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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."
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.
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'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.