Microsoft is planning to launch its own smartwatch device in the next few weeks, according to Forbes.

The wearable device will reportedly track the users heart rate in the background, and will be compatible with a variety of mobile devices, not just those which run Windows Phone 8.

The key selling point of the watch looks set to be its battery life, which is reported to be over two days of regular use – around double the life of competing devices already on the market.

The launchs timing is interesting, not only because it will beat Apples own smartwatch to market ahead of the Christmas shopping rush, but because it comes ahead of the release of Windows 10 next year. Given how hard Microsoft pushed the cross-platform nature of its new OS, with executive VP Terry Myerson explicitly naming devices with 4” screens as part of the Windows 10 ecosystem, it would seem counter-intuitive for the smartwatch to run on a completely separate OS, but with the Windows 10 launch so far off, this seems inevitable.