Tag Heuer has teamed up with Google and Intel to launch the Connected Watch, its first Android Wear timepiece. The Connected isn’t just any average Android Wear watch, however. It’s a $1,500 luxury timepiece clad in titanium and bearing more than a passing resemblance to Tag Heuer’s analog watches.
Tag Heuer has so much faith in this pig of a watch that it includes a special trade-in program where you can replace the Connected Watch with a real watch down the line.
Confusing messaging there.
Luxury watches are a fashion item. Android Wear watches have not been.
So with this you get a Fashionable Wear watch, while its specs are good, then have the option of trading for just the fashion item when the internals aren’t any good any more ( two years at most).
Its absurdly expensive, and so is the upgrade, because they have to be in order to be luxury items.
A luxury watch is expected to last for decades. A “smart watch” will feel outdated within months and the battery will be worn out in a couple of years.
First world problems…
If they’re longevity is so highly prized, why would anyone buy another one? I really don’t understand the audience for luxury goods. Are they continuously selling watches to new customers?
This smart watch market is an *opportunity* to get more repeat business and faster upgrade cycles.
Many collectors have dozens of watches. Most of them sit in drawers gathering dust.
Ok, what’s the difference here? The Android wear one will sit in a drawer just as well.
Technical support? Just in case it breaks?
I don’t think we’re meant to understand the audience of luxury goods.
But the upgrade is to a REAL watch, NOT a smartwatch. You return the smartwatch, and get a real watch. Isn’t that odd?
Pretty funny yeah. “Here’s our awesome new watch! If you want to upgrade from our crappy new smartwatch to our normal watches that’ll be another $1500”
sounds like that they have been taking lessons from Apple wrt the upgrade pricing…
Nope. Remember, this isn’t targeted at the geek crowd going nuts over the latest Apple shiny thing. This is targeted at conservatives who currently wear – or aspire to wear – a traditional Tag Heuer watch.
The message here is that they have faith in this new and unconventional product, such that if you don’t like it, you’ll get one of their prestigious traditional products instead. They clearly don’t expect this to be needed.
Paying 1500 for any watch is odd. If you accept that it’s not odd, well anything goes at that point.
We are talking about miniature purely mechanical devices with a *total* functional accuracy around 10 ppm (1 second/day) with some parts made of precious materials (rubis – for its durability and friction coefficient with metal -, gold – as much because of its density than for luxury -), with a finishing impossible to do with machines, and assembled by hand.
http://ninanet.net/watches/others08/Mediums/mdufour.html
Who needs that level of accuracy in a wristwatch? Bill’s point still holds.
Wow, that’s awesome. I really need that kind of accuracy in my every day life. It’s also really practical to have a watch that will outlive you.
Albeit a 10ppm is awesome for a mechanical watch, you should know that is a pretty standard accuracy for any cheap quartz watch from a decent brand. The kind of accuracy that you can expect to get from any 40 bucks digital watch. A cheap Casio G-Shock has a rated accuracy between 12s to 15s per month.
People who buys mechanical watches do it by the extravagance of owning a overly complex device that can have some pretty exquisite faces, not really by his accuracy.
I’m willing to bet there was an even greater engineering effort in creating a smart watch.In addition to the electrical engineering, all of the software wasn’t written in a day.
But again, if you think $1500 is a fair price for a watch, I’m not sure we can reason with each other.
And yet no matter how intricate or gold plated your horse and carriage, it’s still a horse and carriage.
Complete and utter bollocks.
An accurate and reliable mechanical movement (eg ETA Sistem51) can be manufactured on a fully automated production line for a couple of bucks.
The basic watch mechanism hasn’t changed significantly since the 1840s. There haven’t been any major improvements since the 1930s.
The best mechanical watches are accurate to roughly +/- 5s per day. This far worse than a $5 LCD which is accurate to +/- 20s per month.
The ruby bearings are synthetic and only cost 2 cents each. The gold is merely a few cents worth of sub-micron plating on a few parts.
The vast majority of luxury watches (Rolex, Omega, Panerai, TAG Heuer etc) are mass produced on semi-automated production lines. The have little or no hand finishing.
Edited 2015-11-12 05:18 UTC
I meant 1740s (back when when Ben Franklin was a young man).
Why is this a pig of a smart watch? At first glance, it looks alright to me.
If you are Tag, pricing is an important signal. You cannot afford to release a commodity priced product. So, $1500 makes sense. You then need to find a way to make it worth that. Not sure if they have but saying it is absurdly price is probably more a reflection of the lack of product management knowledge of the person making the comment then it is on the competence of Tag to properly set prices.
That said, the kind of customer that would be attracted to the Tag brand may be reluctant to shell out $1500 for a smart watch, especially a first effort. The trade-in program is a sensible way of removing that objection. A traditional Tag watch is an expensive item for many reasons (including things like gemstones and other component costs) so paying more for the mechanical watch at trade-in would also make sense to most Tag buyers I would think.
I am wearing a watch (not a Tag) that cost me $4,000 over 10 years ago (mechanical). I work closely with a gentleman that has an $18,000 Rolex. These purchases may not make sense to some. No doubt many of the people that would criticize my choice are spending what I would consider ridiculous amounts of money on something else. I have never been unhappy with my purchase. It has served me well both in the sense that it has never failed me (even when bashed on rocks or submerged in the ocean on dives or in rivers in the middle of multi-week treks) and in the sense that I know it has helped powerful people around me view me in a more positive light. It has been a tremendously productive use of money.
Bravo.