Report: Facebook Wants to Monitor Your Body with a Smartwatch

Social media giant Facebook is reportedly developing its own smartwatch as part of its ongoing efforts to move into hardware production and suck up even more personal information — in this case, biometric data.

The Verge reports that Facebook is working on its own smartwatch as part of its ongoing efforts to produce more physical products. The smartwatch will reportedly be Android-based but it is currently unknown whether or not the device will run Google’s Wear OS. Facebook is also reportedly working on building its own operating system for hardware devices and future versions of the smartwatch may run that instead.

Facebook’s smartwatch will reportedly have messaging, health, and fitness features according to the report, and would be one of the few Facebook-produced pieces of hardware alongside the company’s Oculus virtual reality headsets and Portal video chat devices.

Facebook is also reportedly working Ray-Ban branded smart glasses with plans to release later this year, as well as another augmented reality initiative called Project Aria.

Facebook has more than 6,000 employees working on augmented and virtual reality projects and as part of existing Facebook divisions like Oculus and Portal as well as experimental projects under the company’s Reality Labs division.

Breitbart News recently reported that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg appeared on the invite-only Clubhouse app where he discussed the social media giant’s progress in the world of Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality.

Zuckerberg stated during the Clubhouse meeting that “we should be teleporting, not transporting,” and believes that VR is the way forward to allow people to experience new places and things without leaving their homes.