When you think of big tech companies, you might not think of Vivo, but it's a phone manufacturer that could follow Xiaomi, Oppo and Huawei in the next few years and make it big in the west. It seems great-looking smartwatches could also be part of that plan.
Vivo announced in 2019 that it plans to jump into the highly competitive wearables segment with a slew of smartwatches at some point. The silence since then has been broken with the company getting a design patent approved in its home country, courtesy of leaker @_the_tech_guy.
Though the smartwatch design patent was approved in China, the Vivo Watch trademark has appeared on a number of certification databases including the European Union Intellectual Property Office website, hinting that this product will be available globally.
- Check out our Samsung Galaxy Watch review
- These are the best cheap smartwatches
- What do we know about the Apple Watch 6?
Add to that, Vivo's sibling Oppo (they're owned by the same parent company, which also owns OnePlus) has also debuted its Oppo smartwatch in the last few months. So, a Vivo Watch doesn’t look too far from reality now.
Meet the Vivo Watch
The new Vivo smartwatch patent was published at the China Intellectual Property Administration (CNIPA) and this is the only patent that details the yet-unreleased product.
The patent shows a series of images revealing the Vivo smartwatch, and it looks pretty suave. It has a circular dial with buttons on one side and a sporty look to it. It appears there is a heart rate sensor below the dial and the rest of the design is pretty typical of a smartwatch. The crowns are square, though, not the typical circles, which is an interesting change.
#vivo files design patent for their upcoming smart watch. pic.twitter.com/vYVwU5kj5QMay 5, 2020
The patent describes the product as a sports watch, so it could be that there are different versions of the device coming. In terms of appearance, the device looks a lot like the Huawei Watch GT 2 or Honor Magic Watch 2 with a big body and small outer bezel, and those devices look pretty good so Vivo wouldn't go wrong by imitating their design.
If this Vivo watch is a flagship product, we expect the company to fill the watch up with powerful features. That's not certain right now, and we haven't heard anything in terms of features.
The past few months have seen a number of Chinese companies such as Xiaomi and Oppo jump into the smartwatch arena, and it's clear the sector is becoming a more tempting target for companies not traditionally known as wearable manufacturers. Who knows, perhaps the Vivo Watch will make its way onto our list of the best smartwatches at some point.
