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People Still Aren't Buying Smartwatches -- and It's Only Going To Get Worse (businessinsider.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Wearable technology still isn't catching up. Despite a year full of exciting new smartwatches, tech-enabled clothing or jewelry, and fitness activity trackers galore, the growth of the wearables market is still on the decline, according to a new report from research firm eMarketer. In fact, the entire category is being overtaken by smart speakers, at least during the 2017 holiday season. "Other than early adopters, consumers have yet to find a reason to justify the cost of a smartwatch, which can sometimes cost as much as a smartphone," eMarketer forecasting analyst Cindy Liu wrote in the report. "Instead, for this holiday season, we expect smart speakers to be the gift of choice for many tech enthusiasts, because of their lower price points."
The Pebble hit it right - it did just enough, and the battery lasted a long time on a charge.
None of the crap the fancier watches do is worth having to charge them so frequently.
Based on supplier-estimates, so perhaps not the most precise way to measure potential sales:
https://www.phonearena.com/news/Going-strong-the-Apple-Watch-is-en-route-to-set-another-sales-record-in-2018_id100638
A couple of coworkers have them. The screens are so small as to be nearly useless. The prolific texter frequently gets frustrated and gets his phone out because he can't reply on the watch with any accuracy. Without good interactivity they do not appear to be any more useful than as a timekeeping device. I suppose if one reads a lot of RSS feeds or twitter feeds or the like it could be a more convenient way to keep current, but when I'm at work I'm supposed to be working so I shouldn't make it even easier to get off-task.
We're at a weird crossroads with technology. We pushed for faster and higher resolution for a very long time, and now that often is at-odds with portability. I'm typing this on a very upoptioned XPS 13 with the 3200x1800 display and honestly this computer has moved a little too far in the direction of screen resolution, without scaling it's unusably high-res, and its battery life is OK but isn't astounding (admittedly with Linux). Not sure exactly what the resolution on these watches is, but on something that's one or two square inches anything over good old fashioned VGA is probably unusable, but most applications are designed for higher res than that even for smartphones. Not sure how they're supposed to overcome that for watches.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
To me, wearing a watch at all was always uncomfortable and troublesome, and barely worth the effort just for being able to have a timepiece handy. Upon getting a mobile phone which told the time, I happily gave up wearing a watch. In smartwatches, I see much the same thing as the old-fashioned kind: it's an inconvenient thing strapped to the wrist that doesn't do anything that the phone more conveniently out of the way but still easily accessible in my pocket does.
There are arguments to be made regarding ease/convenience of contactless payment - ie not even needing to get the phone out of one's pocket, but I find that offset by needing to twist the back of the wrist around to meet the EFTPOS terminal. Something that would allow just waving the palm of the hand at the terminal would be better in that regard, but more troublesome in others - needing to wear some kind of glove with a chip located where it would be uncomfortable when doing just about anything else with one's hands. The potential answer to that might be implanting the chip, but that presents its own issues.
And smartwatches are the most promising - or maybe least unpromising - of the bunch. Smart glasses with augmented reality functionality have a decent amount of potential, but there is a lot wrong with them from a general privacy point of view, and even the early adopting nerds and geeks aren't about to be told that we should abandon the idea of privacy, never mind society at large. Fitness tracking devices are a nice idea in theory, but so far have tended not to actually make things better. And no other form of wearable technology really has any advantage over a smartphone in your pocket.
Why is the word WORSE in the headline? There is nothing worse about consumers refusing to be fooled into buying crap they do not need.
I have a watch given to me by my grandmother from a grandfather I never knew. It's "only" gold plated and "only" has a plastic face rather than crystal but it's one of my most precious things. Why would anyone want an old smartwatch, regardless of who owned it?
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It isn't like self-winding watch technology is new. For a C-note or two, I can buy a Bulova self-winder.
We have all the parts of the technology here:
1: Self-winding mechanisms.
2: Very low power ASICs.
3: e-Ink screens that are available in a watch form factor.
4: Batteries or capacitors that can hold electricity.
5: Flexible solar panels for the watchband.
6: Low power Bluetooth.
We can take any/all of these and make a self-winding smartwatch that never needs physical charging. No, it may not have OLED or 3D graphics... but it would have enough CPU, RAM, and storage to do basic functions like medical device data, pedometer, and what one expects from a Fitbit type unit.
Even then, finding a smartwatch that looks elegant and stylish is a problem. The Apple Watch does appeal to a certain demographic, but there are many others who will shell out $1000 for a timepiece because it will work the same as it did when it came out of the box, 50-100 years from now. This is the market smartwatch makers need to consider going after to expand.
It's only growing, not growing fast enough... welcome to the new fail. Also iWatch sales are actually up 50% YoY. The convenience of not fishing the phone out of your pocket was always going to be slim. Not everyone wants any watch on their wrist, much less tech bling. Oh and the iWatch 3 comes in a cellular version you can use without the phone, at the cost of battery life. The whole article reads like "they'll never be able to put a useful computer in a watch form factor". Well that's what they said about PCs. And laptops. And phones. I'm not sure saying it about watches is a good bet...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I don't see a killer application for the smartwatch.
I bought mine (an Apple series 3) pretty much for retail therapy (being stupid is ok, if you are aware of and compensate for it) and there may be no killer app. But there is a lifesaving one. My watch woke me up when I was running a high fever (heartbeat too high). Doctor told me that if I had not called an ambulance when I did I would have not made it through the night. So, there may be no killer app but there is certainly one that saved my life.
"And something that is only in style for about 6 months... I have a Tag from 2001. I have a Rolex from 1966. A 4 year old iWatch is trash... Not a good investment or accessory."
As someone who is wearing the latest watch from apple I would trade it with this gentleman for his Tag in a heartbeat. I have this watch knowing full well it will be shit in 2 years. The next watch I buy is a Tag or something that has old school gears in it. There is something timeless about a device built to precision that is nothing more than metal gears synchronized to perfection.
I got a Garmin vivosmart 3, and it's just that. Unobtrusive, a week worth of battery life, shows the time/date and notifications. It supports notifications from most apps, not just calls and texts.
Haven't had it more than a few months so can't say how durable it is, but been quite pleased with it so far. Price is also a lot more reasonable than a "proper" smart watch.