Sony SmartWatch 3 rumoured to not run Android Wear
Rumour has it that Sony’s planned SmartWatch 3 won’t run Android Wear, and will instead stick with Sony’s own proprietary platform.
According to VR Zone, the watch will also support wireless charging (so no need to plug in) and though it will connect to your phone via bluetooth like most other smartwatches, it will also be able to connect to a wifi connection independently.
Perhaps most significantly though is the software: It won’t run on Google’s Android Wear platform, which recently launched recently inside a number of different. And I’d wager this will make the SmartWatch 3 dead on arrival for one simple reason: support.
You can understand why Sony would want to go with its own proprietary Smartwatch OS – as it would get to control the OS and make Sony an essential part of the Smartwatch experience, rather than just an app that can be switched off. Samsung has tried the same thing with its Tizen operating system.
The trouble is, for the consumer it doesn’t make much sense: Android Wear will inevitably be supported by a wider range of devices (we’ve already seen it on the LG G3, Moto 360 and Samsung Gear Live, and it is much more deeply integrated with the Android mobile experience. This means that when developers come to add watch support to their apps, they will build support first for Android Wear instead of rival platforms. By soldiering on with its own OS, Sony is risking the same irrelevant that has befallen Blackberry and Windows Phone on mobile, in the face of iOS and Android.
We’ll let you know when Sony announces anything official.
