According to new leaked images, Meta is working on another smartwatch to support its metaverse ambitions.
Leaker Kuba Wojciechowski has shown off a series of images, that purports to be a new reimagined Meta smartwatch.
The leak comes from unnamed sources, so there are huge red flags over the authenticity. But there’s a lot of information here.
The Meta smartwatch v2, as this seems to be, retains the ethos of the original, with a detachable design and, of course, a camera housed in the body.
The leak alleges that it will run a Qualcomm SoC and run Android (but not Wear OS). There are no details about whether this will be Qualcomm’s new W5 platform, or something else.
Back in November 2022 we reported on the cancellation of the Meta smartwatch project. But a nugget of information at the time may provide a clue.
The smartwatch that was shelved at the time was codenamed 'Milan' - and was set to release in spring 2023 for $349.
But The Verge reported that there were two other smartwatch projects in the development's early and middle stages. So this new project could be one of those two other devices.
The leak also alleges that Meta wants users to “get used to the form factor, which is supposed to eventually be used for other Metaverse-related devices.”
Whether this would be as a controller or a second screen for use in the metaverse, is anyone's guess.
But given Meta’s previous in experimenting and shelving smartwatch plans – we’re not going to dedicate too much mental bandwidth to this quite yet.
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James is the co-founder of Wareable, and he has been a technology journalist for 15 years.
He started his career at Future Publishing, James became the features editor of T3 Magazine and T3.com and was a regular contributor to TechRadar – before leaving Future Publishing to found Wareable in 2014.
James has been at the helm of Wareable since 2014 and has become one of the leading experts in wearable technologies globally. He has reviewed, tested, and covered pretty much every wearable on the market, and is passionate about the evolving industry, and wearables helping people achieve healthier and happier lives.