After years of sitting on the sidelines of the high-end wearable market, the company that once helped shape the category looks like it’s gearing up for a comeback. Fresh renders shared by The Mac Observer on July 31 show a device internally called the Moto Watch Ultra, and it’s clearly being positioned as a potential rival to Samsung’s Galaxy Watch Ultra 2.

Motorola’s smartwatch story started more than a decade ago. In September 2014 the original Moto 360 showed up as one of the first widely available Android Wear watches. Its clean circular design got a lot of love and helped make the round smartwatch form factor popular at a time when most rivals were still stuck with square or rectangular faces. More models followed, but as Apple, Samsung, and Google doubled down on premium wearables, Motorola slowly drifted away from the flagship end of the market.

These new leaked images suggest that quieter period might be coming to an end. The Moto Watch Ultra is shown with a solid 46 mm stainless steel case, a circular display framed by a bezel with digital indices, a big rotating crown, and an extra physical side button.

Markings on the back hint at some serious flagship features. It appears to have built-in GPS and LTE, plus IP68 dust and water resistance and a 5 ATM rating (good for up to 50 metres). A large optical sensor array takes up a good chunk of the rear cover, pointing to solid health and fitness tracking. There’s also a four-pin magnetic charging port, which suggests Motorola will go with its own proprietary dock instead of regular wireless charging.

No official specs, software details, battery life numbers, pricing, or launch date have been confirmed yet. Still, the hardware cues make it pretty clear the company wants this one to play at the top of the market rather than just fill a mid-range slot.

If the finished product lives up to the ambition in these early images, Motorola could once again become a real contender in the flagship smartwatch space it helped kick off more than ten years ago.

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(Source: The Mac Observer)

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