Poco is a sub-brand under the Xiaomi corporation selling high value-to-performance smartphones at affordable prices. It is most well-known for its Poco F1 in 2018, and Poco F3 series in 2021. Both smartphones featured flagship Snapdragon 845 and 870 chipsets starting from only under 300 Euros.

In 2022, it seems that Poco is planning to make a splash in the industry again, but it’s not smartphones this around, it’s apparently a new smartwatch?

The news comes from leakster, Piyush Bhasarkar on Twitter. The post shares a screenshot of a listing of a smartwatch branded under Poco from the Russian Electronics Certification platform, EEC. 

The listing reveals a few details about the smartwatch. First, the smartwatch will be bearing the model number Poco M2131W1. Next is the manufacturer of the smartwatch. The smartwatch will apparently be manufactured by 70mai Co. Ltd. in Shanghai, China. If the name 70mai sounds familiar, then you’ll be glad to know that 70mai is one of the brands that Xiaomi currently integrates into their Xiaomi IoT(Internet of Things) ecosystem. 

70mai is not actually known for their smartwatches, but you’ve probably heard of their dashcams such as the 70mai Dash Cam 1S, Dash Cam A400 and Dash Cam Pro Plus. In fact, our team at Gizmochina has recently reviewed the company’s latest 70mai Dash Cam Pro Plus, and if you fancy yourself picking one up, it’s currently selling for $63 on Giztop.

As for further specs about the Poco Smartwatch, no mention of specs were within the EEC listing and as of current, this is the first leak regarding Poco’s first entry into the smartwatch market. 

Back in November 2021, one Poco exec did reveal that the brand is expanding into ecosystem products in 2022.  “We always think smartphone plus IoT is a key strategy for us,” Poco Global head Kevin Qiu said. 

This suggests that earbuds, wearables(fitness bands and smartwatches) and power banks could be the first products towards building a Poco IoT ecosystem. After all, an ecosystem for Poco allows for a more seamless experience while also building brand loyalty among its current Poco customer base.

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(Via)

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Poco is easily one of the fastest-growing smartphone ‘sub brands’ around and has seen huge success since its very first device itself that launched back in 2018 – the Poco F1. Fast forward to three years later and the brand has gone independent from Xiaomi and is seeking to expand into other products, starting with ecosystem products.

Poco ecosystem products

In an interview with Android Authority, Poco revealed that it’s expanding into ecosystem products in 2022. This doesn’t come as a surprise though considering almost every smartphone brand now has its own ecosystem of sorts. It, after all, allows for a more seamless experience while also building brand loyalty.

“We always think smartphone plus IoT is a key strategy for us,” Poco Global head Kevin Qiu said.

Poco’s head of product marketing, Angus Ng added saying that while “nothing is actually off-limits,” it’s starting small at first. “Coming out with ecosystem products, I think we still need to stay close to our brand philosophy and product philosophy. So we need to somehow play it more on the safer end, to begin with (sic).”

This suggests that audio products, followed by wearables and power banks could be the first products towards building a Poco ecosystem.

An ecosystem typically includes tablets as well. This market is something that Poco isn’t planning on entering anytime soon though considering high competition:

“On the tablet side, yeah tablets have been huge in the industry in the last year and a half because of the pandemic. But it’s because it’s been huge and kinda crowded, (that) it’s even harder for us to enter from that perspective.”

Poco software

Moving on to what Poco does best – smartphones – the company’s next offering will likely be the Poco M4 Pro. The device has been touted as being a rebranded Redmi Note 11 by many. Poco is known for simply slapping their own logo atop devices that were originally Xiaomi and reselling them, but that is said to change now.

The company is looking to further differentiate itself from Xiaomi and Redmi in terms of software. Sure, you do get a Poco launcher, but that has mostly been it. Qiu now says that further customizations and aesthetics for the software to bring it more in line with Poco’s hardware designs are being considered.

And as for the dilemma of software updates, Qiu had the following to say:

“As of right now we’re actually still discussing and talking to the MIUI team about being a part of that plan. As of right now, I can’t confirm anything about three plus four [three years of OS updates and 4 years of security patches – ed], we’re still staying with two plus three right now for all of our devices.”

Poco Snapdragon 888 phones

Last but not least was the question of why Poco chose to stick to Snapdragon 870 and has not released any device with the latest Snapdragon 888 chip:

“After internal testing with a lot of our R&D and product managers, we found out that (the Snapdragon) 865 from last year was an amazing chipset. In terms of performance, stability, and cooling in general. And 870 was able to keep all of those great attributes and become even better. When some of the first flagship Android devices pushed out 888, the major concern was overheating and power consumption.”

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• POCO M3 Pro 5G is the first POCO device to get Android Enterprise Recommended certification
• POCO M4 Pro 5G passes certification process; expected to get launched soon

The post Poco executive discusses the future of the company: Poco smartwatches and earbuds upcoming? appeared first on Gizmochina.