Leak: Almost a Third of Samsung Galaxy Gear Smartwatches Are Being Returned

llebeel writes "Almost a third of Samsung's Galaxy Gear Smartwatches sold are being returned, a leaked document has revealed, which shows that over 30 percent are being returned after sale at Best Buy locations in the US. The higher than expected return rate could be due to that realisation, with customers impulse buying and then realising that the smartwatch isn't everything it's cracked up to be." I'd like to hear from more people with smart watches who are happy with them, to better understand the appeal.

Comments

Maybe

[ralf1]

One out of three people decided they looked like a dork with that awful thing on their wrist.

Re:Really? Did we ever really want smart watches?

[swillden]

Responding to your subject line, I want a smart watch. I want one that's done right, which means the right functionality, integrated in the right way with my other personal electronics.

I ultimately want to have Google Glass (or similar), a smart watch and a smart phone with a large screen (6" is about right). I think the three devices could work very well together.

The phone, of course, is the brain, the connectivity, and the user interface for "heavy" work. Anything involving data entry or interacting with large amounts of data. Glass is an audio/video output device, to provide no-hands, no-interference content when I need it. Heads-up navigation, audio playback, video messages, etc. But it's not something I'd want to wear all of the time, both because I don't think the battery will stand up to constantly being on and because it's awkward in some social situations. A smartwatch is an ideal form factor for lightweight I/O. It can provide unobtrusive notifications and quick, easy access to small but important pieces of information. It can also be an input device for controlling Glass, one that's a lot more convenient than the frame-mounted touchpad (in fact, I hope a future version of Glass does away with the frame-mounted touchpad using smartwatch integration instead) and provides a lot more control than head gestures.

Galaxy Gear isn't yet the smartwatch that I want, though.