Google has acquired smartwatch technology firm Cronologics for an undisclosed amount in plans to boost its Android Wear platform.
Founded in 2014 by former Google employees, Cronologics had been developing a smartwatch OS and a device called the CoWatch.
The CoWatch, which was launched in September this year, is supported with Amazon’s Alexa digital assistant.
It features a 1.2GHz Ingenic M200 processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of storage, which is claimed to be twice as much as what is being offered in other smartwatches.
Similar to Amazon Eco, the intelligent speaker, the CoWatch enabled users to order
pizza or book a cab through voice commands.
It is a home-coming for Cronologics’ team as the members including Lan Rcohe, Leor Stern, and John Lagerling who were once part of Google, working on business development.
The former Cronologics team will reportedly work on Android Wear 2.0, which is expected to be launched early next year.
Google has not shared details of the acquisition. Cronologics said on its website that joining Google will help increase the portfolio of watches powered by Android Wear.
“We see strong alignment with Android Wear’s mission and look forward to working with our new colleagues at Google to continue pushing the frontier of wearable technology and smartwatches with Android Wear 2.0 and beyond,” Cronologics added.
IDC expects total smartwatch shipments to reach 20.1 million units in 2016, which is a total increase of 3.9% from the units shipped in 2015.
Apple’s WatchOS had the highest market share of 52.3% in 2016.
However, Android and Android wear will gain the win for fastest growth and by 2020, will challenge watchOS in the worldwide smartwatch market.
