Huawei unveiled its vision for the ICT industry – Open ROADS to a Better Connected World yesterday and they have now officially introduced the first wearable device in the world with 4.5G LTE-M support called Huawei 4.5G SmartBand.
Full details of the device are likely to be revealed at next week’s Mobile World Congress and Huawei is keeping quiet on specifications.
The company also claimed that the new chip will reinforce the ‘cellular Internet of Things’ concept in the near future. Apart from unique connectivity, the Smartband will also feature a heart rate monitor, can track fitness levels and pair with smart thermostats and energy readers.
At the event, Huawei said that its LTE-M chips have been made by Neul, a startup that Huawei acquired last year. The company claims that the chips will make ‘cellular Internet of Things’ a reality in the future. Like most of the wearables available in the market, the 4.5G Smartband will be able to track the wearer’s fitness levels and monitor heart rate, besides pairing with other IoT devices like smart thermostats and energy readers.
“4.5G supports up to 100K per cell connections via LTE-M, 100 times that of 4G,” Huawei stated at the event, adding that “LTE-M also provides better coverage. Receivers require just 1/100th of the signal of existing 2G system, 20dB gain, using low-power terminals.” The 4.5G Smartband is said to deliver up to 1Gbps bandwidth on mobile networks when rolled out.
It’s worth pointing out that Huawei’s 4.5G network won’t be rolling out commercially until next year. The Chinese firm claims that its 4.5G LTE network will be capable of delivering data speeds as high as 1GB/sec.
