Google purchased "smartwatch technology" from Fossil Group for $40 million at the start of this year, which also included part of Fossil's research and development team. The specifics of the deal have remained mostly under wraps, but a new report from Wareable claims that it centered around a hybrid smartwatch design called 'Diana' that Google could use in future products.

According to the report, Misfit was working on a hybrid smartwatch product codenamed 'Diana' when the company was acquired by Fossil in 2015. Multiple variations of the product have been developed, combining physical watch features with digital elements. Some of the designs have screens, while others do not.

While Google could end up using the hybrid smartwatch technology in its own products, the acquisition seemed to be more focused on the engineering team than what the team was working on. Reportedly, Fossil wasn't thrilled with the ongoing expenses required to support its engineering talent, and there had been some internal disagreements between the engineers and Fossil's upper management. The former Misfit team supposedly pitched ideas to use 'marketing data and monthly cloud payments' to increase revenue, which Fossil pushed back on.

Google has a hardware event scheduled for October 15th, so perhaps the first product(s) developed by the former Fossil/Misfit team will be shown off. A Google-made hybrid smartwatch/health tracker could be interesting.

Source: Wearable