow?
By Robert McGarvey ,

Android watches have been one big yawn - up until now. At least that is the hope of Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer which has now introduced its $1,500 TAG Heuer Connected watch with the hope of accomplishing two goals: winning what amounts to an open field, with no competitors in the luxury Android Smartwatch segment; and also showing the old Swiss timekeepers still have a life in the 21st century.

Question: will anyone notice? It's a valid inquiry, because honestly, Android watches - there are many - are not exactly hot sellers. Researchers at IDC said that Android watch sales in 2014 amounted to maybe 800,000. In just the second quarter of 2015, the Apple Watch sold 3.6 million.

The other question: will you shell out $1,500 for the TAG Heuer Connected watch? That’s maybe twice as much as an Apple Watch with an upgraded band costs. Know this: buy the watch and you get a kind of moneyback guarantee. Kind of. Read on for the details.

For starters, however, give TAG Heuer credit. The company's product debut created buzz - probably the first buzz around any Android watch. On launch day, the New York Times reported that at the TAG Heuer Fifth Avenue store in Manhattan, there was even a line “stretching at least partway down the block.” Nope, that’s not Apple mania - but for Android, a tiny line is a very big deal.

What do you get for your money? A waterproof TAG Heuer watch running Android Wear on an Intel chip. That means it also can run some 4,000 apps in the Google Play store. A few apps come built into the device - stopwatch, timer and alarm -- but Google Play’s offerings cover just about anything you are likely to want to do on a watch.

But TAG Heuer built a watch that will serve its purposes without pairing with a phone (although it can be paired via Bluetooth with either an Android or Apple phone). An Apple Watch without a nearby iPhone is a brick. TAG Heuer wanted a watch that is useful as a standalone and that is what they created.

You also get a watch that looks like, well, a watch. Which is cool in a retro way and, definitely, unique. Just about no Android watches have a watch look, and neither does Apple Watch, not really. They all look like computer peripherals which is essentially what they are.

Not the Connected watch. TAG Heuer apparently decided to double down on its strengths and, in the world of smartwatches, no other maker enters with a pedigree in horology. TAG Heuer has it, and it is flaunting it with a timepiece that in many ways is a timepiece. Said Brett Anderson, editor in chef at luxury lifestyle publication Robb Report, “The fact that Connected comes from TG, a more-than-150-year-old manufacturer, gives it more brand recognition as a timepiece than some of the other Android offerings.”

About that moneyback guarantee of sorts: after two years you can return the Connected watch to a TAG Heuer store and buy a TAG Heuer Carrera for $1,500. The basic Carrera model currently costs about $3,150. On the one hand that is kind of a mind boggling deal. On the other hand, will you really want to take the plunge back into traditional mechanical watches which is what the Carrera is? Hard to say but what this does is mitigate worries - always aired in conversations about pricey smartwatches - that they will be obsolete in a couple years. “That offers consumers some assurance,” said Robb Report’s Anderson.

One crucial quirk with the TAG Heuer Connected: it currently is available only in a big, bulky version - 46.2 millimeters and a width of 12.8 millimeters - that seems to have been designed for men. TAG Heuer has insisted it is working on a smaller model for women, but there is no release date. That’s a potential stumble, because - according to data collected and analyzed by CrowdFlower, a data analysis company - women are significantly more interested in and positive about Apple Watch than are men. Might that gender prefer extend to the TAG Heuer? No one will know soon because of that lack of a watch in a size that will suit many women.

Ready to buy? Not me, shrugged Jason Baum in Philadelphia who watched the TAG Heuer Connected debut with interest but remained unpersuaded. “I don't think we have a compelling use case for [smartwatches] that makes them better than a traditional watch," he said. "Sure, they have that ‘tech’ factor, but for the price, you can get a really nice traditional watch that will last for decades.”

Right now, nobody is guessing how well the Connected watch will sell and TAG Heuer is not offering a forecast. But the smartwatch wars are finally heating up. At least a little.

This article is commentary by an independent contributor. At the time of publication, the author held TK positions in the stocks mentioned.

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