Sony has announced that they are opening up their Sony SmartWatch to third party firmware, this means that developers will now be able to flash the device with their own firmware, obviously Sony is hoping that this will make the SmartWatch a more popular device.
We are now taking the next step to open up SmartWatch. Previously, you’ve been able to create apps for SmartWatch with the Sony Add-on SDK, but now we hope to see even more innovation as we’re making it possible for advanced developers to create and flash alternative firmware, by sharing technical details and instructions.
The ability to flash the device with custom firmware does come with some warnings, that you may invalidate your warranty if you flash the device with a new firmware and that existing SmartWatch compatible applications may no longer work with the device.
Sony is calling this new strategy for their SmartWatch the Open SmartWatch Project, and you can find out more details over at the Sony Developers website.