And Finally Artist News Brands & Merch

Will.i.am preparing to launch a smartwatch

By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 8 April 2014

Will.i.am has designed a new thing. Having failed to get his massive iPhone camera attachment off the ground, the musician is now preparing to launch a smartwatch.

Unlike other such devices, Will.i.am’s does not require a connection to a mobile phone, it containing such a thing within its shiny walls, as he explained to Alan Carr on his ‘Chatty Man’ show last week: “I don’t carry my phone anymore. I just use this [smartwatch] as my phone. There’s a lot of these smartwatches that need a phone, mine doesn’t need a phone. This is the phone”.

It doesn’t need a phone, you see? It is a phone. I don’t know if that was made clear. It is a phone.

Will added: “I started the company myself. I funded it, I used my own money to develop it. It’s a phone, it has all my music in it. If I’m working out I could work out with it without wires, with Bluetooth headphones. It’s got Twitter, Instagram, Facebook”.

So it’s like a smartphone, but with a tiny screen. Just like you wanted. No details have been formally announced yet, but in a tweet to Carr – sent via a Blackberry phone, despite Will’s claims not to use such a thing anymore – he stated that it would launch in July.

Here’s a video of Alan Carr being far more amazed than anyone should have been about a device that does things several devices he already owns can do:

And here’s a video of said device failing to work properly during what was definitely not a set up bit of product placement on ‘The Voice’: