If all the comments attributed to ASUS CEO Jerry Shen are legitimate, it might well be that he’s having a bit of fun teasing us about the launch of the successor to the ASUS ZenWatch. Shen said early this year that a second generation ZenWatch would launch sometime in Q3. Later, on a visit to India to launch the ASUS ZenFone 2, Shen said that the launch would not happen until 2016. Shen has now reportedly told reporters in Taipei that the watch will in fact launch in early Q3 after all and that the timetable “remains unchanged.”
Shen added that the new ASUS ZenWatch will be showcased at Computex Taiwan which takes place from June 2nd to June 6th. Sales will follow in early Q3 (as early as July?).
Like the original, the new ZenWatch will be powered by Android Wear. ASUS was looking to achieve a battery life of about seven days but has come up short. The new smartwatch will and will instead offer battery life of less than four days on a single charge.
ASUS expects to sell less than a million smartwatches this year. With Android Wear having a slow start in 2014 with only about 720,000 units shipping, ASUS appears to have tempered expectations for its wearables. It is also hedging its bets by offering wearables that don’t use Android Wear such as the ASUS VivoWatch.
The report suggesting a delay to 2016 has now been described as a “misunderstanding” according to Focus Taiwan.
As for the original ASUS ZenWatch, it has yet to launch in Canada but is available in the U.S.
Source : Focus Taiwan