Google didn't reveal why it bought the company, and Cronologics said (via a statement on its site) that "we see strong alignment with Android Wear's mission and look forward to working with our new colleagues at Google." Imco will continue to sell the CoWatch and said "our internal software team will take over this unique smartwatch platform completely." Of course, Google Home competes directly with Amazon's Alexa-powered Echo products.

It would make some sense for the Cronologics team to build Home features into the Android Wear 2.0 smartwatch OS (coming early next year), though that's pure speculation on my part. Smartwatches have failed to catch on with the public, so Google's next OS release had better be a big improvement, or the whole category might remain in a niche.

Update: The post has been updated to clarify that Imco is the company behind the CoWatch, not Cronologics. Imco has release a statement saying it will continue to develop and sell the Amazon Alexa-enabled CoWatch.