Android Wear 2.0 Smartwatches to Launch Next Year, Google Reveals

Google is launching new flagship smartwatches early next year, Android Wear product manager Jeff Chang told The Verge.

The devices will be the first to ship with Android Wear 2.0, Google’s upcoming OS for wearables, which will also be upgradeable on many first-gen watches, including the Moto 360 Gen 2, the LG Watch Urbane, the Nixon Mission, the Fossil Q Founder, and the Asus ZenWatch 3.

Android Wear 2.0 promises standalone apps, support for Android Pay, and support for Google Assistant.

Although data shows a rapidly cooling wearables market, Chang says Google remains “quite optimistic” about the future of smartwatches.

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