Louis Vuitton unveiled its first smartwatch today, making it the next luxury brand to wade into the wearable device industry. The Tambour Horizon runs on Android Wear, and it’s pretty clear from the first glance that it’s part of the Louis Vuitton brand because it fits in with the company’s Tambour watch.
Louis Vuitton launches the Tambour Horizon smartwatch
The original Tambour watch has been around for about 15 years, and it’s the signature watch from Louis Vuitton. In designing the Tambour Horizon, the luxury brand worked with Google and Qualcomm. The smartwatch does all the standard operations smartwatches usually do, like delivering notifications about texts and emails, acting as a pedometer, and offering a variety of apps. However, unlike some other smartwatches, Louis Vuitton’s smartwatch lacks a heart monitor, and it isn’t supposed to be a replacement for a smartphone.
Although the Tambour Horizon runs on Android Wear 2.0, it works with both Android and Apple devices. It has a 42mm case featuring a 1.2-inch AMOLED screen with a 390 x 390 resolution. It features 521 of RAM, 4GB of storage and a Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor. The company claims that the watch has a one-day battery life. Louis Vuitton’s first smartwatch also sports a luxurious price tag, as it starts out at $2,450.
The Tambour Horizon is customizable
The Tambour Horizon is available in three styles, which are Black, Graphite and Monogram. All o them have stainless steel cases and buckles and sapphire glass backs. Louis Vuitton is offering 60 different straps that can be interchanged, of which 30 of the styles were designed for men and the other 30 were designed for women. The watch straps are priced at about $235.
Louis Vuitton also offers watch faces that are customizable, and it has even rolled out some of its own apps, according to Wearable. One of the luxury brand’s apps is called City Guide, and it uses the watch’s features to determine the wearer’s location and then suggest high-end restaurants or shops they might like to visit. Another app is called My Flight, and it’s pretty self-explanatory, as it tracks the wearer’s flight and displays notifications related to it, such as gate changes or delays.
Luxury retailers tackle the smartwatch problem
Louis Vuitton fits firmly in a cache of luxury brands that now have to come to grips with the changes technology is bringing to the space. The Hermes version of the Apple Watch is a prime example of a luxury brand dipping its toe into the technology space, as are the Connected watch from Tag Heuer and the Access smartwatch line, which Michael Kors and Fossil collaborated on. Other fashion brands that recently introduced their own smartwatches include Tommy Hilfiger, Diesel and Hugo Boss.
According to The New York Times, Louis Vuitton management has plans to do much more than just sell a smartwatch. They find most of the available smartwatches to be rather ugly, and the company’s CEO describes aesthetics as “nonnegotiable.” However, that isn’t stopping them from trying to connect all of their products.
Management talked about the internet of things and sees the Tambour Horizon smartwatch as being only the first stage. They also believe the Tambour Horizon can double their watch sales, which currently contribute just a small percentage of the revenues for Louis Vuitton, according to the Times.
