When the Huawei Watch first popped up earlier this year, many were surprised by how practical the smartwatch’s design was while still maintaining a premium feel. Although the Chinese company said the smartwatch should be hitting stores sometime around the middle of the year, a new report claims that some compatibility issues with Android Wear have forced Huawei to push the release date back a few months.
We got a good look and our hands-on the Huawei Watch back during Mobile World Congress earlier this year. It was actually one of the breakout hits of the show, with tech blogs raving about the watch’s practical design and premium build quality. Back then, Huawei was aiming for a release date somewhere around the “middle” of this year, but some unforeseen bugs may have pushed that date back towards the end of the year. According to WantChinaTimes, Huawei’s head of smartphone division He Gang mentioned the team ran into some compatibility issues with Android Wear, forcing them to push back their initial launch estimates to September or October. The problem has to do with Google services which aren’t available in China, forcing the manufacturer to come up with their own in-house solution. With a launch near the end of the year, it’s entirely possible the Huawei Watch could launch alongside a Huawei-made Nexus, also rumored to launch during Google’s usual late October/early November time frame. Of course that’s just blind speculation at this point.
