A future ASUS smartwatch won't use Android Wear

A couple of weeks ago, Jonney Shih, chairman of Asus, began talking about the company’s plans for future smartwatches. Longer battery life was one of the key improvements that the company wants to make, but ASUS stated that it may need to leave Android Wear behind to accomplish this. Speaking this Friday, ASUS CEO Jerry Shen reaffirmed that the company will be ditching Android Wear for at least one upcoming smartwatch, in order to achieve longer battery life.

No exact hardware details were given out about the new smartwatch, but previously Shih had suggested that ASUS was targeting battery life that would last seven days. Shen also let slip that the non-Android Wear smartwatch may be powered by a new MediaTek SoC, which is said to still be under-development.

“We will continue to work with Google on Android Wear, and we will have another (smartwatch) that is not based on Android Wear and features a longer battery life,” – ASUS CEO Jerry Shen

Despite the talk of an Android Wear alternative, ASUS stated that its second-generation ZenWatch will still make use of Google’s wearable platform.

Instead of abandoning Android Wear completely, the company appears to be planning a separate smartwatch line that will offer a longer battery life at the expense of some of Google’s platform features. Previously, ASUS also announced that is has two lower cost “wristband-like” devices in the pipeline, which will focus on the health and fitness market.