On the cusp of Mobile World Congress 2015, Haier -- best known for its home appliances -- has unveiled a new product line of connected watches and even a pet collar.
The watches, aimed at kids and "senior citizens", have been designed to help parents, family and other caregivers keep in contact with the wearer -- as has the pet collar. In fact all three connected devices have broadly the same functions, with a few differences in design here and there.
The Haier Smartwatch for children sports a 0.96-inch OLED screen and a two-day battery life and is waterproof to up to 30m. The watch comes in a variety of fun colours and features a microphone and speaker for making calls and there is a dedicated red SOS button that can be used to send an alert to up to three different numbers in case of an emergency.
It can also be used for tracking, with parents and carers able to use a mobile app to set a geo-fenced "safe zone" and get alerts when the wearer leaves the area. You can also use the app to go back over past location data -- several days of GPS tracking history can be stored.
Finally, there's also what Haier are terming a "baby monitor" mode, which allows you to listen in remotely via the watches microphone.
The senior citizen model has all of the features from the kids watch, but a more adult-looking form factor -- still with the 0.96-inch OLED screen -- and a leather strap than comes in either black or red. Haier are also using the term "remote listening" rather than "baby monitor" and suggests it's for caregivers who might be unable to contact the wearer by phone, for example.
Finally, the connected collar for pets again does all of the above, but does away with the screen. The red SOS button is actually designed so that anyone finding your pet can call you directly from the collar, using the in-built microphone and speaker. Remote listening is possible, but it's not clear if you can speak directly to your pet as you can with some smartcollars we've seen before. Looking at the sizing, it seems like the connected collar is mostly likely made for dogs, with it probably being just a little too chunky for a feline.
Haier hasn't announced availability date or pricing, nor which regions it will be bringing the wearable range too, but we'd anticipate more information from the company as MWC 2015 wraps up.
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