Remember the MOTOACTV? Yeah, Motorola’s fitness-tracking, music-playing, wrist wearable from 2011, that one. Back before “smartwatches” were really a thing, Motorola and a few other companies were experimenting around with the concept of devices you could wear on your body, mostly for fitness tracking. And so, Motorola released the Android-powered MOTOACTV, and it was… interesting.
Was there to be a follow-up? If a report by Android Police is any indication, yes. They describe it as a prototype “Google Watch”, though to be honest, looking at it we’re not so sure that’s accurate.
For one, Google very deliberately kept a distance between themselves and Motorola from the moment they purchased the handset maker, and will be even more so once the sale to of Motorola to Lenovo goes through. Motorola hasn’t produced any Nexus devices since they were acquired — that’s been LG for both the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5, ASUS for the Nexus 7, and Samsung for the Nexus 10. Why would Motorola then be tasked with designing a Google smartwatch with Motorola branding on it?
More likely this is a prototype follow-up to the MOTOACTV. The control layout very closely mimics that of the original MOTOACTV and the design overall screams “fitness watch” to us. Hell, even the one image a settings screen looks precisely like the MOTOACTV interface.
But maybe Google should be making a Nexus smartwatch to show the likes of Samsung and Pebble how they’d do it. Motorola’s confirmed that they too are working on new wearble devices, so let us know in the comments what you think — maybe a new MOTOACTV is in the cards…
Source: Android Police