It’s common for tech brands to spin out to sub brands to differentiate their business units and goals, but what’s really interesting is when Acer, a company that’s more famous as a PC manufacturer, starts a subsidiary called Acer Gadget with two headlining products – the Acer FreeSense Smart Ring and Acer AI Transbuds wireless earbuds, which leads us to the question if Acer is about to dabble in more tech gadgets with this new business unit.

At COMPUTEX 2025, we talked to Allen Jong, President of Acer Gadget, at Acer’s headquarters in Taipei to understand more on it.

Q: What is Acer Gadget? Why are you starting off with a smart ring and wireless earbuds?

Allen: Acer Gadget is a subsidiary of Acer Incorporated that focuses on delivering smart lifestyle products to the market. We tried defining several products in the beginning to launch with the brand, but we ultimately decided on the Acer FreeSense smart ring and Acer AI Transbuds as we believe these wearables with their AI capabilities are what the market is looking at right now and they are unique product categories that make us stand out.

The Acer FreeSense smart ring does all-day AI health tracking and gives you insights to your well-being with no subscription fees, it also works with Android and iPhones so there’s no compatibility issues. The Acer AI Transbuds enables two-way real-time translation with up to 15 languages, removing language barriers when you’re travelling abroad.

With these two products, we believe their AI capabilities will contribute value to one’s daily life and it aligns with our company’s vision.

Q: Since we are talking about gadgets, do you intend to make a tighter integration with other Acer products such as laptops and tablets just like how others are doing it?

Allen: We use to have an internal discussion before on whether we should develop a similar product ecosystem strategy like some players do, which makes sense since we have a comprehensive product lineup, but ultimately we decide not to as we want everyone, regardless of the devices they possess, to fully enjoy our products with no limit in functionality.

For instance, the Acer AI Transbuds can work with any smartphone and tablet with a USB-C dongle to utilize its AI translation feature, it will work with any messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Line, WeChat and Instagram, you don’t need an Acer device in order to enjoy this feature off the Acer AI Transbuds, this is a strategy that we believe that’s beneficial for our customers rather than locking them into an ecosystem.

–

The key takeaway when talking to Allen gives us a really good idea from what we can expect from Acer Gadget in the near future, including more future smart wearables and devices that’s related to smart connectivity and AI.

A quick check on the company’s website reveals that it has already incorporated several products that was released in the past under its wing, including the Acer ebii E-Bike and Acer e-Kinekt bike desk, these are products that haven’t made presence in our market but hopefully, the Acer FreeSense and AI Transbuds will be the first Acer Gadget products we will see debut in Malaysia.