Reports first suggested in the spring that Microsoft was developing its own smart watch to contend with Apple and other competitors' alleged watch products. Now new information indicates the company's prototypes are a part of the Surface team.

The Verge - citing sources familiar with Microsoft's Surface plans - reported on Monday that Microsoft was prototyping smart watches under the Surface team. The product is also now "closer to reality". 

Microsoft originally tested its smart watch design under the Xbox accessories team and planned to include a "Joule" heart rate monitor with it. A switch between teams would emphasise the company's shift toward aligning the Xbox hardware and Surface hardware into one arm. 

Read: Microsoft reportedly developing its own smart watch

More reports that are recent have claimed that Microsoft's smart watch includes a Surface connector and 1.5-inch display. Tech news website AmongTech even claimed that newer prototypes featured a removable wristband in blue, red, yellow, black, white and grey colour options.

The watches are purportedly also made of a pricey "translucent aluminium" called aluminium oxynitride, which is three times more solid than glass, and they include 6GB of storage and support for LTE and cloud storage.

As for software, The Verge said prototypes were running a modified version of Windows 8 and could integrate with other Windows devices. The report couldn't specify how the Surface smart watch would work with existing Surface devices, but the prototypes supposedly offer support for notifications and music control.