Latest Layers Anarc Watch’s Privacy Policy Reveals it Sends Data Logs to Tencent: Again Pointed Out to be a Re-Branded Chinese Smartwatch

The mobile/laptop skins company, Layers, co-founded by Shlok Srivastava(@tech_burner) and Neel Gogia, made its entry into the smartwatch market recently with its latest Anarc Watch and within just 24 hours of its debut, the company claimed to have sold out, generating over INR 4 crore in sale. However, amidst this great and unbelievable success of the brand, it has started to face criticism from the tech world for allegedly being a re-branded version of an existing Chinese smartwatch. Users have also come forward, posting online, that the smartwatch carries a lot of bugs and connectivity issues, among other problems.

Reiterating the possibility that the device is a Chinese smartwatch re-branded product itself, Layers’ Anarc Watch privacy policy mentions that data logs are being sent to Tencent, a multinational technology conglomerate based in China. Also to note, this poses a security concern too for users. Read more about the update below.

Layers Anarc Watch – A Chinese Re-Branded Product Itself?

As one can read from the below given screenshot of the Layers Anarc Watch privacy policy shared online via @just_a_techy, it has been clearly stated that user data logs are being shared with two Chinese companies, one being Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd. as suggested above. While this again breaks the company’s so-called claim that it has made an innovative product, a huge security threat has also arisen for its existing smartwatch users.

Previously, updates have arrived which put into light many other red flags of the smartwatch and its app like Chinese codebase, outdated development practices, and being an ApexWear clone. Discrepancies in the brand’s success have also been talked about online as its smartwatch app has only been downloaded 1,000+ times as per data from Google Play Store, while the brand said it sold 4,200 smartwatch units with a purported sales figure of INR 3 crore in the first 24 hours. Moreover, most of the user reviews are negative with an average rating of just 1.5 stars. [Via @imthepk]

Even while Shlok Srivastava/Tech Burner (for the company) announced in a recent video that software updates will be rolled out on the 11th and 25th of December 2024, this month, to fix the bugs and issues, nothing much in particular about the allegations have been addressed so far by the brand.