Slashdot Mirror
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.
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.
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.
Why should we have to upgrade our watches every year? Maybe people are happy with what they have already?
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
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.
There are no atheists when recovering from tape backup.
Remember how smartwatches were supposed to be the next big thing?
Nope.
But do you remember how we told you they were just an early adapter fad, and would remain so until a killer app came along, or at least some more useful functionality than as shipped?
About that...
Yeah...
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
Well as we all mentioned back then, perhaps the vendors should now be working on coming up with new features and functionality so the watches would be even more useful, and perhaps spend a bit more effort searching out for those killer apps that still don't seem to exist.
Then they can make those available to the current early adapters that already bought the things, so when asked "How do you like the watch?" they could rant and rave about the awesome things they are doing with it, instead of just replying "meh"
That just might spur more people to buy the things.
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.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In the past that mostly had to do with Madonna, but now he is upset no one uses two way video watches.
I didn't want one either. So much so that when my wife surprised me with an Apple watch for Christmas last year, I could hardly hide my disappointment. Thinking "I really didn't *want* one of these"...
But having used a smart watch for a while now, I absolutely love it. Why?
1. The haptic feedback. I run my phone on silent 24/7, which meant that I was constantly having to double-check that I didn't miss a message while walking around. There's no missing or mistaking the prominent tap from the watch so this problem is solved. No more missed messages and no more randomly checking my phone.
2. The weather. I wouldn't have predicted this one, but having the current weather conditions plus the day's high/low temps on the watch face is super useful. I probably look at my watch for the weather conditions almost as often as I look at it for the time.
3. The general freedom of not needing my phone in my hand. In lots of small ways throughout the day, a well-functioning smart watch is another one of those "living in the future" joys. Sending messages by voice without even pulling out your phone, pausing/resuming podcasts while mowing the lawn, getting haptic navigation directions while having an uninterrupted conversation... a good smart watch is clearly a step forward.
As a former skeptic turned believer, it's a shame to see so many people dumping on these devices without having the chance to really see what they offer.
Folks, all of this is from numbers pulled out of some IDC analyst's rear end. Their estimates are no better than SWAG's. I should know, I've had to use their reports in a past life. Sometimes they're accurate, as companies will report otherwise confidential numbers so long as they can't be backed out of the reports. However, Apple doesn't play those games and in this case it's explicitly some analyst's best guess. Most analysts badly misunderstand Apple, and when you misunderstand the biggest player in the market your analysis is almost certain to be wrong.
Also, Garmin's growth was from a very low base. It's easy to grow by 300+% if you start from almost zero.
You know how people love selfies? Yeah. VR is going to be a fad until it's completely physically immersive and you can really feel the NPC blow you, but personal drones and tiny video cameras are here to stay — often in one package.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
We still don't have the display technology to make a proper smartwatch. Until we have a watch with a display that is continuously on and active (such as a full-color e-ink display that's at least 30 FPS) that can operate for a minimum of 24 hours continuously on one charge, smart watches are going to be a severe compromise from existing watches (digital or analog). Only those that have use cases that really require them, or that want to bend over backwards to integrate them into their lives, will find them useful enough to bother with.
Look at digital watches. The first generation were LED with red glowing numbers, and they only displayed the time when you pushed a button, otherwise the battery would be dead within an hour. Does that sound familiar? Digital watches did not explode onto the scene until LCD displays matured, which were capable of actively displaying real-time data continuously for months on a single battery. That will be the technology that drives smartwatches - whatever display advancements need to take place to allow continuous full-color, real-time data display with a battery life measured in days. Until then, companies like Apple are putting the cart before the horse and using gimmicks like gestures and the like to try and switch the display on intermittently (and hopefully) when the user is needing to see it.
Better known as 318230.
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?
**Life is too short to be serious**
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.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
they already have a phone...or a watch.
And smart wristwatches have no hipster cred value. Smart pocketwatches... now you're talking.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
We here at Slashdot are the nerds you picked on in High School.
Shouldn't you be on 4Chan or somewhere like that?
The market for everything else looks pretty healthy.
I think Apple just has itself priced out of that particular market,
Yeah, those "watch pockets" they've been putting in trousers for like 100 years? Clothing manufacturers have started calling them "phone pockets" now. Weird how things go in circles. "Imagine, a timepiece attached to your wrist, so you don't have to pull it out of your pocket to glance at it!" Watch sales are way down too, which makes digital watches a lot more expensive, as they have to amortize the fixed costs over far fewer units.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
... but their battery lives suck, require mobile phones, etc. I will stick with the old school Casio Data Bank watches.
Ant(Dude) @ Quality Foraged Links (AQFL.net) & The Ant Farm (antfarm.ma.cx / antfarm.home.dhs.org).
The original target market for wrist watches were pilots and racing drivers who couldn't afford to get the hands off the steering to pull out a watch and look at the time. That's why expensive watches still have names like "sky master" or "pilote". I stopped wearing a watch about 15 years ago when I was on-call and had to carry a cell phone with me all the time.
The main problem that killed (is killing?) smartwatches is not only the limited use scenarios for them - is that battery times sucks. 24-48hs is already miserable for a phone, let alone a device you are supposed to attach to your wrist. My watch is a Citizen EcoDrive: rugged, accurate and never ever needs recharging.
I have several acquaintances who stopped using their iWatches or 360s just because it is annoying to put it to charge every night next to their phones. Been thinking about buying a 360 from one of them because there're some interesting apps for pilots out there but, in the end, its more a novelty than anything else.