most exactly one year ago, TAG Heuer CEO Stephane nder spent an hour on the phone with me, dissing smartwatches. He was dismissive. He sounded bothered. He said the smartwatches available at the time looked like “cheap wrist computers.”

He also brushed away talk of TAG Heuer jumping into the smartwatch fray anytime soon.

Image: TAG Heuer

“I don’t see us taking a big risk,” nder told me, “unless we find a way to make luxury watches looking like real luxury watches that provide very easy-to-use, smart information.”

That was h 2014, within eight months he would leave the company. rhaps now we know why. Yesterday, TAG Heuer announced that it’s working with Intel on a smartwatch that will be released by the end of the year.

So what explains TAG Heuer’s dramatic about-face, perhaps even nder’s exit? Is the Swiss powerhouse so spooked by the Apple tch, it’s willing to abon its design stards? Or have TAG Heuer friends actually led on the perfect combination of analog digital features?

Disclosure: I’m something of a TAG Heuer fanboy. I’ve been wearing an entry-level Formula 1 for about 10 years. But I also think is making very smart choices with its Android ar vision, I have ideas on how to merge TAG Heuer ar in a way that strengthens ’s platform without sacrificing the craftsmanship of analog timepieces.

A new Carrera

Details about the TAG Heuer project are scant. know the watch will integrate Android ar, but we don’t know how. cket-lint says “rumors suggest” the watch will be modeled after the TAG Heuer Carrera model. Meanwhile, TAG Heuer top boss an-Claude Biver told Reuters, “people will have the impression that they are wearing a normal watch,” has gone on record saying the timepiece will have a Swiss-made dial.

A dial, huh? That doesn’t sound like a flat digital watchface to me. So I’m hoping that when the watch is released, we’ll see the very first Android ar device to merge a full-fledged analog watchface—moving hs all—with ’s notification cards.

Crescent display, improved battery life

You can see my vision for the ar Carrera in the illustration below. There’s really not that much to it—but that’s exactly the point. The watch is essentially a br-correct Carrera with an analog movement polished hs inside a stainless steel case. But the lower third of the face plays host to a multi-function Android ar complication.

My ar window is an odd shape, a semi-circle. But at least one display expert tells me it can be done.

DisplayMate president Raymond Soneira says an OD display would be perfect for this application. “ODs are the ideal display for smartwatches because they’re thin, don’t need a backlight, off pixels don’t use any power… th the same OD technology architecture as the display in the tch R, I’m sure that the crescent shape, or almost any shape display, could be produced.”

Soneira makes an important point about power consumption, but what if we could push battery life past the 18 hours promised by the Apple tch? ll, for starters, my little crescent has fewer than half the pixels of typical smartwatches. So you’ll find battery-life savings right there.

But what if TAG Heuer eliminated a color display option entirely, went with a low-power monochrome D? ly, I don’t think Android ar needs to be in color. And a stark black–white display would much better confirm TAG Heuer’s design statement.

Reduced features, increased simplicity

Reduced screen real estate would have an impact on Android ar usability. So not only would TAG Heuer have to make this all work within Android ar’s UI rules (or, more disruptively, amend those rules), they would also be wise to restrict what actually appears on the watch. I’ll always be your strongest advocate for smartwatch simplicity—I told Apple as much—so why not kick some superfluous features off the Android ar plate as well?

Ditch the Android ar heart rate monitor. Ditch navigation. can even ditch step counting. Focus instead on simple notifications, a few key apps, text messaging. I’ve used ’s Roboto font for messaging in my illustration, but I’d like the watch even more if it used TAG Heuer’s house font, Gill Sans. Indeed, this analog-digital merger will really only sing if the digital side of the watch quiets down.

I know I’m asking for a lot of changes—a lot of changes for just a single Android ar partner. But what if TAG Heuer is ’s most important Android ar partner, this new smartwatch project is just the first of many Swiss-made ar watches?

TAG Heuer

’ll see. If I had to bet my own money, I’d hazard that when TAG Heuer’s smartwatch finally rolls around, we’ll see a dazzling TAG Heuer case an assortment of sumptuous bs bracelets, but the display will be a full-circle OD. The digital watchface collection may recall every single face from the Carrera’s storied history, from 1963 to the present. But it will still, essentially, be an Android ar watch.

None of that would square with what nder shared with me a year ago. rfectly nailing why we love luxury timepieces so much, nder spoke passionately about their meticulous craftsmanship—“like you can feel the h of people in it.”

It’s a powerful argument for analog movements somewhere in a smartwatch, I hope TAG Heuer isn’t ready to give up on them yet.