Photo via Flickr/DLD Conference
Photo via Flickr/DLD Conference/Jean-Claude Biver

The wearable tech wars are heating up, and this match-off is one we can’t wait to see. Swiss luxury watchmaker TAG Heuer — a company known for its chief Jean-Claude Biver bashing existing smartwatch designs — announced it was getting into the smartwatch game, too.

According to Bloomberg, the watchmaker is ready to “enter uncharted territory this year with plans for a smartwatch that will be its only timepiece developed outside Switzerland.” The company plans to work with Silicon Valley to produce the watch, as even Biver admits that the Swiss don’t have access to the technology necessary to manufacture the watches.

For those who like the idea of a smartwatch but not its looks, this might be the match they’re seeking. Biver is known for his outspoken views on how, um, lacking he finds smartwatch designs so far. The TAG Heuer piece will have the insides of a smartwatch, but “the watch case, the dial, the design, the idea, the crown, that part of the watch will, of course, be Swiss,” Biver said.

Biver also told Bloomberg that TAG Heuer sees the smartwatch as serious competition for watches priced under $2,000. And that is some market share they don’t want to let go. Analysts at Citigroup are forecasting that the smartwatch market will reach $10 billion by 2018, up from $1.8 billion in 2014. Biver himself admitted that he’ll likely wear an Apple Smartwatch, calling it a “fantastic product, an incredible achievement.”

It’s a different tune than the one he was singing last fall. He told a German daily Die Welt, via Business Insider: “This watch has no sex appeal. It’s too feminine and looks too much like the smartwatches already on the market…To be totally honest, it looks like it was designed by a student in their first trimester.”

We can’t wait to see how TAG’s version turns out.

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