Chinese tech giant Huawei has announced that its smart wearables are now open to third-party apps. The company has created a live proof of concept of a third-party app with a workout app for the Watch GT2 Pro called Fitify.
Read more: Huawei Focuses On Health Care Wearables As It Pushes Into New Growth Areas
In the past, Huawei never allowed its smartwatches to access the third-party application because it affects some of the important aspects of the wearables. However, recently, the company started allowing for third-party apps to be installed on Huawei smartwatches on AppGallery, reports Yash Mishra in Huawei Central.
Following U.S. sanctions, Huawei put more focus on wearables and audio accessories.
The Fitify app has more than 900 exercises and over 200 million complete workouts. These data come from more than 10 million users in 170 countries and 18 languages.
According to the information, the Fitify app integrated five Huawei Mobile Servies (HMS) kits including Account Kit, Push Notification Kit, In-app Kit, Analytics, and Wear Engine.
The app comes in 18 languages – English, Arabic, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Slovak, Spanish, and Turkish.
This a huge jump in strategy for Huawei, as the company is opening its gates for third-party developers, Huawei Watch as well as wearable platforms likely to see a big improvement in the coming future.
“By releasing the Fitify app on Huawei’s wearables, Huawei is signaling its determination to work with developers and brands to accommodate apps in its growing portfolio of wearables. Previously the company’s wearables overseas were typically preloaded with in-house apps, but following the introduction of the Huawei Watch GT2 Pro last September, the company is now open to brands and content providers for third-party app development,” said the company in a press release.
Read more: Huawei’s New Health Lab to Explore Innovation of Sports and Health Technology Via Wearables
“We are already the global market leader for wearables quickly gaining market share for the category across many geographies,” said Derek Yu, Vice President of Huawei CEE & Nordic at Huawei Consumer Business Group. “In Q3 2020, we shipped 10.7 million wrist wearable products globally, growing 88.1% year-on-year to a market share of 19.5%. By making Fitify our debut third-party app for our wearable products we are sending a message to the many other high-quality app developers. Our wearables are becoming incredibly popular, and you can benefit by being part of the Huawei AppGallery and wearables ecosystem.”