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Android Wear Is Getting Killed, and It's All Qualcomm's Fault (arstechnica.com)
The death of Android Wear is all Qualcomm's fault, largely due to the fact that the company "has a monopoly on smartwatch chips and doesn't seem interested in making any smartwatch chips," writes Ars Technica's Ron Amadeo. This weekend marks the second birthday of Qualcomm's Snapdragon Wear 2100 SoC, which was announced in February 2016 and is the "least awful smartwatch SoC you can use in an Android Wear device." Since Qualcomm skipped out on an upgrade last year, and it doesn't seem like we'll get a new smartwatch chip any time soon, the entire Android Wear market will continue to suffer. From the report: In a healthy SoC market, this would be fine. Qualcomm would ignore the smartwatch SoC market, make very little money, and all the Android Wear OEMs would buy their SoCs from a chip vendor that was addressing smartwatch demand with a quality chip. The problem is, the SoC market isn't healthy at all. Qualcomm has a monopoly on smartwatch chips and doesn't seem interested in making any smartwatch chips. For companies like Google, LG, Huawei, Motorola, and Asus, it is absolutely crippling. There are literally zero other options in a reasonable price range (although we'd like to give a shoutout to the $1,600 Intel Atom-equipped Tag Heuer Connected Modular 45), so companies either keep shipping two-year-old Qualcomm chips or stop building smartwatches. Android Wear is not a perfect smartwatch operating system, but the primary problem with Android Wear watches is the hardware, like size, design (which is closely related to size), speed, and battery life. All of these are primarily influenced by the SoC, and there hasn't been a new option for OEMs since 2016. There are only so many ways you can wrap a screen, battery, and body around an SoC, so Android smartwatch hardware has totally stagnated. To make matters worse, the Wear 2100 wasn't even a good chip when it was new.
So are regular non-smart watches, designer jeans, jewelry, makeup, a Corvette, and any other luxury you care to name. What is your point? People like what they like.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
I care. I'd like a Samsung Gear S3 Frontier that's waterproof - or similar. I'd like to get to the point where I don't carry a phone around to make calls, I just wear my watch. I'd like to get to the point where my watch is my BYOD for basic usage at work/elsewhere with wireless display and wireless keyboard - no dock. Et cetera...
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Literally does not mean what you think it means.
I don't get it, my 2 raspberry pi's both have very tiny CPU's with low heat and low power consumption. Why don't they just switch to using ARM chips instead of qualcom?
but I think you may have reversed the cause and effect here. It may be that Qualcomm isn't doing anything because the market isn't there. Because, honestly, most people don't care about smartwatches.
A thousand pounds of wood moving at 300 feet per minute. Don't get in the way.
Unless there is something magic about the Qualcomm parts (or Qualcomm holds patents that are required to build an SoC suitable for an Android wear device) why couldn't someone else who makes SoCs of this sort get into the market?
Does Samsung sell its Exynos SoCs to other vendors?
Does Mediatek make a SoC suitable for a smartwatch?
Sour grapes. If Android wear had done reasonably well you'd be saying how great the market is.
Face it - Apple won again. Admitting it is the first step to recovery.
Regular watches do not need charging every day or week. Designer jeans are pants, we need some sort of pants, might as well be expensive pants. Makeup gives charisma boost, smart watch does not. Corvette is a car, we need some sort of car, might as well be stylish car.
Smart watch makes its user look like a dork. As if staring one's smart phone for long wasn't antisocial enough, dorks now stare at their watches.
If people like their Android Watch why would they care if new models are not made? Watches last from father to son.... wait, smart watches don't last even a decade.
yeah sure it must be the chip manufacturers fault, can't possibly be nobody wants the shit! chip manufacturers will make whatever is in demand and makes them money.
Apple is not doing well in this space either! they are doing better than Android but they to have had extremely disappointing sales numbers
The reason Qualcomm doesn't give a flying fuck about smart watches is because no one is buying them.
If google etc wanted one so badly they could order custom designs, or make their own.
They is no money in that market.
apple is the McDonalds of tech.
The difference is that people are willing to spend money on those things.
Smart watchtes not so much.
People go "oh, that's cool, how much is it? oh, never mind"
Two reasons:
1. The Qualcom chip is based on an ARM core. ARM don't make chips, they license their IP, etc to manufacturers. For example, the ARM-based CPU in the Raspberry Pi is made by Broadcom.
2. Try running your Pi on a battery the size that will fit in a watch, and see how long it lasts.
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Nobody wants a wristwatch. The market was never big, and is shrinking. They serve no purpose that your pocket watch doesn’t already fill, better. Their market is literally people too lazy to take their watch out of their pocket. Just accept that nobody found the reality as cool as it seemed in Jules Verne novels, and let it die already.
#DeleteChrome
... for the Pebble brand.
I don't get it either. How can you have a monopoly on something that you're not making? Either they are making them and have a monopoly, or they aren't making them and don't have a monopoly and the market is open for someone else to come in and make them.
If a previous single-source provider decides to get out of the market and no one else even wants to enter it after that, that's simply because there is no market. Which is almost the opposite of monopoly.
Are Slashdot editors trained to pick the stories that make the least sense on their face in order to simply create controversy and get comments? Clickbait for commenters. Damn. Why am I doing this?
A smart watch is a watch, we need to tell the time somehow, may as well be a smart watch?
The tech is cool but I agree the market it just not there for a strong selling point.
QCOM is *NOT* shy about selling chips. Their salesmen are sharks (I used to work with them). They would sell their own mother if they thought they could make a buck.
The market on the other hand for wristwatches has bifurcated into elite show offs (think 2000 dollar plus show pieces). Tech guys who have to have the latest and greatest gadget. Health nuts who can be better served with other devices. Then the last segment of 'I have always worn a watch', these will not buy a smart watch because they probably already have something decent that runs for years on 1 cell battery. That market is small and shrinking.
Yes. They will include that smartwatch for free when you buy the flying car.
"To make matters worse, the Wear 2100 wasn't even a good chip" ....that maybe Qualcomm doesn't need to put up with the shallow-brained crap from the judgmental people that wear smart watches.
Makeup gives charisma boost, smart watch does not.
Mine does, it also increases my wisdom and constitution, lets me take 10 on Endurance checks, adds a bonus to Weathersense and once every 24 hours lets me summon a pit fiend from the depths of Hell. Plus I get Send as a free cantrip without any need for Arcane Feats.
It doesn't count as a class implement, but it does function for ritual performance. Also I get a bonus Saving Throw to Resist Poison.
"Literally useless" is a stretch, although close. Overpriced bling would be more accurate.
The summary claims " the primary problem with Android Wear watches is the hardware, like size, design (which is closely related to size), speed, and battery life." Nope. The primary problem is lack of demand. If they were selling like hotcakes, Qualcomm would be investing in new chips.
Heck, Apple is so embarrassed by their smartwatch sales numbers that they refuse to break them out separately.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The "Android Smartwatch" market isn't dead because Qualcom hasn't released a new suitable SoC - rather, Qualcom hasn't made a new SoC because the smartwatch market is dead.
The smartwatch was always going to be a niche offering, and primarily of interest to a geek market (iFans not withstanding). Adding health monitoring was a good step to expand the niche, but even then these are not devices that lend themselves to an upgrade cycle like phones (once again, iFans not withstanding).
For example, I own an original (Kickstarter) Pebble, and the core functions of caller ID, SMS/email notification and controlling music playback are great, but I don't care about health monitoring, so I haven't felt a compelling need to buy a another smartwatch to do the same things in a larger and less comfortable form factor.
So, the volumes and demand are not there for Qualcom to be able to return a profit on the investment in R&D resources and production costs for an updated SoC.
Oh, and while I'm here, I'd just like to add "FUCK FITBIT" for screwing Pebble owners over...
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The problem is, the SoC market isn't healthy at all. Qualcomm has a monopoly on smartwatch chips and doesn't seem interested in making any smartwatch chips.
They have a monopoly, but won't make decent chips? That's just a malfunction of language. They can't have a monopoly if they're not interested in making the chips. Why is no one else stepping up to the plate here? Maybe it's cuz no one wants a smartwatch? Hell, I've never worn any watch. I don't need a clock on my body. I can slip my phone out of my pocket just as fast as I can pull my sleeve back to see a watch.
It's Sunday in the civilised parts of the world.
My dad's mechanical Rolex from the early 60s still runs great after being refurbished a couple years ago.
Seems like the standard mentality of "smart" or "connected" products is, manufacture it for a year or so, works for another year after that, and then it's a brick. Either turned off from the mothership directly, or rendered incompatible with everything else due to software changes. The concept of maintaining aesthetic and practical value for many decades and even multiple owners is totally foreign.
Sure, there have always been cheap and disposable fashion watches as well. The problem is that smart watches combine the high price tag of a luxury watch with the worst attributes of the low-end market. If it's a $25 Swatch nobody cares about tossing it out and buying another, but for watches priced into the thousands... not so much.
Why not use some Mediatek or Rockchip processors in a watch?
you really have no clue about power consumption, do you?
To repeat the GP, because it needs charging every day or so. Wake me up when they can make the battery last 2 years like my analog watch. Even several months might motivate me to switch. But once a day or even once a week is a no-go for something I might only use to tell me the time.
I rarely even think about my analog watch - it's just there when I need it, always reliable, always running, never having to worry about the battery charge. I wear it in the shower and don't remove it for months sometimes.
Their market is literally people too lazy to take their phone out of their pocket.
Or, alternatively, people who cannot have a smartphone in their pocket for whatever reason (including wearing clothes without pockets or engaging in physical activity where having something as heavy as a smartphone in your pocket is a problem). I continue to be amazed that no one on Slashdot seems to have ever considered this use-case, even though it describes the vast majority of the smartwatch users I encounter.
maybe it's because they're stupid,ugly things and nobody wants them. Or can you find anything else on the market which is popular but where only one company is producing them (a category, not a brand - don't say "iPhone").
The chips probably suck because of proprietary software components combined with the unwillingness of a market to improve on its own code base rather than adding more bloat. We had some pretty good apps back in the 1990s that ran on less processing power, disk space, and ram than is available in your typical router today. What did you think you were going to get in the first place from a SoC geared at a watch in terms of performance? While CPUs have been getting smaller and faster they are not desktops or even smart phones. I'd anticipate any smart watches to really just be reflecting that of more powerful devices either via cloud or smart phone connections. The problem with shitty smart watches was never really Qualcomm- but rather an shitty industry problem of bloat and proprietary software of which Qualcomm is only partly to blame..
...Then the last segment of 'I have always worn a watch', these will not buy a smart watch because they probably already have something decent that runs for years on 1 cell battery. That market is small and shrinking.
Yet more proof the average I.Q. Is shrinking.
It's right twice a day.
Have gnu, will travel.
I have an s3 frontier. it is waterproof. well, waterproof enough anyway. it's ip68. i wear it in the jacuzzi all the time. as long as you're not a diver, you'll be fine.
I think people don't care about the smartwatch because it is still a glorified watch instead of what it should be. A leap in tech is needed to make it what it should be though Apple is nearing the ballpark. If Android Wear matched Apple tech, we'd be within a generation or two of the critical tech mass for smartwatches.
I'd like for it to have full-time EKG as opposed to HR, SPO2, body temperature sensor, blood sugar from sweat for the diabetics out there, a display at least as large as the ionic, Google Assistant, different vibration patterns for different reminders, LTE, WiFi, android apps, accurate GPS augmented by WiFi and accelerometers to get very accurate locations, speaker, mic, bluetooth, etc.
I'd then have everything I need in one place and could eliminate the bulky smartphone. I hate having things in pockets or on my belt. This is why it isn't being pushed. Ultimately, it could replace the more lucrative smartphone.
Frankly, I'm not sure I need the watch function though the computer has to have it.
What's stoping Huawei from Developing a Kirin chip for it's own smartwatches? Instead of paying a HUUUUUGE amount of money to Qualcomm for the Snapdragon 2100 it uses (Huawei makes their own SoCs for their android Phones)
What's Stoping Mediatek from developing a SoC for smartwatches? It would add nicely to the bottom line, after R&D costs are paid.
What's Stoping AllWinner from developing a SoC for Smartwatches? Would be a nice way for them to get in the spotlight.
Whats's stoping Rockchip from developing a SoC for Smartwatches? It would be a nice complement to the deals they have with Asus, HP and Toshiba for tablets.
Maybe, just maybe, What's stoping them is the same thing that stops Qualcomm...
*The market is not there!!!!*
*** Suerte a todos y Feliz dia!
Except of course that the smart watches don't work without a phone.
Samsung and Apple are selling far more watches than Android Wear. Both make the chips in their watches. Samsung is the other big ARM player in the Phone Market, but in this case their watch chip isn't designed to support Android Wear, so of course nobody is using it. Mediatek was also supposedly working on releasing a chip, but it never panned out (probably because the Android Wear market never happened.)
I'm not sure if your trolling or not, but smart watches have plenty of uses. Such as being able to look at notifications without having to pull out your phone, which sometimes might be unacceptable, like in a meeting. I use my smart watch as a second authentication device for my smart home, when someone puts in my door code, the system looks to see if my watch is in range, if not, doesn't open. Additionally I use my smart watch to monitor my heart rate and for someone with a heart condition, it's useful.
So while you may find this tech useless, doesn't mean the entire world does.
The smartwatch market is just a dud. Apple does not do well at all either in this market.
The problem is, the SoC market isn't healthy at all. Qualcomm has a monopoly on smartwatch chips and doesn't seem interested in making any smartwatch chips.
I was trying to reconcile "monopoly" and "does not want to make the chips." Is this a patent issue then? Is that why they have a monopoly? Is that why no one else will make the chips. I know the smartwatch market isn't huge, but it does exist. There are people who like those things.
wait, smart watches don't last even a decade.
"Smart" watches don't last even a whole day.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
You think some 60 year old who is having trouble getting a job is going to splash out 300 bucks on a watch that the battery lasts less than a day? Smartwatches are toys or fashion statements. My point was the 'practical' people are not going to buy either of those things.
To be a samsung customer with a samsung tizen watch!
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
I have a tizen smartwath and love to read notification on it and control my note 8 media reader with it .
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
Additionally I use my smart watch to monitor my heart rate and for someone with a heart condition, it's useful.
Considering the reliability of PPG heart sensors on "smart" watches...
You either don't have a "smart" watch... or a heart condition... or you are about to die on account of putting your faith in a toy.
There's a reason why even wrist mounted oximeters still do actual measuring through the sensor attached to a finger.
Light seepage around an optical sensor.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
You are an idiot. My smartwatch allows me to safely send and receive messages at a stop light on my motorcycle. That alone is worth what I paid for it.
Do you sleep with your analog watch on every night? No? Does it take any more time to put your watch on a decent inductive charger than it does to put it into a winding box, or just set it on the night stand? Also no?
Then what the fuck does it matter if you have to charge it every other night?
You may not give a crap about the functionality of a smart watch and that's fine, but "omg I have to charge it every other day" is the weakest argument against them there is. There was literally no use change between my analog watch I wore before, and the smart watch I wear on a regular basis now.
Wrong. My Apple Watch Series 3 regularly uses about 20% of it's battery in a day. Thus, even if battery depletion isn't a linear progression (it's not), it would still last three days before needing charging.
Don't fucking lie.
Qualcomm isn't killing them. They are just stupid for most people. If you MUST show you have all the latest gadgets, you'll get one. Otherwise not.
so companies either keep shipping two-year-old Qualcomm chips or stop building smartwatches
When my smartwatch had its 2nd birthday, its hands flipped to "time to" and "get a new smartwatch". I promptly heaved it at the backboard adorning my dustbin, scoring 3 points, and gleefully preordered a new shiny smartwatch. After camping out in the cold and snow for 12 hours, I was first in line to be told that it would be released in the summer, as clearly indicated on the website. I still await this new smartwatch, but timepieces wait for no man. /s
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
No, most of those serve a practical purpose, while also being a fashion item. Also unlike smart watches people are also willing to buy those things
Do you sleep with your analog watch on every night?
YES!
Does it take any more time to put your watch on a decent inductive charger than it does to put it into a winding box, or just set it on the night stand?
yes it does and requires me to remember in the morning to grab it before running out the door, it also won't charge when camping, can't be taken into security rooms and requires me to cart a charger around with me when travelling
There was literally no use change between my analog watch I wore before, and the smart watch I wear on a regular basis now.
Playing a bit of Devil's Advocate here, but it sounds like there was, perhaps, no reason for the change, then?
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
This is why Slashdot comment section is fucking aids. The comments here are "durr, I don't even use it, who cares?" while the comments on reddit actually add meaningful discussion. Believe it or not, you might be technologically inept and don't care about "new fangled tech" but there are plenty of people out there who use a smartwatch and like the technology.
You admit you do this and call HIM an idiot. How precious.
I want a smartwatch, but I want one with at least 10 days of battery life. Anything less and I won't spend my money on one.
It's wrong to blame the only company making chips. Blame all the other chip companies that won't make even one smartwear chip. Or blame Google for not throwing in some money to spur things along.
... goods that have very little market are allocated funds to reflect same.
It little behooves the best of us to comment on the rest of us.
I haven't seen anyone wear a wrisrtwatch in years, other than a few people who bought an iwatch right when they came out and haven't worn them again in years. So yeah, this seems accurate.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Because that market is so close to 0 as to be non-existent. And the fact that most smart watches still need a phone to be useful. But I'm sure there's literally hundreds of people buying it for this reason.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
Yeah, that's pretty stupid. You MUST take off your watch to charge every night, which means you're walking around without a sensor for at least 3 hours... assuming it doesn't run out of power mid-day because you use it a reasonable amount.
I get compliments on my smart watch.
It was on sale for $70, isn't bad looking (zenwatch 2, the small one), I can pick a stylish watchface (I use literal watchface), and ignore or quick reply to texts at home without worrying about where my phone is, as well as control tv or music (play pause, nothing major) check the weather too. Probably most useful is a safer way to get my GPS directions while driving.
It certainly isn't life changing, but it is mildly life improving.
I was really looking forward to the next generation of watches. Something that could be the same size, but slightly thinner with a smaller bezel.
I don't think they look bad, and unless one noticed the thickness, they'd be unlikely to fly it as a smart watch and me as a dork at all (well, they'll be able to for other reasons...)
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
My watch is an Omega Speedmaster, youâ(TM)re the broke fuck.
when you grow up and move out of home from mummy and daddy you will learn no one gives a shit about your infantile whining, FYI, My watches are a Tag and a Breitling, by comparison your ijunk is a cheap plastic toy.
wristwatches... But I no longer have the two smartwatches that I bought. Instead, I have a handful of wristwatches, any one of which I wear on a given day, without fail. The smartwatches themselves are long gone to eBay.
The smartwatches were a pain to use and did nothing well, had a hit-and-miss UI that only sometimes felt even partially usable, and they had to keep coming off and on for charging, which meant that I'd routinely forget to wear them for the day (I tried two in succession). I really liked having the time and date on my wrist, though, and once I tried an old fashioned self-winding mechanical analog wristwatch, I loved having this little machine on my wrist that did its job *perfectly* and without intervention and was scheduled to do so for the next 15-20 years until needing, in very quaint fashion, to be "lubed" with highly refined dino oil by a mechanical specialist.
So I've ended up with several pieces of 19th century technology (which is really just miniaturized 16th century technology) that do the job rather well and also are visually fascinating and aesthetically pleasing to look at as they do it. They're maintenance-free, water resistant to 200 meters, really impervious to most any hazard, and when I change them I only take them off for a few seconds to swap, rather than having to leave them off for hours, so I rarely forget to wear one. It does happen, but far less often than it did with the smartwatches.
And as a bonus, telling time now Just Works—there's no need to wake them up (which often required actual "steps" on the smartwatches, despite advertising to the obvious), they just show the time all the time. Even if I'm, day, driving and need to leave my hand on the wheel, I can just glance at an angle and read the time easily. They don't require me to move my arm from the steering wheel and/or do actual stuff to read them.
As a bonus, a reasonable quality mechanical wristwatch from Seiko or Orient costs 1/3 to 1/2 what a smartwatch does, so for the same price you can have several traditional wristwatches that will last many years and offer a variety of styles and appearances and provide redundancy in the case that one should fail... Without the further requirement of periodic "upgrades."
So smartwatches convinced me to wear a watch. Just not, in the end, a smartwatch.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Dumping the shortcomings of Android Wear to the SoC seems like a blame game. Samsung was able to get by with their own 14nm SoC, providing function on par (or even better) with Android Wear, with 2.5 days battery time
What is Android, then? White Castle?
People like what they like.
And apparently Android Wear watches aren't what people like. I haven't looked at sales numbers but if Qualcomm can't be bothered updating the chip, there must not be enough money in it. That tells me not many people like Android Wear watches,
I have the ZW2 as well. How's the battery life on yours? Mine seems very unpredictable as one day it'll be fine and the next it will chew through 3/4 of the battery by noon.
What is Android, then? White Castle?
Burger King
Android is too heavy for smartwatches.
Samsung's Gear smartwatches are doing more than fine, but they run way lighter Tizen operating system.
This, consider this post my upvote.
I see what you did there. The reference to pocket watches and Jules Verne gives it away.
Agree. But this article is beyond ridiculous.
Androidware is not being killed by Qualcomm in anyway. Androidware is dying for the simple reason that Androidware is basically garbage that does not work.
Personally, I was very happy when I got my first mobile phone back in the day, and could stop wearing an annoying wrist watch. Then they wanted me to go back to not just a small wrist watch, but a big and clunky one? With a limited interface compared to big-screen phones?
No thanks. And I don't think I know anyone who has admitted that they're interested in replacing their phone with a smartwatch. So I dunno, how large was the prospective market in the first place?
And yet the Apple Watch outsold the entire Swiss Watch industry last year.
+1. Qualcomm hasn't bothered investing much more into the 2100 line because it's not worth it. Other vendors haven't taken up the reins for the same reason. There's no Qualcomm-driven sikrit conspiracy, it's a market niche that didn't work out.
Smart watches are a niche market and chip makers don't care to service such a market. Clearly this may help Apple Watch, which Apple claims is selling better. Better then what I ask? I think in my travels I have only seen maybe 6 people who have any sort of smart watch. Its a product that is limited in function by its size.
Regular watches do not need charging every day or week.
As someone who just had to wind up my $10000 Breitling because I didn't wear it for 3 days in favour of a sports watch, let's just agree that you have literally no idea.
Do you sleep with your analog watch on every night?
I used to, but I stopped a few years ago. I often take it off downstairs and leave it on the side somewhere in the evenings, rather than putting it on my bedside table though, so it would be annoying to have to plug it in. Oh, and it's about a quarter the thickness and weight of most 'smart' watches.
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Heck, Apple is so embarrassed by their smartwatch sales numbers
I find that hard to believe. Horace Dedieu of Asymco estimates that Apple is now the biggest watchmaker in the world, overtaking Rolex during the last quarter of 2017.
http://www.asymco.com/2017/09/...
8 of 13 people found this answer helpful. Did you?
Hybrid smartwatch, with a small display for notifications (charged once a week) and two mechanical hands (supplied from a separate battery, lasting 5 years) is something that makes sense. No, I do not need hands to move away from the display area when I am reading it, thank you very much.
I'd like to get to the point where I do not need any keyboard nor display, but the watch has the direct brain interface. Or maybe not...
Heck, Apple is so embarrassed by their smartwatch sales numbers that they refuse to break them out separately.
Yup, that'll be why Apple announced TEN DAYS AGO (so yeah, this info was available to you when you posted if you'd bothered to research first) that the Series 3 is now outselling the Series 2 sales by 100% in the last quarter. It'll no doubt also be a factor why Apple's wearables division just posted that their wearables division is 70% up from the previous year (Watch, Airpods, Beats) and why they also stated that that division is the second largest contributor to revenue growth after the iPhone and responsible for bringing in $4bn to the company.
So yeah, Apple must be *real* embarrassed by that. Real REAL embarrassed.
Now, does this state actual sales numbers? Heck no, does it state that sales are UP? Hell yes. Reading your dismissive little rant one would be led to believe the total inverse was true.
Amazing what one can find with one simple Google search, you should try it first before spouting shite dressed up as information.
And yet you ruin them by wearing them in bed. Ah well, money can't buy taste or intelligence.
100% increase over an undisclosed number. Right. It could be from 2 to 2 billion, the GP is right it seems, they are not actually disclosing numbers.
Nah. My early-series Samsung smartwatch charges in just a few minutes, and I do it at my desk. It's only got a tiny little battery, doesn't take long to charge at all. Other than that, the watch runs all day, and all night.
Many benefits. Time (obviously.) Notifications (email, text, chess moves, etc.) without having to drag out and wake up the phone. Lots of watch faces to choose from at any time, all of which offer various interesting and useful combinations of features and looks. Weather. Moon phase (I do astrophotography, so I care.) Timers. Alarms. Step counting. Etc. All right there for me to see, no phone fiddling required. the watch does bluetooth and wifi, so it's pretty well connected when it needs to be. It can proxy basic phone functions, too.
The only thing I'd really like to see is longer battery life. But until / unless displays start consuming a lot less power, that's not a chip problem... that's a display problem.
--fyngyrz*
* Anon due to mod points, because Slashdot moderation rules are stupid. Soylent News does it better. A lot better.
But an automatic mechanical serves the purpose better than a watch you need to charge daily. So, no. It may as well not be a smart watch.
It's the other way around:
Most people wouldn't use them, which is why people aren't buying them, which is why people don't make chips specifically for it.
That said, we could have had them in the 1980's. An LCD watch lasts for years on a tiny battery. Make that LCD screen a generic matrix like on almost every piece of electronic equipment manufactured at the time.
Now put a tiny radio in it that receives only and puts what's received on the screen. Now put a bunch of buttons on it that only actively transmit when pressed. Literally the tech is ancient. Apart from voice-recognition on the device, which the attached phone can do from your pocket anyway, you just needed a mic / transmit button and you could emulate that.
You could couple that to a smartphone-like device in the same way as AndroidWear etc. does, using tech from the 80's. Nobody ever bothered. Because... what's the point? You still need the smartphone.
Miniaturising the smartphone itself is dumb. You lose any function that relies on the screen being practical to see / type on. But sending the same content to a watch display and taking input? Easy. The fact nobody did it back then tells you why... it's not the tech that was in the way, it's the use-case.
I don't know about anyone else, but my first reaction to a tech is normally right, and normally the one I keep throughout my life. Smartphones were really cool at first, but underpowered and overpriced. When the power and price changed, I got on. Bluetooth headsets just made you look a twat and were only useful if you needed to use both hands (which presumably meant you should be concentrating and not on a phone call). I don't see as many people with them nowadays, they've died a death and people just use the phone like a phone. But Bluetooth was a fabulous idea, it just suffered from...battery life, cost, range, etc. all of which have been solved.
But my first reaction to smartwatches was along the lines of "Sure, you look like Bond... but what's the point?" and that's something that hasn't gone away. The use-case of a smartwatch is still just as obscure as ever and they lie firmly in the range of "fancy gadget". Hell, if anything they are just glorified fitness trackers and they were around in the 80's (there's a scene in the original Ghostbusters with a guy whose watch monitors his heart-rate and steps).
The coolness of the tech doesn't trump the necessity of a decent use case. We can miniaturise things to fit on the head of a pin, but unless we need a microwave oven that fits on the head of a pin, what's the point?
I got my SmartWatch as a present. I didn't think I had much need. But having one is helpful but not essential.
For me really useful to get calendar alerts for meetings when I don't have my phone in my pocket when walking around the office.
I get 12-24 hours (never need to worry about charge on even a pretty long work day, sometimes I can use it for sleep tracking).
If it didn't reliably make it through work until I got home I would not be pleased.
I had three criteria for a smart watch.
1) reliably 18 hours battery (zw2 is close)
2) not giant (zw2 is a touch thick, but good)
3) under $200 (I got mine for $70)
I actually figured I'd use it and see how I felt with no big expenditure and buy the zw4 when it came out new if I liked having a smart watch. I guess I won't have the chance.
Wow, sent an e-mail as suggested when clicking on "use classic" banner, and got a fast response that addressed my msg
Smartwatches are niche, just the reality of it.
Apple watches lives in a separate realm because Apple successfully sold it's image as a status symbol of fanboys and such, which is harder on Android land.
Truth of the matter is though that the first generations of Android watches didn't sell enough to justify investing more on it.
Qualcomm doesn't have a domination on making chips for smartwatches because they somehow blocked others from trying. It's just that not many chipmakers are even interested in investing much on that area. It's too much investment for something that people don't seem to be buying much. So it isn't really "Qualcomms fault" if they don't want to invest in something that doesn't seem to turn a profit for them. They are also not blocking any other chipmaker from trying.
Here's the thing though: you can go into eBay, Aliexpress, Gearbest and other chinese vendors websites and get an Android smartwatch for half, if not one fourth the price of big brand smartwatches right now.
I know western tech blogs don't cover it all that much, perhaps another thing that big brands successfully managed to hide because I see no other reason for this to have happened.
I have a couple of chinese brand smartwatches. They fit my needs. It runs a kind of customized version of Android 5.1, I can make calls with them, and they last enough for my needs (take them when I go for a run). It's really an emergency device as I'm not all too interested in health app crap, but they can also do that. It also has access to the full app store, though things work kinda janky as you are trying to run smartphone apps on a watch that has a round display.
The entire problem of it, and the reason why lots of people who bought smartwatches on a wim have them collecting dust in the bottom of some drawer right now, is usability.
Most people get those to track stuff, and they abandon them as soon as they get tired of the tracking game. I tried that before buying one on my smartphone and quickly realized it's something not worth bothering with. Like I said though, a smartwatch is useful when you want to still be reachable in an emergency, but don't wanna cary a smartphone around.
For that, a 100 bucks chinese smartwatch that can take a SIM card is good enough. And to make things worse, as chinese smartwatch manufacturers have probably realized, improving SoC and other functions isn't really all that necessary. Even chinese smartwatches have stopped evolving around a year ago... they are still all on Android 5.1, the hardware hasn't evolved much.
Android Wear is getting killed IN THE MARKET. Google has NOT ANNOUNCED it is discontinuing the product or support for it.
You can wind it without electricity and it takes 1 minute.
...Then the last segment of 'I have always worn a watch', these will not buy a smart watch because they probably already have something decent that runs for years on 1 cell battery. That market is small and shrinking.
Yet more proof the average I.Q. Is shrinking.
110010001000 is proof the average I.Q. is shrinking.. he threw a fit and tried to stick a remote control up his ass on You Tube because his mom canceled his World of Warcraft account..
Weâ(TM)ll I wouldnâ(TM)t think his broke with such a watch, but you are dumb as fuck.
Wearing an expensive dumb watch is even dumber than wearing a smart watch. It servers no purpose. I mean who tell hell wear watches these days? Everyone just use their phones for goodness sake. Itâ(TM)s just jewellery and men who need jewellery is a real loser.... unless you are older than 40 in which case I can excuse you as old habits die hard.... but trying to justify it is like needing to explain that your hands are too small.
I wear a Farrari Tshirt, Bugatti cap, BMW pants and carry a Mercedes umbrella.
I also use a Volvo pen to write on my Mont Blanc notebook.
You poor folks can only dream of emulating my style.
>""Smart" watches don't last even a whole day."
Really? My now old Moto 360.2 does- in fact, it lasts over TWO days. And I certainly don't wear it to bed, it goes on the charger at that point (and is fully charged quickly, often before I am even asleep).
My watch easily outlasts any phone charge... I don't wear that to bed, either.. And the Moto 360.2 display is on ALL THE TIME.
Sure, there are issues with smart watches, but battery really isn't one of them. Size/weight is probably my biggest complaint.
you mean like women? most women's clothes don't have pockets, so the phone is kept in a purse usually. so, half the world's population, approximately, which is slightly larger than 0.
They could reduce the size and weight, but likely by reducing the battery size so it would be a problem then...
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
That's right. Bedroom analysis starting Jan 2018 has revealed the startling reality that my bed has not been made at all. Even worse, the same analysis has indicated that YOU have not once engaged in making it. So it's all your fault.
You're wrong, but you're not the market. The Apple watch is selling extremely well with women.
Apple wins again..
Women who wear clothing without pockets wear purses which hold things and thus don't need to have it on their wrist in an almost unusable form. Thus there's still almost 0 market there. And as proof- the majority of existing smart watch users are not women, whereas they would be if you had something within a mile of being a valid point.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
i ride a motorbike and i keep my phone in a bag while riding. the watch makes checking my notifications in traffic easy.
What messages do you send and receive that can't wait until you get where you're going? Just curious.
Pebble Time Steel is one of my favorite devices as it seems to tick all the boxes.
The problem with android wear is in my opinion is that the fundamentals of what its trying to do is just too much. Give us battery life of at least a week. Give us a always on display so it works as a watch first. Why have a AMOLED screen on a device thats on your wrist when you have a smart phone with an amazing screen in your pocket ? Physical hardware buttons actually make more sense on a watch. A touch screen on a device with a 2inch screen or less barely makes any sense. Why have WIFI on a watch?
Same here. I've loaded tons of custom stuff on mine letting me use it as a control for my smart home stuff. It's great for when I pop down to the bar and forget my phone. I can walk home, and unlock my door with my watch.
My s3 Frontier charges from dead to full in under 2 hours.
I charge it while at work, at my desk. Takes a whole 20 minutes if I do it daily instead of waiting for it to die.
Apparently they don't much like smartwatches, or the market would justify producing the chips.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
It's you who hasn't thought much about this, my friend. In those cases, the guns aren't the problem, irresponsible gun owners and lack of training are the problem. A 12 year old living in a house with a gun should know how to safely handle that gun, even if only to be able to lock it in the gun safe should it ever accidentally be left out; and it should be locked in a damned safe if there are kids in the house. Hell, if should be locked in the safe if there are untrained adults in the house. If you're going to blame a tool, blame the one who left the weapon out and leave those of us who are responsible enough to keep our shit secure the fuck alone. You want handguns regulated, but you want open sales of long guns. Do you not realize that the same 12 year old could accidentally kill someone with a rifle? Again, you're the one who hasn't thought this through. Don't worry, I've been on your side of this argument; I eventually got better.
So why doesn't the 12 year old girl have to lock up all the spoons then...?
You are clearly delusional. Of course guns are a bigger problem than spoons.
Why not go back to the old says.
QNX - 2meg kernel, code in C/low level. Not fricken 10000 libraries.
No SQL
No XML
Do it all in ASM, like a gameboy game.... you can do a full nice watch under 256k code.
Yo all modern whipper snappers are useless writing full on apps under 64kb.
Just give it a C64 Basic interpreter that would even work, a C64 watch at that size would LOOK VERY cool, and run for weeks.
Java retards.
Wow, psycho much? I'm sorry you wren't quick enough to get that reply into the correct thread, but seriously, let it go. You want to focus on the minor point (the spoons) but not the major point (the guns you think should be openly available), making it clear you don't want an actual discussion on this matter. And now you're following me to other topics to go on about it? My friend, you have no argument; that is why you resort to these tactics.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
It's clear you are unwilling to consider your idiocy is not actually correct. I couldn't care less how many guns of what sort you want or have. Doesn't affect me in the slightest. Buy you people are the easiest to make fun of because of your silly beliefs and the lengths you will go to 'justify your position' that guns don't cause problems.
You claim the availability of the weapon is the problem, but only for some kinds of weapon. Even when it was you who chose the alternative 'weapon'. It should be the job of anyone with common sense to point out your idiocy. Unfortunately your country has a severe lack of it, and quite a lot of people who seem to be proud of that fact.
...the death of Android Wear is Appleâ(TM)s fault.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from Macintosh...
It's really difficult to take you seriously when A) you're an AC, B) you cherry-pick which points you'll discuss (choosing the minor points rather than the important talking points, of course) and C) you bring the discussion into other threads where it does not belong. And you accuse me of idiocy?
I'm not the one who said handguns should be heavily regulated and long guns should be openly available, then cried about accidental shootings which can happen with any gun in untrained or careless hands.
That was you.
Idiot.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Yes, when your argument fails, just make up shit. I've never said anything about regulating any type of gun.
You're just deflecting from your idiotic position that guns are as just as dangerous as spoons in the hands of 12 year old girls. And if guns went away gun violence would just be replaced with some other equally dangerous weapon.
How many accidental spoonings have been in the news recently, we know accidental gun violence is so common as to not even warrant a spot in most news anymore. Is is also true for spoons?
I've never said anything about regulating any type of gun.
You're right, that comment was made by pnutjam long before you showed up. My apologies for attributing it to you; it was over two weeks ago and I've had the flu.
You're just deflecting from your idiotic position that guns are as just as dangerous as spoons in the hands of 12 year old girls.
Could it not be, rather, that you are misunderstanding my position, despite having had almost 2 weeks to figure it out? And that thread would have been where to sort that out; not here. Sorry, you just don't get it and this isn't the place for me to explain it to you.
And if guns went away gun violence would just be replaced with some other equally dangerous weapon.
Right now, the most powerful weapon is a nuclear bomb. Since most of us can't wield those, the most powerful weapon we have access to is a gun, which does make a simple knife seem relatively weak. Absent guns, knives are every bit as powerful; like a gun, they require someone to either be equally well-armed or to have a significant statistical advantage in order to win the fight. Knives even bring the advantage of not running out of ammo when used in their default mode and, in a pinch, can become a ranged weapon if thrown. Getting back to spoons, you seem to miss the fact that (as per the links I provided) I was referring to spoons specifically prepared as knives so, in reality, we were talking about knives this whole time.
You ask why spoons (neigh, knives) shouldn't need to be locked up if guns do need to be and, well, my answer to that is go ahead and require it for all deadly weapons. And that would include spoons which have been specifically sharpened to serve as makeshift knives.
How many accidental spoonings have been in the news recently?
Again, considering what was actually being discussed... People slitting their wrists or accidentally lobbing off a thumb is so commonplace that it doesn't even make the news anymore. Inmates sharpening spoons (or chicken bones, or toothbrushes, or even rolled up paper) into makeshift knifes and shanking each other with them is so common it's no longer news.
we know accidental gun violence is so common as to not even warrant a spot in most news anymore
Really? That's why we hear about it on an almost weekly basis, while we rarely hear of blade-related accidents even though they occur on a daily basis? Huh, seems the guns are still newsworthy and the other weapons are so commonplace that we don't even talk about them anymore.
Therein lies the problem.
Now, since this is not the place for this discussion, this will be my last post on the matter. It's easy enough to contact me directly if you wish to continue.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
Ugh... tactical advantage, not statistical... still getting over that flu.
APK quotes people (including myself) without context and should not be trusted. Just thought you should know.
And I certainly don't wear it to bed, it goes on the charger at that point
The fact that you have to charge it daily kinda proves my point.
Which is that it is a power hungry device whose power usage makes it unreliable at any of its functions, without a power cable nearby.
and is fully charged quickly, often before I am even asleep
It's charged quickly cause it has a tiny battery. Which is a THE main reason for your "biggest complaint" - size and weight.
Half of its insides is taken up by the battery. Probably more when counting the wireless charging circuit.
Next main reason for its size being the dumb UI and skeumorphic design.
Which waste screen real-estate by trying to jam a round hole full of square pegs of textual info and graphics coming from sharp-angled screens.
Humans are not giant squids from Arrival (Spoiler: It's a dumb time travel movie based on misunderstanding of a dumb and discredited linguistic theory.) - we read and write in sequence.
Which means lines of text.
Which means rows.
Which means square-shaped UIs.
Round watch faces are an archaic skeumorphic atavism from an older, less capable, horse-driven age.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens