Watchmaker Swatch plans to launch multiple smartwatches in future

Swatch is taking a relatively cautious approach to the smartwatch market, in an effort to avoid directly competing against the Apple Watch, Motorola Moto 360, and other smartwatches.

Citing the need for daily recharges as a major drawback of the smartwatch space, Hayek suggested that Swatch will look at producing smarter, not overly complicated, cluttered wearables.

Hayek told the paper that Swatch would launch Touch Zero Two at 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro.

Having moved away from smartwatches in the 00s, Swatch is approaching the category with a watch-first strategy, according to Hayek Jr, who said the company’s watches would start at 150 Swiss francs (£101) and would be water resistant, similar to its current Swatches.

He also said it was a strategic decision by the Swiss watchmaker to avoid creating its own smartwatch, highlighting the fact that Apple’s gadget needs to be charged once a day as one of the reasons why.

Not that you should expect Swatch to directly challenge the Apple Watch or Android Wear.

The current Touch Zero One isn’t hugely smart in that it won’t connect to your phone and let you do amazingly futuristic Nathan Barley-type things involving emails and subdomains, instead functioning mostly as an activity tracker with onboard sensors to monitor specific sports.

This next watch will come with NFC technology for mobile payments – a decidedly smartwatch-like feature.

The users are more likely to see simple, focused devices that just happen to do more than tell the time.