No One Is Buying Smartwatches Anymore (gizmodo.com)

An anonymous reader shares a Gizmodo report: Remember how smartwatches were supposed to be the next big thing? About that... The market intelligence firm IDC reported on Monday that smartwatch shipments are down 51.6 percent year-over-year for the third quarter of 2016. This is bad news for all smartwatch vendors (except maybe Garmin), but it's especially bad for Apple, which saw shipments drop 71.6 percent, according to the IDC report Apple is still the overall smartwatch market leader, with an estimated 41.3-percent of the market, but IDC estimates it shipped only 1.1 million Apple Watches in Q3 2016, compared with 3.9 million in 2015. To a degree, that's to be expected, since the new Apple Watch Series 2 came out at the tail-end of the quarter. But the news is still a blow, when you consider how huge the Apple Watch hype was just 18 months ago.

Comments

Because their pointless.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are very few use-cases of these which make sense.

Workout accessory? Hardly adds much.

Wireless extension of phone display? Hardly much better than just looking at the damn phone..

Oh - and especially - as a time piece? Size sucks, Durability sucks. Battery life sucks even more making them pointless for most cases where you want a watch (long trips, hiking, camping, etc.).

Failed experiment by electronics makers selling jewellery. They fell into the classic trap of trying to create a market for something which doesn't actually do anything that anyone cares about.

Was Obvious from the Start

[rahvin112]

Anyone that knows anything about watches could have saw this coming. There is a potential here if they can get a watch that does what a watch does now with additional functionality but they've got to get something else right and that's battery life. Watches are JEWELRY first and time pieces second. Most people who don't care for the time keeping abilities don't even wear one anymore because cell phones have clocks now. Apple tried really hard to get the Jewelry side right but IMO failed miserably. This is a fit and finish game with high end precious metals comprising the composition, often with gemstones.

None of the smartwatches satisfy the Jewelry aspect of time pieces. Taking that into consideration and the fact they have atrocious battery life, offer almost no convenience that their phone doesn't already provide and you've got a product that will sell a few as a status thing and rapidly implode as the main market avoids it. There is a future for these things but it's going to be a niche market until they solve the serious limitations in both functionality and battery life.

Re:Was Obvious from the Start

[zlives]

the other issue with watch as jewlery for all smart watches, in my mind, is the software. 10 years from now my Ulysse Nardin will still have value and 20 years it may even appreciate. 30 years from i will give it to my son. 2years from now the iwatch will be out of date and no longer supported.

Re:Was Obvious from the Start

[myowntrueself]

Yup. When the Apple watch came out, I took my Rolex purchased in the 70s to a jeweler for cleaning and refurbishment which cost 2x what an Apple watch would have cost. I gave it to my son as a graduation gift. The current value on that watch was 5x what I paid for it. Might be a wash with changes to the value of a dollar, but that item will still have value in 2-3 years when the Apple watch would have been dropped into a bin as junk. The HP-01 watch from the 70's was a better product than the Apple watch, by the way I also had an HP-01 back then. Kind of sorry I didn't keep it. I wonder if an Apple watch buyer will every feel the same way after 40 years?

Also, when Apple decide they don't care about the Apple watch any more and shut down the servers that enable it to work, it could well stop functioning altogether; many pieces of modern tech are like this. If their servers are offline they just don't work any more. This isn't going to happen with your Rolex.

Re:Was Obvious from the Start

[nine-times]

the Apple Watch 2.0 only really offers waterproofing. no real advances that people would dump another $350+ to replace their 1 year old Apple Watch 1.0

I think this really needs to be taken into account in the whole discussion. The big story is that Apple Watch sales are down from last year?

You have to figure that a large percentage of people who wanted Apple Watches bought them last year, when they were first released. Most people don't usually replace their electronics after only a year. Even with cell phones, they wait 2 or 3 years, and that's about as frequent as it gets. Given that smart watches are mostly being used as watches and to display notifications from your cell phone, it seems possible that the smartwatch upgrade cycle will be less frequent.

Also, the "Series 2" model is ultimately a minor upgrade. It has GPS in the watch, which may be important to some people. It's waterproof and the old one isn't officially waterproof, but was still more water resistant than advertised. It's not thinner or lighter, the battery doesn't last longer, and it doesn't even look different. Some people will want to upgrade after only one year, but I wouldn't expect most Series 1 owners to think it's worth buying a Series 2.

Given that, I would assume that there'd be a big spike of sales when the Apple Watch was first released, followed by a few years of diminishing sales. I even had a theory (which so far has worked out) that Apple would avoid making a lot of small incremental changes every year. Given the novelty of the product, some people probably held off buying it the first year because they wanted to see if the following year's model would show substantial improvements. Now that we've seen only minor improvements for Series 2, that may have lead some of those people to go ahead and buy one, which may explain why their sales aren't even worse.

My basic theory is that Apple has a cycle in mind for how often they'll release major updates with major design changes, and it's basically on the same time frame that their marketing experts tell them that people will be willing to buy a new smart watch. I don't know if that's 2 years or 4 years, but it's not going to be 1 year.

Who needs them anyway

[Keruo]

I stopped wearing a wristwatch 10+ years ago. It was annoying to wear while using a laptop.
There's clock on my phone, computer, car, radio, egg timer.. I don't see the point in carrying extra one on my wrist.
Smartwatches seem even more pointless to me, redundant and limited functionality and horrible battery life.

Article is 95% herp Derp

[Lumpy]

Nobody is UPGRADING their smartwatches because why the hell should I pay $350 to get a watch that has zero features above what I already have? When I had a Pebble Time it did everything I wanted then and the other pebble offerings were useless iterations that either offered a useless feature (lighter and shorter battery).

the Apple Watch 2.0 only really offers waterproofing. no real advances that people would dump another $350+ to replace their 1 year old Apple Watch 1.0

The android watches, well nobody has been buying them, they have always been the last place runners, but their new iterations are all useless. Zero advantages on the new versions.

The ONLY smartwatch maker not with their head up their ass is Pebble. 10 day battery life in the Pebble Time Steel. Apple could have doubled the battery life, Samsung could have doubled battery life.... nope, they are all stuck in the "ZOMG THINNER!" stupidity.

Cant give them away

[ghoul]

I knew the Apple Watch was not going to work out when Apple offered a 50% discount to their employees and my friend who works at Apple offered me to use his discount to get one. If Apple employees are not willing to buy it at 50% why would the public buy it at full price?

Watches are worn as bling

[presidenteloco]

Most people have figured out that they carry their phone all the time so the watch is useless.

Some people think that a big platinum or gold looking one or diamond encrusted one still makes them look successful or alpha, whereas it really just makes them look quaint, narcissistic, and backward.

If you're really important, you have a person to tell you the time without you even having to ask.

Re:Watches are worn as bling

[DrXym]

I wear a watch because I like to be able to tell the time without whipping out a phone for the same purpose. Especially if I'm driving, in a meeting, running or whatever. I can also time myself, set an alarm and a few other things. The screen is always on, it has a nice big display, it's waterproof, the battery has lasted 18 months and I expect I'll get at least another 6-12 months more out of it and it cost me the grand sum of €20.

Watches aren't just for bling, they're there to tell the time. A watch that needs to charge constantly, or needs to be pushed / shaken to show the time, or is hard to read in sunlight is a pain in the ass. That's why "smart" watches fail. They compromise the most basic function that they are supposed to perform. Instead we get shit like wrist cameras, half assed phone sync functionality, heart rate monitors etc. If someone produces a smart watch that tells the time with an always-on display, that works in and out of doors, that lasts weeks or months between charges then we might be getting somewhere. The other stuff is merely a bonus at that point.