Facebook smartwatch will be an Instagram-friendly wearable camera – report

WASHINGTON, DC - OCTOBER 23: Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies before the House Financial Services Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill October 23, 2019 in Washington, DC. Zuckerberg testified about Facebook's proposed cryptocurrency Libra, how his company will handle false and misleading information by political leaders during the 2020 campaign and how it handles its users’ data and privacy. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)
Facebook’s rumoured expansion into wearable hardware will be a camera-centric smartwatch designed to aid image and video sharing on the social network, Instagram and beyond.

According to information passed on to The Verge, the company plans a summer 2022 debut for a wearable will feature a detachable display loaded with two cameras that can capture images and video and share them independently.

One camera will sit on the front of the display, which is designed for video calling. For this purpose it can stay on the wrist, the source says. There’ll also be a 1080p camera on the back of the watch, which can manage auto-focus and is more geared for image capture and sharing.

Effectively, the report says, Facebook wants this smartwatch to be used to capture imagery without resorting to the smartphone and it is currently working with accessory makers in order to create items more suited to capturing video, like the ability to attach it to a backpack. The strap itself will be stainless steel, the sources said.

Facebook also wants this device to be phone-free with its own LTE connectivity, enabling people to post across the suite of apps without interacting with an iPhone or Google Phone, those familiar with the matter revealed.

The report says the device will also be fitness-focused, with a built-in heart-rate monitor, which could potentially play into its ambitions in other sectors like the Oculus VR and mixed-reality headsets. Today’s report says the device could also be used as an input device for those devices, due to the motion sensors within.

According to the report, Facebook may not decide to proceed with the smartwatch, but is currently planning for the $400 (about £285) device to arrive about a year from now with ideas of crashing the best smartwatch party.

Privacy advocates would likely have something to say about a Facebook smartwatch with independent connectivity, presumably on-board GPS, a heart-rate monitor and, perhaps even, mobile payment options hitting the market.
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