At first the luxury watch market pretended it wasn’t happening, and then, once Apple’s smart watch really took off, the high end market simply turned their noses up at it.
Now however, its a market that has really evolved and is obviously here to stay, so the watch world really have to step up and embrace it.
First Montblanc Summit ($890) from 2017 has certainly helped to get buyers acquainted with more expensive and prestigious smartwatches.
Then we saw Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon, a 42-mm Android Wear-powered smartwatch that starts at $2,450.
TAG Heuer Connected Full Diamond -with 589 diamonds -was released as a bit of a one shot in January 2017.
So the luxury world is more than ready for its supply of diamond and stylish high end smart watches. But carefully done; after all Apple's failed five-fire 18k gold watch did not appeal to the wealthy market - they like something a little more exclusive, highbrow and not available to the average market.
When announced the Hublot Big Bang Referee 2018 World Cup Russia was seen as a bit of a marketing gag, but now everyone is realising its whole lot smarter than they thought. First it enables Hublot, and its parent company LVMH, to create and own a new market category, piloting ideas and trials through watches such as this.
The Big Bang Referee 2018 World Cup Russia™ Connected Watch is compatible with all telephones using Android 4.4 and above, or iOS 9 and above, and can be easily charged with a charging pad. Hublot offers a choice of 32 dials inspired by the flags of the participating football countries, and two neutral dials (available as an analog or digital design). They have Hublot’s patented interchangeable “One Click” strap system, meaning the watch can easily be matched with different straps (the watch comes with a cuff strap in sponge, a black-lined natural rubber strap, and several straps with flags will also be available to show support for a team). Live match information is displayed, and the watch will even vibrate when a goal is scored. All a bit too ‘world cup’ only you might think, but combined with the 13.9-mm-thick titanium case that offers a water-resistance of 50 meters, the touchscreen measuring 35.4 mm in diameter (400 x 400 pixels, 287 ppi) The watch is equipped with a dual-core processor, 512 MB of RAM, accelerometer, gyroscope, NFC, tilt detector, microphone, GPS, and haptic motor and provides feedback through vibration.
The Battery is expected to last up to a one day on a single charge, with charging expected to take about two hours.Suddenly we can see its going to appeal to an awful lot of people, and being able to morph into less gimmicky marketing designs. That, with the ability to keep on evolving, and keep on growing in technological advances, show us the future of our luxury watch market may well indeed be a lot more smart watch based than we thought.