Facebook to launch smartwatch with messaging, fitness features

The American social networking service company Facebook is building an Android-based smartwatch with messaging, health, and fitness features.

According to The Verge, it is unclear whether Facebook intends for the smartwatch to run Google's Wear Os.

Apart from the upcoming smartwatch, Facebook is also working on building its own operating system for hardware devices and future iterations of the wearable may run that software instead.

The smartwatch would join Facebook's Oculus virtual reality headsets and Portal video chat devices as part of the social network's growing hardware ecosystem.

The company is also working on branded Ray-Ban smart glasses expected to come out later this year and a separate augmented reality research initiative known as Project Aria, which is part of the company's broader AR explorations, which it has been working on for some time now.

The social networking company has more than 6,000 employees working on various augmented and virtual reality projects and as part of existing hardware divisions like Oculus and Portal, as well as experimental initiatives under its Facebook Reality Labs division.

The Verge also reported that Facebook took over the neural interface startup CTRL-Labs in 2019.

It has expertise in building wireless input mechanisms, including devices that could transmit electrical signals from the brain to computing devices without the need for traditional touchscreen or physical button inputs.