According to a new report published on a Taiwanese website, ASUS is working on another smartwatch that will have improved battery life than the current ZenWatch smartwatch and more importantly, it will not be running Google’s Android Wear.
Few days ago, there were also some reports about HTC smartwatch that it would be ditching Google’s Android Wear in its first smartwatch and now ASUS is also doing the same. According to ASUS CEO Jerry Shen, the main reason for not working with Android Wear is to save power and maximize the battery life of the smartwatch.
According to the company, they are working on a device which can last up to a week on a single charge. Considering the current average battery life of around a day or two for smartwatches, this is a huge improvement. Currently, the only wearable devices that have managed to last more than a week on a single charge are health and fitness trackers and smartwatches featuring an e-paper display (like Pebble).
ASUS CEO also said that ASUS is not ditching Android Wear forever. In fact, there is a second generation ZenWatch in the works that will be running Android Wear although the release of the device is set somewhere in Q3, 2015.
Android Wear has been adopted by a lot of smartwatch manufacturers due to the nature of the OS which is specifically designed for wearable devices. But due to some limitations, as in this case the battery life, manufacturers are looking for alternative options to improve the battery life on such devices.
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