Facebook isn't just a social media platform anymore—it makes significant moves in all sectors of the technology market. The company acquired Oculus VR in 2014, and released the Portal brand of smart displays and videophones in 2018.
Now, Facebook might be making a little smart accessory for your wrist, too.
Facebook Is Reportedly Making a Smartwatch
Almost three weeks ago, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg claimed Apple to be one of Facebook's biggest competitors. So it shouldn't come as too much of a shock that sources via The Information claim that Facebook is creating its own competing product to the Apple Watch.
How timely, considering last February 3, we learned that the Health Technology team at Apple might be making new gadgets. Facebook's team is aiming to have its watch available as soon as next year, which suggests that development is already underway.
The watch will focus primarily on messaging features integrated with Facebook Messenger. It will also have a cellular connection of its own, so you won't need to bring your smartphone around with you to receive (and presumably send) messages. Very useful if say, you wanted to go out for a quick errand without your device.
Since Facebook Messenger and Instagram enabled cross-app communication in September 2020, you could assume that the watch's messaging features will work with Instagram direct messaging as well.
Additionally, WhatsApp will soon share data with Facebook, so it wouldn't be too far a stretch to assume that the green messaging app will also be compatible with the watch.
But in order to compete with the Apple Watch, the Facebook watch would have to have some health-centered features as well. At the time of writing, there doesn't seem to be much information on this—only that it will reportedly include integration with "popular fitness platforms."
Digital Trends speculates that the Facebook watch may also count your steps and monitor your heart rate.
Facebook Delves Deeper Into Hardware Creation
Facebook Portal devices initially sold at a very slow pace, but have since proved to be a worthy competitor to the Google Home Hub and Amazon Echo Show. Will the Facebook smartwatch arrive on the scene in a similar fashion, or completely blow the Apple Watch out of the water? We'll have to wait and see.
Facebook has recently faced a lot of backlash as of late over data and privacy concerns, so you can't help but wonder whether a Facebook watch would actually see commercial success.
