OnePlus has been playing with the idea of producing a smartwatch for years, and a few months ago, it seemed to finally be happening. Even though the plans were reportedly delayed in October after a corporate shake-up, OnePlus CEO Pete Lau has now mentioned the project in an interview.

OnePlus CEO Pete Lau revealed in an interview with Input Mag that a smartwatch is still in the company's plans, but you probably shouldn't expect one to materialize anytime soon. "Wear OS definitely has room to improve," Lau said. "What we're trying to do is work with Google to try to improve the connectivity between the Wear OS ecosystem, Android TV, and Android smartphones to create this ability for better device interoperability across the ecosystems. This has been something looked at very positively from Google's side as well, so this is the direction that we're trying to develop, but we don't have more than we can share on that right now."

OnePlus was testing a smartwatch back in October, but there was never confirmed evidence that it would run Google's Wear OS platform. The plans were reportedly scrapped shortly after co-founder Carl Pei left the company (though the departure might have been unrelated), and images of a possible Cyberpunk-themed watch without Wear OS were leaked last month.

Most technology-focused companies stopped producing Wear OS watches years ago, after it became clear that smartwatches would never take off in the same way smartphones did in the mid-2000s. Sony and Motorola were early adopters of the platform, but both companies only released a few models before ending development on wearables. Samsung and Huawei also produced Google-powered watches at one point, but have both switched to their own platforms. OnePlus backing Wear OS could help the stagnating platform, especially if the company places as much (or more) emphasis on the software experience as Fossil has.

Source: Input Mag