Introducing The TAG Heuer Connected, The First Swiss Luxury Smartwatch

Today in New York City, TAG Heuer CEO Jean-Claude Biver officially announced the Connected Watch, the brand’s first smartwatch and the first luxury device of its kind to be released by the Swiss watch industry. On the surface, the newly announced TAG Heuer Connected looks remarkably similar to the analog Carrera, but most of the similarities end there.

Unlike the brand’s mechanical timepieces, The TAG Heuer Connected runs on Google’s Android Wear operating system, allowing the device to connect and interact with android smartphones. But despite bearing similar functionality to Android Wear devices and the Apple Watch, the Connected still carries the pedigree of a true Swiss luxury timepiece from TAG Heuer.

The 46mm Connected retails for $1,500 and is crafted out of grade 2 titanium. The piece also features a titanium deployment clasp and comes stock with a black rubber strap that can be replaced with six different colors. In creating the Connected, TAG worked to blur the lines between luxury watches and tech wearables, creating a smartwatch that doesn’t resemble a smartwatch. ” The final result looks phenomenal,” said Jean-Claude Biver in a recent interview with Haute Time. “It is a watch that, from a distance, you would not notice that it is a connected watch. It looks 100 % like the TAG Heuer Carrera Heuer 01, except that the material is not steel. Up until now, all the connected watches from Garmin to Apple, they look OK, but somehow, when you see them, they look like connected watches. They don’t look like actual watches. We are going the other way, and we are the only ones doing that.”

TAG Heuer has created three watch faces for the Connected that are inspired by the brand’s analog designs: a chronograph, a three hand dial and a GMT. The watch faces also have an easy-to-use chronograph feature that works by tapping the screen.

As a way of connecting the new smartwatch with TAG Heuer’s mechanical offerings, owners of the TAG Heuer Connected can trade in their watch and receive a mechanical Tag Heuer Carrera for an additional $1,500 at the end of their two-year plan.

The TAG Heuer Connected will be made available to purchase today at TAG stores in the U.S. and online.

Full Specs :

– 46.2 mm in diameter
– 12.8 mm thick
– case, back, and lugs made of grade-2 titanium
– black rubber strap, with additional straps available in red, blue, white, and orange
– 1.5 in. transflective LTPS LCD display
– 360 x 360, 24-bit display
– 240 ppi, 200 nits
– 1 GB main memory, 4 GB storage
– Dual core processor, rate at 1.6 GHz (normal operation speed = 500 mHz)
– 410 mAh battery; 25 hours of battery life
– $1,500

For more information, please visit the official TAG Heuer website. Follow Haute Time on Instagram to catch all of the new releases as they happen.