Android Wear goes extra-high-end with the Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon

Google is continuing its strategy of partnering with well-established fashion brands to make unique Android Wear watches, and now one of the most recognizable names, Louis Vuitton, is on board with its new Tambour Horizon. An exquisite combination of metal, leather and sapphire made in Switzerland and wrapped around the same core specs as every other Android Wear 2.0 watch.

This is a 42 mm case that Louis Vuitton says is "exceptionally compact for a connected watch" (though it's 12.55 mm thick) and combines with your choice of 60 different detachable straps. The screen and back are both covered in sapphire, as you'd expect, but that back plate is just for looks — there isn't a heart rate sensor there.

A relative bargain compared to other Louis Vuitton watches.

The rest of the specs are roughly standard, with a 1.2-inch 390x390 AMOLED display (no flat tire!), a Snapdragon Wear 2100 processor, 300mAh battery, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. Louis Vuitton does claim 30 meters of water resistance, though, which is great.

Outside of the core Android Wear 2.0 experience, Louis Vuitton also includes a "my flight" function for following your travel details, a "city guide" for accessing LV-curated guides and of course plenty of "iconic Louis Vuitton watch dials" to complement the hardware and make sure everyone knows you have a Louis Vuitton smartwatch.

And yes, the Tambour Horizon is quite expensive: $2450 for the stainless steel model, and a cool $2900 for the black variant. Massively expensive by Android Wear smartwatch standards, but a great deal if you're comparing to other Louis Vuitton watches that can approach $10,000. We actually wouldn't be surprised if this was a decent seller in some markets — that Louis Vuitton brand is strong.

Andrew Martonik

Andrew was an Executive Editor, U.S. at Android Central between 2012 and 2020.