Social media post sparks rumors on Xperia Watch & Sony Smartwatch 4
A post on social platform Weibo has led to talk about a possible Xperia Watch and Sony Smartwatch 4 in the making.
You wouldn’t be blamed for thinking the company has given up on the Sony Smartwatch as the third (and last) iteration landed back in 2014. Mind you, there have been other wearable tech products from Sony, but they have been few and far in between in recent years.
A worthy mention is the stylish FES Watch U. Showcased at IFA 2018, this is more of a fashion accessory than a smartwatch. The device has some smart functionality, but its main trick is that it allows you to change the look at the touch of a button – the appearance of both the i-ink display and strap can be customized.
Essential reading: Top fitness trackers and health gadgets
Sony has also dished out a few iterations of the Wena Smart Strap. The gizmo can be used to turn any traditional watch into a smart one. The clever bits are hidden away in the strap, plus there’s a display at the underside of the band that can fit several lines of text. Wena 3 is the lastest iteration. Announced in late 2020 it adds a heart rate monitor and Alexa support to functionality that is available on the predecessor devices.
Possible Xperia Watch or Sony Smartwatch 4?
Now there’s hope Sony’s wearables ambitions have picked up again. A post on Weibo by well known Xperia leaker ZacksBucks (via Notebookcheck), hints that a Sony-branded smartwatch may be in the works. Here’s the machine translation of the post that was written in Chinese.
“One old story is that Sony’s watch-band Wena business was merged into Sony’s mobile communications business in April 2021, and there may be a Xperia × Wena connection in the future. I hope that it will be launched in China.”
What could a Xperia and Wena connection mean? It’s a pretty safe guess most of Sony’s wearable tech knowhow right now is under the Wena roof. A possible linkage with the Xperia smartphone line could imply a first smartwatch under the Xperia moniker. The fact that Xperia is a well-established and well-known brand would help with marketing such a device.
The fact that ZacksBucks says “I hope it will be launched in China” could mean he has intelligence on an actual product. The other option, of course, is that the link simply means deeper integration between the Weba smart band and Xperia smartphones.
A third option could be the Sony Smartwatch 4. In our view this is the least likely possibility. A lot has changed in the wearable tech space since the last timepiece in this line saw the light of day. Competition is much stiffer and there’s very little to separate the players right now. A company would have to have a pretty compelling offering to capture a significant share of the market. Having said that, Sony is a tech giant. If anyone can pull it off, they can.
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