Tesla Smartwatch In The Works? Elon Musk Dismisses It As 'Yesterday’s Technology'

Just hours before Tuesday's highly anticipated launch of the Tesla Smartwatch, CEO Elon Musk denied his company's involvement in the project and called it "yesterday's technology."

On Monday, Musk dismissed widespread speculation about the Tesla Smartwatch by tweeting: "Definitely not. Smartwatches & phones are yesterday’s technology, Neuralinks (his microchip implant startup) are the future."

Musk was reacting to a story published by Clean Technica about Tuesday's scheduled launch of the alleged Tesla Smartwatch. Musk added a link to the Clean Technica story, which says Tesla is developing a smartwatch with partners.

In an update, Clean Technica later wrote, "Tesla CEO Elon Musk says these rumors are not true. Tesla is not developing a watch of any sort."

Now it is unclear if the announced launch of the new Tesla Smartwatch on Tuesday in China will go through -- or if there even is a smartwatch in the first place. There are wildly conflicting reports from a variety of sources outside Tesla.

Seeming to lend credence to rumors about a Tesla Smartwatch are comments made by Huami CEO Huang Wang, who has been teasing about the launch event on Weibo for some time.

Over the past week, rumors began mounting Tesla will unveil its very own smartwatch to be made by Chinese wearable tech firm, Huami Corporation, which has shipped millions of smart wearable devices since its founding in 2013.

The Tesla Smartwatch has been reported to be based on the "Huami Amazift GTR" smartwatch. Huami is a sub-brand of the Chinese multinational electronics company Xiaomi Corporation.

The Tesla Smartwatch has been billed as interfacing with Tesla's range of electric vehicles (EVs), providing keyless entry and immediate access to data about individual EVs such as battery power and charging time updates.

Based on other reports, Huami isn't the only company Tesla has talked to about developing its own smartwatch. In August came news about a filing by Tesla with the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This document revealed Tesla is working on a new smartwatch with Xplora Technologies, a Norwegian company that makes smartwatches for children.