Haier’s Asu smartwatch projects texts, stats and drawings onto your hand

Although there's now quite a lot of variety in smartwatch designs, depending on whether you're sporting a running watch, fashion accessory or everyday piece of wristwear, the usual premise is the same. Most have a touchscreen where the watchface should be, a couple of buttons on the side, maybe a touch bezel.

Tearing up the book on smartwatch design is Chinese company Haier, whose Asu smartwatch builds in a projector to display information onto the user's hand, as well as on the device itself.

The watch won't be available outside of China when it launches in May, we're told, and there's currently no price assigned, but we were on the show floor at MWC 2018 in Barcelona to get a better look at the innovative smartwatch and just how well the concept works when on the wrist.

Is this something you'd like to see come to more watches in the future? Let us know in the comments below.

While the projection element is the key innovation here, let's talk a little bit about the overall design of the Asu smartwatch. Powered by a 1.2GHz internal processor and packing in GPS, 4G LTE support, a big 650mAh battery and heart rate monitoring, it would perhaps be a bigger design achievement if Haier was able to pack all these sensors into a more svelte package. Alas, it doesn't, and instead this watch is a verified beast when on the wrist.

Surprisingly, it's not overly uncomfortable to wear, but this is still a watch that makes the designs from the likes of Diesel look like weak sauce. On the left side of the bezel, you'll be treated to a 1.54-inch, 240 x 240 pixel touchscreen, which displays Haier's software running over Android. Resting alongside is a dead spot which harbours the projector underneath. This isn't the best display we've ever seen on a smartwatch, but it's certainly not one that lags too far behind more mainstream smartwatches, either.

In terms of what's on offer through the watch itself, users will have access to a lot of the basics - step tracking, activity tracking, notifications - while some more advanced smartwatch features, such as making calls and sending texts, are also available. We found making our way through the watch was a slightly laggy experience at times (though the odd interaction, such as sketching, was very responsive), but we're told some aspects of the watch are still in development ahead of the impending launch.