The Swatch Group has announced that it is to develop its own operating system for wearables that will compete with Apple's watchOS and Google's Android Wear.
The company, in collaboration with the Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnologyς, (Swiss Center for Electronics and Microtechnology) will focus on the development of wearable devices that will be safe and low power, such as he said Swatch CEO Nick Hayek to journalists.
Battery life is one of the biggest weaknesses of smartwatches so far.
"In Switzerland we have a lot of experience in creating things that are smaller, consume much less energy, are independent and more cost-effective and can be classified as small objects," Hayek said according to the Reuters.
The company will release the operating system through Tissot's brand at the end of 2018, according to Bloomberg.
Traditional clock watchers have seen their profits drop sharply when Apple's SmartWatch was released on the market.
Apple Watch currently accounts for half of all SmartWatch sales, according to Canalys researchers, and has almost 80 percent of total SmartWatch revenue in the 4 quarter of 2016.
Of course, traditional companies are trying to catch up. But the SmartWatch market is expected to grow at a relatively slow pace, according to the Jupiter analyst group, which says it is expected to be available less than 60 million smartwatches annually by 2021.
