The arrival of all-singing, all-dancing smartwatches hasn’t been too kind on traditional timepiece makers like Casio.
Marauding tech giants like Google and Apple have encroached upon their territory, blasting them a with a collective “you’re doing it wrong.” That’s despite most companies launching devices of questionable usefulness, with abysmal battery life.
Well Casio, according to a Wall Street Journal report, has had enough and plans to launch a smartwatch of its own early next year.
The Japanese company plans to launch the wearable in its homeland and the United States by March 2016 with a price tag similar to the basic Apple Watch offerings.
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Casio, now under new leadership, feels its ready to make a real run at the tech big guns aiming to negate the need for a regular old digital watch.
“At times we just showed off with quirky features and then pulled those products when they didn’t sell well,” new company CEO Kazuhiro Kashio told the Journal.
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Of course Casio is no stranger to launching watches capable of more than measuring time. The firm’s calculator watch is a retro favourite
you’ll probably see adorning the wrists of hipsters from time to
time.
The company’s fitness-focussed G-Watch GBA-400, a semi-smartwatch with Bluetooth connectivity and iOS and Android music playback, has also earned favourable reviews.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.