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TAG Heuer Increasing Weekly Production To Meet Demand For Its Smartwatch (slashgear.com)

Posted by samzenpus on from the have-some-more dept.

An anonymous reader writes: According to reports TAG Heuer is struggling to keep up with the high demand for its $1,500 TAG Heuer Connected Android Wear-powered smartwatch. Since its launch in November the company has sold about 100,000 units and plans to crank up production to 2,000 units per week. According to Slashgear: "Jean-Claude Biver, the CEO of Tag Heuer shares that more smartwatch models from the company will be unveiled at the end 2016 or early 2017 – with options of new materials and diamonds. Being the genius that revived brands such as Blancpain and Hublot, Biver has positioned Tag Heuer as the first luxury watchmaker that enters smartwatch business with a 'big bang' and ready to use large eco-system courtesy of Android Wear."

12 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. timeless pieces by greenfruitsalad · · Score: 4, Insightful

    and this is how we turn decades lasting timepieces into disposable trash.

    1. Re:timeless pieces by Errol+backfiring · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Correct. I learned my lessons the hard way with the Seiko Message Watch. Not nearly as expensive those days, and for modern days probably lasted quite long. But still it turned into something less useful over just a few years (it could still tell the time so it was not completely useless).

      --
      Nae king! Nae laird! Nae yurrupiean pressedent! We willna be fooled again!
    2. Re:timeless pieces by Bearhouse · · Score: 2

      Indeed. Although they could follow the Zeitgeist and offer a "rebuild" function in a few years time.
      The hipsters would love that, imagine "I just 'upgraded' my watch for only $500, darling!'
      Would only cost a few bucks in parts and labour for TAG, so probably profitable.

      I hope this happens - part of the "brand promise" of Swiss watches is the fact that they can be repaired and hence last virtually indefinitely.

  2. Intel Inside... seriously by Gravis+Zero · · Score: 2

    powering the Tag Heuer Connected with an Intel Atom Z34XX processor

    well i guess if you wanna be that dumb son of a bitch that dishes out $1500 for a watch that lasts "all day", you might as well enjoy the energy consumption of x86 on your wrist.

    --
    Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
    1. Re:Intel Inside... seriously by szy · · Score: 4, Funny

      It's a feature! It is a wrist warming device! Make sure you buy another one for your other wrist!

  3. the new Swiss watch crisis by supernova87a · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Funny how things go round and round.

    In the 1970s the Swiss makers found themselves under attack from the new cheaper quartz watches. (wikipedia for "quartz crisis") They could no longer plausibly claim that their handcrafted puffery resulted in more accurate timekeeping. So they had to change their marketing message from "accuracy" to "heirloom timepieces" bullshit (hence why you see messages like, "you don't just buy a Pat** Phi***, you only take care of it for the next generation." etc)

    You would think that they (like religious science-deniers) would just accept that that is their niche, and stay with it. But now they have to catch up with the smart watch too, or risk losing the next generation of watch buyers.

    So let's see how their message of "preserving an heirloom timepiece" stands up against the reality of a battery that lasts for 24 hours, and consumer electronics that get thrown out after 2 years... When the guts of your watch are indistinguishable from a $75 piece of crap, who's going to believe the marketing hype?

    1. Re:the new Swiss watch crisis by jandersen · · Score: 2

      Well, advertising is full of bulshit, we already know that.

      Still, as an engineer, I have a fondness for those little, mechanical thingies. I have several mechanical watches, but I don't wear a watch. Not that they are particularly expensive, but it is a joy to look at those tiny wheels and things and think of the amount of cleverness that goes into making it work so well. Maybe I'm just a hopeless romantic.

    2. Re:the new Swiss watch crisis by Minupla · · Score: 2

      I stopped wearing a watch ~20 years ago due to this fact. Started wearing one again last year because a smart watch reminds me subtly of my next appointment and helps with my tendency to get caught up in things and miss my next meeting. It's also more socially acceptable in my company to look at your watch during a conversation with someone then pull out your phone and if I can see that my boss is ending emails with more and more !'s in the subject line I can excuse myself from the conversation and put out whatever fire has cropped up while I was away form my desk.

      Min

      --
      On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
  4. It's still a bargain by dremon · · Score: 4, Funny

    Comparing it to Apple Watch for $10000.

  5. Re:Sigh, more /. adverts by gnupun · · Score: 2

    It looks like an ugly, bright screen compared to the elegant look a luxury watch. Why are people buyng this?

  6. Re:Santa isn't coming this year by ad454 · · Score: 4, Funny

    The liberals just raised taxes again on his corporation North Pole Inc. and forced him to provide Obamacare for his elves. They also sued him for giving coal to bad children, saying it that every child should be a winner and it was unfair to black kids who grew up in worse situations than whites, so therefore Santa's policy was racial discrimination. The fine was $400,000,000.

    He is no longer able to make a profit and therefore had to declare bankruptcy. Sorry kids. ;(

    Vote for Trump in 2016 if you want Santa to come back. Make America great again!

    What? I thought that Santa Claus is Canadian, based on his legitimate Canadian mailing address:

    SANTA CLAUS
    NORTH POLE, H0H0H0, CANADA
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

    So all of his elves should have be fully covered by universal single payer health care, decades before Obama was elected. And as a Canadian non-profit organisation, his corporate tax rate is zero.

    Besides I have no idea why you are praising Trump, when up north, there is no greater hero than Ted Cruz for renouncing his Canadian citizenship.

    http://trailblazersblog.dallas...
    http://www.dallasnews.com/news...

    If only we can get Justin Bieber to do the same.

  7. A lot of negativity here by DrXym · · Score: 5, Funny
    Don't you realise that these smart watches are hand made? Each CPU is painstakingly built by hand master craftsman one transistor at a time. The CPU is a soldered to a precision circuit board etched in gold and engraved with the individual maker's name. Horologists test the timing functionality of the device, placing miniature weights on quartz crystal to achieve the perfect clock frequency. The screen is painstakingly hand painted one pixel at a time with fine horse hair brushes. The metal case is formed by savants with the power of mind over matter. And finally the strap is hand-stitched and made from the hide of the last white rhino.

    So if you cynically thought Tag Heuer were just shoving some mass produced part from an Intel factory in Malaysia into a chunky metal case and pocketing the enormous markup then think again.