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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.
One out of three people decided they looked like a dork with that awful thing on their wrist.
"Would you, could you, with a goat?" Dr Seuss
I sometimes thought the iWatch rumor was just a plant by Apple to get everyone else in the industry to trip over themselves trying to get the watch out before Apple.
Leave the gun, take the cannoli -- Clemenza, The Godfather
Or maybe most of them are just treating Best Buy as "try it out before I order it from Amazon."
...which interacts only with your smartphone, requiring you to always the smartphone with you. This whole idea is so fundamentally flawed, and almost unfathomably stupid - as stupid as buying a mini remote control for your main remote control. Why on earth would anyone bother with a "smart" watch if they can just as easily use the phone with a much better experience?
I guess the people who bought it realized that having a watch you have to charge every night isn't all that useful.
(Contrast with a regular watch which, at the very worst, you replace the battery twice a year. Or other smart watches that you can go a week between charging them.)
Wouldn't be the first time they used rumours to their own advantage. It's widely accepted that Apple seeded rumours of an "under-$1000" price point for the original iPad to make its actual $500 price look really, really good. I doubt it's a coincidence that HP and Microsoft's own tablet, the Slate 500, wound up costing $800 later that year. They surely hoped to undercut Apple's rumoured target price when they were doing the original design work.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
I think people want them, but Samsung tried to get the jump on Apple by pushing a half-baked product. I don't think Apple will nail it either because what people want in a smart watch is out of reach of current technology - the components are just too big. People want a smart watch which is indiscreet. It looks like a regular watch in both design, function and form factor yet magically can interface with your phone in a way which is neither cumbersome or frustrating. I think right now, people would be happy with a watch which simply vibrates when the phone in their pocket or backpack gets a text or phone call. Maybe scrolls an indiscreet caller id on the screen, or marquee of the text. Perhaps does a voice reply to a text message. That would be enough for now instead of trying to fit a phone on your wrist.
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Now that Samsung has failed so miserably, Apple knows what worked and what didn't, and can better bring their design to market when it is ready.
IMHO Samsung failed to include the front-facing camera and the ability to play video. This is supposed to be a Dick Tracy watch dammit!
Magic doesn't work in my presence. My power of disbelief is too strong.
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.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
I have a sundial app for telling time.
rewriting history since 2109
...reaching in your pocket to get your phone.
It's sad in that same way as the family member who's sitting by the TV but searching desperately for the remote.
Many tvs have functions that can't be accessed with a remote. My STB has 1200 channels, selecting channel 503 when I'm on channel 141, without a remote (and thus limited to ch+) is a right pain.
I wear a watch, it's handy to be aware of what the time is, as my body clock is usually screwed from 1 or 2 long haul trips a month. If that watch also showed me who was ringing, allowing me to ignore my phone (which may be in my pocket, or on the other side of the office), that would be useful.
I detest ringtones in the office, so my phone is always set to silent. My Pebble allows me to see my wife calling/texting me. This alone justifies the price. The Gear is overpriced for what it offers, and requires their phone to work. My Pebble works with android and iOS. (disclaimer, I only use mine with android) I can set the watch face to whatever I like, including the very useful Beer O'Clock face that a friend made.
I prefer to check the time with a watch. Till I got my Pebble, I usually wore one of several Invicta chronographs that I own. I don't like digging a phone out of my pocket to verify the time, especially when in meetings. A quick glance is sufficient to tell when I am going to be late getting home, without the rudeness of pulling my phone out and conspicuously checking time.
it is better to light a flame thrower than curse the darkness. -Terry Pratchett Men at Arms
I have had my Gear (and Galaxy Note 3) for most of the month now. As a business user (I own an IT consulting firm) I find the Gear supremely useful. I don't agree with most of the bad reviews I have read. To dispel some myths: I can go for a few days on a battery charge. I do sleep eventually so slipping it on the charger overnight is no biggie. I am an Exchange user and I get notified of incoming e-mail (and can read a summary) and can see my appointments for the day. Actually taking a call via hands free on the watch works well too, which I was surprised by. I didn't expect that part to be of particular value but I find myself taking calls like that and wearing my Bluetooth earpiece less. This stuff alone is worth the price for me. I think people are expecting this to be some whiz-bang toy and blow sunshine up their butts. This is a productivity tool and delivers it's value in that manner.
Officially a geek since 1984
That word - indiscreet. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
And you only need to recharge it about once a week.....not 3 times a day.
Solving Unix problems since 1989...
Sounds a lot like pebble.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Very few younger people wear watches these days, because mobile phones serve as a reasonable replacement. As a result, the sudden interest in wearable tech seems slightly odd. It's almost as if Apple's R&D team prototyped a watch just to see what it would be like, and someone leaked the news in a frantic frenzy, ignoring the fact that it is - by and large - a dumb idea that Apple might very easily shelve (along with the silly notion of an Apple-branded TV set).
Maybe they always were. Functional, but they're jewlery. I have a nice Citizen Ecodrive I'm fond of. It's functional, it's lightweight, it never needs batteries, and it looks nice. It's titanium, with a sapphire face.
It allows me to casually check time in meetings without being rude; it looks professional; that's important for what I do, less important for others.
Smartwatches are horrible to look at. They are gaudy and tacky. I am not sure what they say about the wearer, but I am not sure they are part of the image I would want to project. Yes, that type of thing matters to some people. Particularly, I suspect, those who still wear watches.
What I want is a nice watch like that that maybe has a silent notification capabilty, and perhaps, can pick up some biometric data (pulse, whatever). I would find real value in that - something that my phone can't do, an an alert to get me to check my phone for something interesting or pressing.
I can see myself getting Google Glasses before a smartwatch.
Get off my lawn.
..don't panic
Which is probably one reason why we haven't seen it yet. With few notable exceptions, and almost none in the last decade, Apple doesn't release half-baked products. Certainly not on the hardware side.
I don't think that it is out of reach of current technology, I'm sure that you could get a nice feature set into a slim watch form factor. Look at what was done with the iPod Nano. It had storage, a modest microcontroller, a color touchscreen, and an audio codec. About the only thing missing from it is some form of radio communications - bluetooth 4 being the most likely candidate - and modestly greater battery capacity to support that.
No. 20 years ago we had the Casio databank watch... A calculator, world time clock, and personal contact manager. It wasn't cool back then either, it made you a nerd.
I had a Casio calculator watch (just a boring calculator watch, without the databank stuff) when I was a kid, and I can assure you it didn't make me a nerd. In fact, the causality is exactly opposite; being a nerd made me get a calculator watch.
My dad (65yo) has a Pebble, and is pleased as punch with it. He uses it with an iPhone, but they supposedly work with Android, which would include all the (2) devices Samsung's Gear watch works with. So perhaps that's a better alternative for folks looking for a smartwatch.
And for those making the "look like a dork" cracks, he's a very succesfful lawyer and takes great care with his professional appearance. He did change the band out for a decortive one that looks much better in the circles he hangs out in. You can do that with a Pebble because it uses a standard watch band. The Gear?...nope.
It doesn't help (for Samsung, at least) that whatever small 'smartwatch' market exists is largely being catered to by outfits who are more realistic about how much you can actually cram into something that fits on the wrist.
I have absolutely no interest in owning either; but the 'Pebble' outfit managed to get not-totally-ridiculous battery life, along with reasonable size; by being realistic about what they could do: low power transreflective display, limited firmware (with SDK; but not one connected with any broader ecosystem).
Samsung just goes and bolts the guts of a first/second gen-ish Android phone, minus the cell modem and wifi, to your wrist. Glowy color screen, CPU that's fast enough to gobble battery (but not fast enough to make Samsungified Android run smoothly), integrated perv cam that makes the strap impossible to swap, the thing's a bulbous mess to fit a battery large enough to last a day, and they managed to make it compatible with almost nothing(it is Android; but it's already on the edge of acceptable battery life, has anemic performance, and a small display, so it isn't meaningfully 'compatible' with the broader ecosystem, and its notification display features only work with a small number of applications). Brilliant work.
I'm not sold on 'smartwatch' as a concept; but even if we accept the goodness of the idea as a foundational assumption, Samsung fucked it up.
Why not just sit down and use a laptop rather than trying to be Star Trek? You might actually get work done, and save a ton of money in the process.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Trololololol....
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
I would like to question a related but opposite question:
Should people want even a dumb watch? One that just tells the time, and maybe has an alarm and calendar.
Years ago I worked at a place where there were a number of radio astronomers. One carried a flip-open clamshell watch that was entirely plastic (no electronics) and contained only a 3D replica of Stonehenge. Worked for him... (You can still buy these. Google Stonehenge Watch.)
It isn't obvious to me that constant preoccupation with the exact time is a boon to humanity. It may be necessary in our culture, given the scheduling of media to quantized fraction-of-an-hour time, and the need to coordinate for appointments, and not have railroad trains run into one another. But other human societies have worked differently, and perhaps they work better in some ways. Or at least differently.
A wonderful and breezy introduction to cultural perceptions of time (and space, and lotsa other things) can be found in Edward T Hall's 1959 _The SiIent Language_. While this isn't even Hall's final word on the subject (see Wikipedia or Amazon) I bought a copy for $0.10 at a used book store back in the late 1970s, and reading it has helped me tremendously dealing with foreign-culture customers, travel. and even my foreign-citizen wife.
What are you, a jock?
I drank what? -- Socrates
Perhaps, but people said almost the exact same thing about phones when the iPhone came out. "This is huge. Who wants a phone that big? It's so much bigger than my Razr. I think right now, people would be happy with a phone which simply vibrates makes calls and doesn't try to fit a computer in your pocket." And a few years later, here we are.
Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
When you open that box in 10+ years, you will be disappointed to find that the resin band will have decayed and crumbled.
The Gear looks like a fine product, but what annoyed me was the camera built onto the band. If you're going to pay more than $40 for a watch, it had better damn well use a STANDARD band interface, and not require a special band. Even if that means doing without the stupid camera.
Apple didn't invent a lot of things.
Umm, really? This is just the last 40 days or so... True, they didn't invent a lot of things, but they do invent A LOT of things. I double-dog dare you to search the USPTO site. They are crazy prolific at inventing things.
Full disclosure upfront: I am an early Kickstarter backer for Pebble. I do try an not let that make me biased in this comment.
My requirements in a smart watch are the following:
-Fully customizable watchface which can be displayed at all times (it's a watch; I shouldn't need to do anything just to see the time)
-Battery must last more than a couple of days. The longer the better. A whole week is a good start.
-It must be able to be fully submersible in water so I may shower and swim without any care
-The band must either be made of a durable fabric that is easily cleaned such as nylon or user replaceable in available sizes (skin condition)
-It needs to be able to provide useful alerts with contextual text to alleviate the need to pull my phone out of my pocket or run to it's location
-Further interactive functionality with my phone is a bonus
Why I prefer the Pebble:
The Pebble is by no means the perfect smartwatch. It even has a manufacturing flaw that I doubt will ever be addressed (rainbowin display in the sunlight). That being said, it ticks all of the above boxes. My phone is either in my pocket, near by, or on the charger up stairs. When ever I get a text message, phone call (Caller ID with the option to send to voicemail), e-mail, IM, meeting notification, reminder, or any other alert of my choosing, it displays on my watch. Through a 3rd party app, I can choose what app alerts to send to my watch. If I get too many alerts from an app, I can just have it not send to my watch. In many cases I get an alert that I just need to read and not respond to. When I'm on-call for work, I can see who's calling and whether it's worth running up stairs to my phone or getting out of bed to answer. I can also change music tracks or stations from my watch and they don't need to directly support Pebble either. In the car, I can change without taking my eyes off the road. Doing the dishes, I can change without getting my phone wet or it be near the sink.
The fact that an application doesn't need to natively support Pebble is a big plus. Any smartwatch needs to have an accompanying SDK and should leverage the existing APIs from the phone's OS to be able to integrate. Another cool thing I've got working is my phone security goes from a simple swipe to PIN requirement to unlock whenever my watch is out of range or the BT turned off; if someone happens to pick up my phone and walk off, it will lock with the PIN regardless if the screen is on and they're using it. Lastly a cool feature I should mention is I just need to flick my wrist in order for the backlight to come on so I can see what it says in the dark or use as a low light short range brief flashlight (I do this about once a week).
I have looked at the other smartwatches out there (here's a good list) and all of them had something missing or a poor attempt from my required list. Features like being able to take voice memos, use it as a headset or speakerphone, take pictures, and have a full color touch display are nice, but not one of my requirements. I'd wager the simplicity of physical buttons is better on a smartwatch than a touchscreen since one doesn't need to look at it to execute a command; a couple of examples would be glancing at an incoming call and dismiss it or changing tracks without looking.
I think the Galaxy Gear is a cute initial attempt from Samsung, but they have more work to do. Only getting text messages on the watch is silly. I don't need to be told I have a new e-mail since my phone already did that; let me see at least a snipet of the e-mail to determine if it's worth my time. I'd say Samsung has more work to do to open it up to other apps and phones not built by Samsung within the past year.
Haha! Bracers is the perfect word for these monstrous things!
Then combine that with the news story today about the smartphone that took a bullet and saved the owner, and you get -
Wonder Woman!
Finally a "killer app" for these smart watches. Now someone just needs to invent a lasso of truth...