Swatch is launching a new watch that you can buy things with – but it’s not a smartwatch.
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Swatch and Visa have teamed up to create the Swatch Bellamy, a “pay-by-the-wrist” watch capable of making wireless payments set to come out spring in 2016. Gradually, the contactless payment watch will be rolled out to other markets, the Swiss watchmaker said in a statement Monday.
Swatch reveals that “Swatch Bellamy, in collaboration with Visa, is scheduled to be initially available in early 2016 in the U.S., Switzerland, and Brazil”.
The Bellamy’s inclusion of NFC payments is relatively rare (the Apple Watch and Samsung’s Gear S2 also have this feature), and the device has the advantage of a long battery life, with Swatch saying users “can expect the usual battery life of a Swatch”.
Swatch signed deals with both Visa Inc. and Visa Europe to enable the tap and pay functionality for the Bellamy in the aforementioned markets. Despite this limited rollout, the Bellamny can be used to make mobile payments globally – anywhere there’s a contactless NFC-based payment system installed, in fact. The watch, which will sell for 90 to 100 Swiss francs, uses near field communication technology which allows devices to exchange data and enables cashless payment. On the other hand, the Apple Watch is rated as having up to 18 hours battery life.
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The Bellamy is named after 19th century American writer Edward Bellamy, who foresaw the arrival of credit cards way back in 1888.
