Tag Heuer And Intel Are To Challenge The Apple Watch

Tag Heuer And Intel Are To Challenge The Apple Watch

“Apple will get young people used to wearing a watch,” Tag Heuer CEO CEO Jean-Claude Biver recently told Reuters, “and later maybe they will want to buy themselves a real watch.” Could today be the day we see Tag Heuer’s “real watch” answer to the rise of the smartwatch?

Reuters is reporting that the luxury Swiss watch maker is teaming up with computing giants Intel to work on a timepiece capable of holding its own against the connected devices currently vying for a place on our wrists. Capable of tracking geolocation, altitude and distance walked, it won’t have quite the range of abilities that other smartwatches have. But Tag Heuer’s watch will have one key advantage; it will look just like it’s sweet, “proper” original black Carrera (one of the brand’s most iconic designs), pictured above.

While Tag Heuer will make the traditional watch components itself in Switzerland, all the smart internals will come courtesy of Intel, which will produce chips and apps for the timepiece in Silicon Valley.

Though the smartwatch and luxury watch may seem like chalk and cheese at the moment and mostly aimed at very different consumers, Apple’s £8000 gold Edition variant has shaken up that paradigm slightly. In the consumer tech space, Apple has the same luxury appeal that those hunting down a Rolex crave. It’s obscenely expensive smartwatch brings with it the exclusivity that the super-rich crave, so it’s understandable that Tag Heuer would want to sure up its defences — particularly after losing top staff to Apple.

The Tag Heuer/Intel smartwatch is expected to be revealed later today. We’ll keep you posted on what it offers if it does indeed appear. [Reuters]

Tag Heuer And Intel Are To Challenge The Apple Watch
This post originally appeared on Gizmodo UK, which is gobbling up the news in a different timezone.


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