NEW YORK — Watch out, Apple: Swiss company Tag Heuer is developing its own smartwatch with tech rivals Google and Intel.
Thursday’s announcement comes a month before Apple starts selling its smartwatch.
Tag Heuer’s version is expected to be ready at the end of the year. The companies did not say what it will look like or how much it will cost, but watches from the luxury timepiece maker typically cost at least $1,000.
The Apple Watch will start at $350 when it goes on sale April 24, but ones made with 18-karat gold begin at $10,000.
The Tag Heuer watch won’t be the only fashionable smartwatch competing with Apple. Clothing maker Guess worked with a startup, Martian Watches, to create a line of fashionable smartwatches modeled on Rigor, a traditional watch line from Guess.
The Tag Heuer smartwatch will use technology from Intel, whose Basis subsidiary already makes a fitness tracker called Peak. It will run Google’s Android Wear system, which already is used in smartwatches by Motorola, Sony, LG and others.
Like most smartwatches, Tag Heuer’s version will require that a wearer keep a smartphone nearby for all the watch’s functions to work.
