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- Sources told The Verge Facebook has spent $1 billion on a smartwatch since 2019.
- The product will have two cameras that can detach from the wrist to take photos and videos, the report said.
- Such a product would put Facebook head-to-head with Apple, which dominates the smartwatch market.
- See more stories on Insider's business page.
Facebook is planning on rolling out its first-ever smartwatch in summer 2022, according to a Wednesday report from The Verge's Alex Heath.
The Information reported in February that Facebook was working on such an item, but Wednesday's report sheds more light on the future project.
The watch will have a display and two cameras that can be detached to take photos and video just like you would on a smartphone or GoPro camera. The content could then be shared on Facebook and Instagram, as well as other apps owned by the company. Facebook employees have said the watch could cost around $400, according to The Verge, but that price tag could change.
Sources told the outlet that Facebook has spent about $1 billion to develop the first iteration of the smartwatch since 2019.
Facebook declined to comment.
The product would be another push by the company into the hardware market and would put Facebook head-to-head against Apple in the smartwatch arena, one that the phone maker has been dominating. The company saw healthy sales in 2020, even as people were driven into their homes during the pandemic. In the first quarter of 2020, Apple was the global leader of the smartwatch market, with 55%.
Google's acquisition of Fitbit has also given the company an edge in the watch world.
As the outlet notes, Facebook is in talks with US wireless carriers to equip the watch with LTE connectivity, and the product will come in three colors: white, black, and gold. Later iterations of Facebook's smartwatch could also be able to sync up with the company's future AR smart glasses.
In a tweet Wednesday, Facebook's vice president of augmented and virtual reality Andrew Boswroth shared The Verge report and said the company is investing in "research like EMG, haptics, adaptive interfaces that could come together in a wrist-based form factor." He also said the company will "share more when we're ready."
Facebook and Apple have a rivalry stretching back to at least 2014, when CEO Tim Cook took what seemed like a jab at Facebook's business model.
The two have also sparred over which company protects its users privacy more thoroughly. In a November letter to privacy nonprofits, Apple accused Facebook of hoovering up "as much data as possible" while showing a "disregard for user privacy." Facebook responded by accusing Apple of abusing its market dominance to "self-preference their own data collection."