New photos of HTC ‘Halfbeak’ Android Wear watch are here

Smartwatches are in an interesting spot right now in the technology landscape.

While most flagship smartphones don’t have much to distinguish themselves from the competition, a good smartwatch with a couple of unique features can find a niche group of fans. For HTC, the approach seems to involve waiting for the market to mature before deciding which functions to really focus on.

At the end of last week, a new set of high-quality images of HTC’s yet-to-be-announced watch hardware, apparently codenamed “Halfbeak,” showed up on the Chinese social networking site Weibo. The photos show a heart-rate monitor, Under Armour co-branding, along with Android Wear version 1.x running on the device.

It’s still unclear exactly what specs or other features the device will have if and when it’s finally released, but with Mobile World Congress (MWC) about a month away.

If HTC were basically ready to debut the new watch, it would make sense to use MWC to show it off. If you’re looking for an Android Wear smartwatch with a likely focus on health and fitness (based on the Under Armour branding), it might be worthwhile to wait and see what HTC shows off in February.

[source]Weibo[/source][via]Android Police[/via]