HTC wearable-related interests have been detailed in various reports in the past year, but the rumors failed to materialize, as the Taiwanese company postponed the launch of its first such device. However, HTC might be closer than ever to launching a first smartwatch or smartband device, that’ll compete directly against the Apple Watch, and all the other similar devices available in stores, or about to be released. But HTC isn’t going to use Android Wear for this first device, @upleaks revealed, as the company is apparently interested in making it compatible both with Android and iOS handsets.
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Codenamed HTC Petra, the device should be released at some point in the first quarter of the year, starting with the U.S. — though prices aren’t available at this time.
The Petra comes in three sizes, including small, medium and large, and weighs around 23g. The gadget features a 1.8-inch PMOLED flexible display with 160 x 32 resolution, ST Micro STM32L151 chipset, Bluetooth and GPS support and offer 3-day battery life.
The Petra’s battery is charge via POGO pins or USB connection, and the gadget has IP57 water and dust resistance.
The operating system of the smartwatch, or smartband, is called RTOS, and it’s supposed to work with smartphones running at least Android 4.4 or iOS 7. RTOS comes with various apps preinstalled, including alarm, timer, stopwatch, music controls, camera shutter, sleep monitoring and sports app. The device will display calendar and weather, as well as notifications from the phone.
Finally, the Petra should be available in a variety of colors, including teal/lime, black/blue gray, and the package should also contain a footpad that monitors walking.
HTC is yet to confirm its first smartwatch device. though the company did say last year that it wanted to launch a wearable device by the end of 2014, but that it was simply not ready.
