Your next smartwatch could be faster, more energy efficient and with a week-long battery life, thanks to Google’s latest acquisition.
Google has purchased a Finnish company called KoruLab, which makes user interfaces for smartwatches and other low-power devices, like wearables and Internet-of-Things (IoT) products.
The takeover will see KoruLab’s 30 employees head over to Google, where they are expected to join the search giant’s Wear OS team producing smartwatch software. KoruLab’s website has effectively been shut down, stating: “We are making changes. Stay tuned.”
Before that happened, the company said how its Koru user interface consumed just 129kB of RAM and was able to be in sleep mode for 98 percent of the time, while still updating the smartwatch’s time display every second. The company also said how the Koru system can boot up from switch off in 500 milliseconds, and that a week of smartwatch battery life is possible.
All of this is great news for smartwatch fans, and especially those invested into Google’s WearOS system, which is used by recent Samsung smartwatches, including the Galaxy Watch 5 and Pixel Watch.
SamMobile reports how Antti Järvinen of Google Finland said how the takeover “strengthens Google’s commitment to Finland and takes our Wear OS platform forward with the help of Koru’s unique low-power user interface expertise.”
Although Google hasn’t elaborated on its plans just yet, it’s highly likely that the purchase of KoruLab is part of a drive to improve the energy efficiency of Wear OS, and therefore boost the battery life of any smartwatch running it. This could include future models of Samsung Galaxy Watch, as well as Google’s own Pixel Watch.
As is often the case with Finnish startups, KoruLab founder Christian Lindholm previously worked at Nokia, and its chairman Anssi Vanjoki reportedly had a long-term influence on Nokia’s board of directors. Vanjoki held the positions of executive vice chairman and general manager at Nokia between 1990 and 2010, according to his LinkedIn profile.
