Just as Xiaomi is going to release its first ever smartwatch, reports are claiming OnePlus is also joining this increasingly crowded market.
According to a report from Phone Arena, the OnePlus Watch is on its way and it’s almost ready for primetime.
The leak shows the OnePlus Watch will be launched alongside the OnePlus 8, which means around May of 2020.
(Photo: Phone Arena)
Back in 2016, there were reports OnePlus had planned to add a smartwatch to its portfolio but finally killed the idea.
The company had figured that it needs to really focus its all into one product, make a name for itself, and maybe try to expand later.
Below are the sketches of the first design idea that the co-founder of OnePlus had to develop for the smartwatch that was supposedly in development years ago and that it was finally nothing, but today the rumors of the OnePlus smartwatch comes again.
(Photo: Sketches of the abandoned OnePlus Watch, 2016)
This is one day before Xiaomi’s scheduled event on November 5 in China, where it will showcase the Mi CC9 Pro smartphone, the Mi TV 5 series and its first smartwatch, the Mi watch.
In the Weibo Post, Xiaomi revealed the MIUI for Watch will have a dedicated app store where users can find popular apps including QQ, Alipay, Didi, Keep, QQ music and even a U.S. stock trading app called Tigers Securities backed by Xiaomi.
A live demo posted on Weibo Wednesday afternoon by Qu Heng, general manager of Xiaomi ecosystem, showed the user interface on the watch has a simple 3x3 app grid with square icons and a dark background.
As cnTechPost mentioned previously, the demo showed the watch can run apps including WeChat, Alipay, Douyin (TikTok in China), Sogou map, Himalayan, and the streaming app Bilibili.