While companies like Samsung, Fitbit, Garmin, Huawei, and even Fossil have been trying for a number of years now to come close to Apple’s incredible success story in the thriving wearable device industry, a few other brands entered the smartwatch market with no serious ambitions to win the volume game.

If anything, their prohibitive price tags might make them more desirable for an exclusive group of people unlikely to have been impacted by the coronavirus pandemic in any meaningful way. If you are part of that club and don’t know which of the two to choose… first of all, congrats.

Secondly, it’s important to mention the Tag Heuer Connected Golf Edition is already up for grabs in a “limited quantity” in select physical US stores at $2,550, while the Hublot Big Bang e will soon be released online and offline at $5,200 in a titanium variant and $5,800 if you prefer a “polished black” ceramic case. 

Same same but different 

That being said, the Hublot Big Bang e and Tag Heuer Connected Golf Edition are still very much faithful to their individual brand identities and iconic designs, so at the end of the day, it shouldn’t be too hard to pick the model that best suits your preferences. 

The latter is obviously sportier, with a white and green rubber strap, “ultra-lightweight” titanium case, ceramic bezel with “exclusive Golf Edition crown”, and an exclusive pre-installed Tag Heuer Golf app allowing you to “specifically track your performance” on over 40,000 courses worldwide.

Not that they matter much, but the specs of the Tag Heuer Connected are actually superior to those of the Hublot Big Bang e, including built-in GPS functionality. That’s right, the $5,800 smartwatch doesn’t come with its own GPS chip or heart rate monitor, which is absolutely ridiculous.

Hublot’s sophomore smartwatch effort is naturally bulkier than Tag Heuer’s newest limited edition wearable device, but the latter comes with a larger 45mm case (vs 42 for the Big Bang e), as well as a significantly larger 430mAh battery (vs 300mAh). Of course, if other Wear OS products are any indication, the battery life is unlikely to exceed a day’s work (or a day’s visit to the golf course) either way.

For what it’s worth, both luxury smartwatches pack Snapdragon Wear 3100 processing power while also sporting high-resolution AMOLED displays. Obviously, that’s not worth thousands of dollars, though, so the brands are still the main reason why LVMH (Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy) hopes you’ll feel inclined to spend a small fortune.