The nascent smartwatch and wearables market already includes a number of operating systems. Alongside better known offerings from Apple, Google and Pebble, a number of companies have also developed their own. Among them are Alcatel and ASUS to name just two. A new player has now jumped into the wearables operating system game. China’s Baidu today unveiled a website to introduce the world to DuWear, its own Android-based operating system for wearables.
DuWear will offer very similar functionality to what its competitors already support. Among these will be the usual notifications and activity tracking. Baidu will also bundle a number of its own services including voice search as well as mapping and mobile payment technologies. For example, it will be possible to say “I’d like to make a payment” to initiate a transaction. An app store will also allow users to download additional apps and watch faces for their watches.
What Baidu is doing is not particularly new. A number of Android forks bundled with services popular in China are already offered on smartphones. With many Google services blocked in China, Baidu is simply taking the same approach for wearables.
The DuWear website indicates that the operating system will be compatible with the LG G Watch, LG G Watch R, Moto 360 and Sony Smartwatch3. A mysterious other device is teased and is believed to be Baidu’s own DuWear Watch expected to launch in June.
Baidu DuWear is expected to be available for download in late April.