Swatch Group president Nick Hayek has confirmed that one of its models will feature fitness tracking functionality next year.
While Hayek confirmed that the Swatch Touch range would include fitness tracking features in 2015, he insisted it would still be a watch, seemingly suggesting that Swatch was happy to leave the smartwatch sector to other manufacturers.
Hayek told Switzerland’s Neue Zuercher Zeitung am Sonntag weekly newspaper: "Beginning in 2015, we will integrate fitness functions into Swatch Touch, it will remain a watch, but will have all today’s usual functions to monitor physical fitness.”
Rather than being late to the party, Swatch launched the one of the very first smartwatches in conjunction with Microsoft ten years ago. The watch was based around Microsoft’s SPOT (Smart Personal Object Technology) project and even featured a standalone data connection using FM radio signals.