It looks as though WeChat is testing the waters in China for using their software platform to form the basis of several newly-released wearables in the country. This could be the precursor for WeChat, through their parent company TenCent, taking on more challenges related to health and fitness sharing.
A series of wearables have launched for sale online in China that have WeChat’s API integrated, an event that CNET reports is a precursor to the company attempting to become the main wearable operating system on China.
WeChat is apparently also asking hardware partners to share health info with their software platform, something that could lead to them building a comprehensive suggestion database for workouts and other fitness-related activities based on those platforms.
The logical jump is that TenCent will use that information in a fitness device, or several, to give targeted advice to those looking to get into shape.
If WeChat is hoping to compete in the wearables market, and the evidence suggests that they are on a software level at least, there’s no indication that they will move their ambitions out of China to places where the wearables market is dominated by existing hardware from a range of manufacturers. Still, WeChat may be looking to go from messaging to information sharing in a much larger way than they already do.
Source: CNET