LAS VEGAS—The first of "multiple" health-related wearable devices from HTC and Under Armour is coming within the next few months, Under Armour's senior vice president Robin Thurston said at CES Tuesday.
HTC's transition from a pure smartphone maker will accelerate dramatically in 2015, the company's executive director of global marketing, Jeff Gattis, said. By the end of the year, HTC will have imaging products (like its current Re handheld camera, shown at left), multiple health and fitness wearables, "connected entertainment," and home products, Gattis said.
"We will have products in all four of these categories in 2015, plus smartphones and tablets," he said.
Among other things, the wearables may have social features, Thurston said—for instance, letting you track and compare your fitness progress against your friends.
HTC and Under Armour have been developing the products in tandem for 4 to 6 months, with about 30 people in each company involved in development, Gattis said.
HTC Home
But even if you're a couch potato, you're likely to encounter more HTC non-phone devices in 2015.
In the home, "there's a problem with the interaction model between connected things," Gattis said. "You see a lot of app-based models, individual apps and so far...our goal overall is simplification for consumers. We're not trying to be the OS of the home, but there are opportunities there to simplify," he said.
HTC's connected-home products will be designed to work in a home with several other devices from various manufacturers. What about Apple's HomeKit? Gattis didn't want to be nailed down there, but said "we think there will be some more open platforms, and we can have products that add value without making a one-way bet on a particular platform."
HTC's home and entertainment products are likely to be premium quality at a premium price. "In most of these categories you'd see us skew toward the higher end," Gattis said. "Our general goal is to do the best product in a specific category, which may mean playing at the higher end of the market and working down from there."
What About the Phones?
CES hasn't seen much phone news, and if you listened to AT&T's keynote, you might think smartphones aren't that interesting any more. "It seems we're in a little bit of a stagnant period," Gattis said.
That said, smartphones will still remain the core of HTC's business "in the short run," he said. And eventually, the phone market may come around to being exciting again, he said. After all, it's not like phones are going away; it's a "maturing market," but that means everybody has one.
"In my experience these things tend to go in peaks and valleys," he said.