Ten years ago this week, we published one of the strangest and most fascinating stories from the Windows Phone era: Microsoft’s unreleased Moonraker smartwatch. It was a moment frozen in time when Microsoft was still experimenting with bold hardware ideas, still trying to carve out a future in mobile, and still convinced it could build an ecosystem that stretched from your PC to your wrist.
(We later got a prototype in our hands on an even earlier idea, the Xbox Joule, Microsoft's canceled fitness watch for gamers).
Looking back now, Moonraker feels like a glimpse into an alternate timeline. A smartwatch with personality, color, and a UI that leaned into the Metro design language instead of running from it. It never shipped, but it showed how close Microsoft was to having a wearable strategy years before the Apple Watch reshaped the category.
A decade later, Moonraker stands as one of those “what could have been” moments that defined the Windows Phone era as ambitious, stylish, and ultimately abandoned just before the industry took off. — Daniel Rubino, Editor-in-Chief
The original article, "Meet the Moonraker, Microsoft's unreleased smartwatch," was published on June 12th, 2016, by Rich Edmonds.
