Smartwatch sales are tanking
techcrunch.com
techcrunch.com
What I get now is some piece of crap that needs to be charged every night. So I basically have no features while I'm sleeping. I can't just wake up in the middle of the night an instantly know what the time is.
As a battery saving measure, the time isn't displayed until I turn my wrist and wait some obscene amount of time (around a second?). It also goes from being dark to being lit... so much for being discrete.
I wish they would stop calling these things "watches" just because they go on your wrist. I expect anything called a watch to have the features of a watch and be on my wrist pretty much all of the time. Call it a fitness tracker if it's not meant to be worn 24/7.
Let me know when battery life is within a couple of orders of magnitude of real watches, then maybe I'll revisit.
Good, because of the pot and kettle thing.
A watch should be good to tell the time. smartwatches are a throwback to the 70's where you had to press a little button.
I'm still happy enough with being able to more or less customize my watchface, but if you both care about your privacy and want to make serious use of the "smart" smartwatch features, I don't think there's currently anything on the market for you.
I sleep with my Apple Watch on every night. I use it in tandem with my phone as an alarm clock. (That's actually incredibly useful. I haven't slept through an alarm a single time since I started doing this.)
It needs to be charged once per 24 hour period, but it doesn't have to be charged at night. I pop mine on the charger in the morning when I get ready for the day (shower, etc.) and at night when I get ready for bed. That's all it takes for me to keep it charged. It's never died on me in a year. In fact, it's never even entered power saving mode, which will retain the features of a "dumb" watch (telling the time) which you stated you desired at night.
Traditional look, smart features, and 2-year battery life.
Having an Apple Watch now for about 6 months, I can say I love it, and none of those things (and I shared the same skepticism before buying one) have proven to be issues.
I don't tend to look at my watch when I sleep - so that one's easy, and when you charge the watch its in a mode that gives off a low-light time (nightstand mode, i think they call it). On top of that, it takes about an hour to charge, so often I end up charging it during my night time regiment, and by the time I go to bed, i COULD wear it (if i need to make sure I'm up early for something, i wear it so i get the vibration)
If you want a traditional watch, then get a traditional watch - comparing it to a traditional watch and holding to the same standards is not a position of common sense...
Totally agree, the old Nokia phones used to last entire week with a single charge, I don't see people hanging on to it.
I've seen many skeptics who end up actually likeing smart watches after using them.
Only one person I've known who's had a smartwatch has told me that they were worth the money. In general, the consensus has been "Given that I have it, I like it. But it's not a big enough deal to be worth several hundred dollars."
I don't think this is accurate. Someone brought up a comparison of smartphone to a Nokia phone, but this is not the same kind of comparison. A smartphone greatly simplified user interface and made accessing the internet and sharing much easier, and also created new ways of interacting (swiping etc). Whereas, the watch seems to be very featureful sure, but the internet is already accessible using your phone. And the added worry of carrying yet another charger when traveling (and the horror of losing it...). Now, a traditional watch, you don't worry about it for YEARS, not a week. Its mostly another ornament, like a cap or a shirt.
It may be a difference in temperament. But personally, I like to reduce things in my life which require any form of attention: because I forget things very easily (or am just too lazy to do them).
Also, this may not apply to everyone, but there is simply too many beautifully crafted wristwatches out there for me to ever seriously consider a smartwatch.
That was exactly my primary concern. In practice though, you (well, I, and most people) charge my phone at night. I set it next to the bed and plug it in... now my watch charger is right next to my phone charger, so its a no-brainer (and the wristband is fast on/off - thats important to me). Turns out because of the phone, i had no new habit to get into :)
The same happens with e.g. paper vs computer. With paper the "battery" lasts forever. But you tradeoff some things to get other stuff.
>What I get now is some piece of crap that needs to be charged every night. So I basically have no features while I'm sleeping. I can't just wake up in the middle of the night an instantly know what the time is.
Well, you probably have your phone next to you, your alarm clock next to the bed, and several other clocks nearby in the bedroom.
So I should supplement my smart watch with other devices in order to know what time it is? Makes $ense.
In order to know what time it is:
(1) at bed at night &&
(2) if you haven't kept it charged &&
(3) if you don't charge it by the bedstand
Besides, no reason to buy a smartwatch for its timekeeping, you could just as well buy a $10 Casio watch and be done with it. Or one of those alarm-clock/radio bedstand thingies.
What does the watch being waterproof have to do with wearing it in bed?
my casio digitals are solar. life is too short to replace or charge watch batteries. i mean, this problem was solved nearly a century ago.
the cheapest automatics are made by seiko and are barely $50. solars are cheaper.
i'll never buy a smartwatch until they're one or the other. watches should not have batteries or any other design feature that renders them useless on purpose.
No Smartwatch for me, I think my mechanical watch is much smarter.
It has to solve SOME problem that some subset of people care about so intensely that you don't mind the many ways in which it is not as mature as the incumbent.
It's clear that the current smart watches do not accomplish this for you. That's ok as long as there is an initial target audience for which they do. Whether that is the case right now.. well, we'll see.
The tricky part is that they face a crossing-the-chasm problem now. The initial group of users is happy - but does that generalize to all users? Is it worth continuing to invest money into what's currently a niche market? Tivos, Blackberries, WebTV, 1st-gen PCs all found success in an early adopter market that was roughly as large as the smartwatch market is now, but it took a major re-envisioning of the concept before they became a mainstream product that all customers wanted.
The device in question is a Fitbit fitness tracker. The killer feature regarding the battery is the ratio of life to charging time, viz that I can wear it all day and all night (gaining sleep tracking and, best of all, a silent vibrating alarm) and keep the battery topped up in the duration of a daily shower. Not 24/7, but 23.6/7 easily.
My Moto360 turns on instantly when I flip the wrist.
> I can't just wake up in the middle of the night an instantly know what the time is.
The Moto360 charging on its cradle shows the time pretty much like an ordinary stationary clock. It glows softly in the dark and shows you the time. It's a lot more visible that way compared to an old wristwatch.
> Let me know when battery life is within a couple of orders of magnitude of real watches
That is a legitimate complaint.
However, showing time is much less important nowadays, I think. Pretty much anything that uses electricity can show you the time. In my kitchen, there's something like 3 time displays visible at once. My wife's car has two (one is the old car clock, the other is from the new radio I've installed a while ago).
The reason why I wear a smartwatch is to avoid having to pull out the phone every time I get a notification. That, IMO, is the killer app of the smartwatch. I get the notification sound, just flip the wrist; decide whether it needs attention, and act accordingly or ignore. Done. Super-useful.
I agree that as timepieces alone the smartwatches are a regression.
Check out Vector Watch. It's more like a traditional watch that is also smart (it tells you when you got a phone call, an email, a meeting etc), the battery lasts for more than 30 days and it's always on.
Some might say that's exactly what they have :)
After the world is over, I'll still be able to tell time.
I would love a smart watchband so I can get meeting alerts but I don't see a way they can make a smartwatch that beats my $100 mechanical.
I'd have to get one and try it out first, though; it seems like a reasonable compromise.
It's also beautiful. It's the only thing I wear, other than my wedding ring, that could be considered jewelry. I'm going to give it to my son some day. And at that moment, perhaps 40-60 years from now, it will still be a functional work of art.
I look at smart watches vs. dumb watches and just think it's a bunch of total nonsense. Eventually, yes, they will likely get their, but it's going to 50-something years from now when it's cheaper to put a super computer in something than it is to leave it out.
If you take Apple out of the picture sales stay pretty steady. Samsung grows a little, Garmin grows a lot. Far from "tanking".
Smartwatches will continue to sell steadily (to early adopters and developers) until the tech catches up.
The new Apple Watch is already a huge improvement over the last model, but mainly in software. WatchOS was terrible until 3.0 and it still isn't there. It tries to do too much because Apple doesn't quite seem sure what it's supposed to do.
For telling the time, displaying notifications, fitness tracking, and a couple of other things it's great. Why then is the homescreen a complete mess of icons for half-features? Why (until WatchOS 3.0) could it take upwards of ten seconds to open an app?
I imagine Apple would never release the iPad today without first-party weather/stocks/calculator apps.
The timeframe has to be set to the product lifecycle (i.e. t=0 is the launch) to make comparisons or determine trends. YoY is skewed heavily by the product launches.
As a watch guy (and most watch people are guys) the first smart watch I've been excited about is the upcoming gear S3:
http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s3/
Because it looks like a real watch and has the rotating bezel for input, but I recognize I'm a tiny market.
I hope it doesn't set my wrist on fire.
That or just make phones smaller. My favorite flip phone is smaller than even the smallest iPhone. I'd probably still use it today if my network still supported 2g.
I love that bezel input idea! I hadn't seen the Gear S3
I think that means it will sit on a shelf unworn for 6 months
The problem is a watch can only be so big before it's too big, but input and battery life on small devices sucks (for now)
If they can't do that then first of all Why and more importantly what's driving innovation in hardware?
I.e. never? I mean, I can picture making phone calls or dictating SMS by voice with a smart watch, but people are not going to be browsing the web or taking pictures with a tiny wrist device when they already have a 5-6" inches display device on their pockets, and almost no one would ditch the latter for the former if they had to choose.
I think it's likely that smart watches will continue to be niche devices for the foreseeable future, at very least until someone figures out a killer feature that sets them apart from smartphones.
People might also not have 5-6" devices in their pockets, but special glasses with HUDs or smart contact lenses...
[1] Smart contact lenses are such a crock. Seriously, guys, how do you think you're going to power these things?
It could basically split smartphone features into two gadgets that are easier to carry around. For that, though, we still need quite a few leaps in miniaturization.
For the same reasons we use smartwatches with our phones today. It's more plausible they'd fit a great cpu, cellular phone, gps, etc on a watch size, than they'd fit it in a decent glass frame.
So the watch could handle most things, plus there are interactions that can't be done with glasses (like measuring one's heart rate, or similar).
What made smartphones useful was people discovered new uses that you just couldn't use a computer for. You can't do turn-by-turn navigation with your laptop in the car. It's nearly useless if you're standing at a street corner in an unfamiliar city and want to know where the closest coffeeshop with wifi is. You can't use it to take a picture of the cute little ducks crossing the road and send it to your wife. It does you no good when you want to hail a car to take you home.
People haven't yet discovered similar uses for a smartwatch. It's highly likely that they exist, though. What the watch gives you is hands-free information: you can receive quick, 1-5 second notifications even if you're carrying something or immersed (sometimes literally) in physical activity. I've already found this useful for getting notifications that my founders' group has changed where we're meeting while I'm driving there, or that my wife has already gone to the grocery store, or for checking off items on my shopping list while carrying shopping bags. There are probably other bigger uses waiting to be discovered.
But your phone can also give you that, through earphones or headsets. Smartwatches must find new uses that a phone cannot also do as well, which is a much harder bar to clear.
For example:
> notifications [...] while I'm driving there
Phones can do that already, and will do more and more as CarPlay etc become mainstream.
> checking off items on my shopping list while carrying shopping bags
Siri can probably do that already (I use Trello for my shopping lists and it works fine as it is, tbh).
The one use where smartwatches will likely be unbeatable, forever and ever, is fitness/health: carrying around a phone in those circumstances is simply more annoying than carrying a watch. Once they get cheap enough, they might replace smartcards and badges for access control. If smartglasses become mainstream, they could augment each other (your glasses display and record, your watch stores and computes) and actually replace phones altogether; but alone, I don't see them going anywhere.
That being said, I don't think I'll get the Gear S3. The biggest problem is that while the S2 works great for displaying notifications, the lack of phone apps makes it difficult to take any action on most of them without switching to your phone. On top of that, I found it extremely difficult to get text into the watch to do things like respond to texts with anything other than a pre-selected message template. The T-9 keyboard was awkward and S Voice didn't work well at all (in part, I'm sure, to the quality of the microphone embedded in the watch).
I don't think smartwatches will be much more than notification mirrors until the ability to quickly input text gets better, probably through improved voice dictation.
One other thing about the S3: I really don't understand their choice to offer cellular connectivity only one the Frontier model. That feature is one of the main things that would attract me to the device, but I don't like the styling on the frontier.
I don't know why they are not selling, but clearly combination of their advantages and disadvantages is not compelling enough compared to alternatives.
Looks like they should turn to some niche marketing strategies if they're not already because people who like Pebbles REALLY like Pebbles I find, though they are rare to begin with.
Since I previously wore watches, I find it natural to wear. And because I never had luxury watches (Seiko was my ceiling), I don't mind that smartwatches aren't fancier-looking. I understand that watch-nevers and timepiece aficionados may feel differently...
The KS backers have nothing delivered.
Annoyingly, the folks who waited for the store version will be getting theirs before the Kickstarter backers do. The community took a big hit when they prioritized WalMart over the folks who helped them get off the ground. Pebble's community has always been a strong point for the company - not sure if that'll keep being true, so their blip might turn into a bigger slide.
Disclaimer: Backer of Pebble 2 who won't be getting his watch until at least mid-November.
The key factor is to consider which senses are optimal UI for each device. Smartphones dominate the visual and audio senses. Smartwatch simply can't compete there. So smartwatch should have a very simple very low power display like the Fitbit and Pebble and maybe a simple speaker/mic.
So what sense is the smartwatch good for? It's touch. There is a lot of potential of using vibrations/touch as a UI. For example, I think the Apple watch vibrates for turns when you do a Maps route. That's a good start. They need to focus more on things like this. There's a lot you can communicate with vibration, kind of like morse code (such as two quick vibrates, a long vibrate, etc.)
And now Apple has a very advanced touch sensor (the new one in iphone 7). Get rid of that silly big screen on Apple watch. Put the touch sensor there. Why not just allow thumbprint scan, wave my watch at a Apple Pay terminal, and buy things? Way less effort than taking out my phone.
These kind of pure touch and vibration UI is a huge open field. And I think Apple somewhat understands this. But they need to make the big step of dropping that screen. Because that's not where the smartwatch is strong. And it would also allow long battery life which is more important for smartwatch. People are used to daily charge for phones. But much less tolerant of that for watches.
Just in case you missed it, this is already supported, and it's somewhat better than you're suggesting. Once the watch is unlocked, it does not need additional authentication to pay until it leaves your wrist (at which point it relocks). Double click the side button to put it into pay mode.
https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=apple%20watch,pebb...
Seems interest in smart watches happens at Christmas time. There is a problem with that because you don't buy people the same present every year and there cannot be that many people wanting a new smart watch at Christmas, particularly if it is marginally better than their existing smart watch.
I think the same people that bought 3D televisions and tablets bought smart watches, they will be wanting something else next. Maybe they will return to buying smart watches when there is some new battery-defying functionality to them, i.e. they are as good as smart phones in miniature with lots of previously unimagined 'Pokemon Go' grade apps that make the upgrade worth it.
I also do not believe that any of the smart watches cut the mustard as far as true watch aficionados are concerned. To some people the fanciest ceramic iWatch is on an equal par with a resin calculator watch, lacking intangible heritage things and therefore not a cool item in their minds (they probably fear not being able to use a smart watch). These same people were equally snobbish about digital photography, therefore it could take a generation before smart watches are accepted 'artistically' by people who are like that.
I am hoping that a category killing smart watch gets made by Google in the same price range as a Chromecast. For £30 a lot of people would give a smart watch a go.
Now here we are and society isn't going in for it. Bluetooth head sets, smartwatches, Google Glass, none of it is sticking. Even though smart phones are becoming cumbersome due to size and inability to use hands-free or even one-handed well.
Are we ever going to see a cyberpunk future?
I have a Nexus 6 (one of the larger phones) and don't find it cumbersome at all. It's certainly more practical compared to trying to do anything meaningful on a smartwatch.
Mind you I had a blue collar job at the time so there was a lot of opportunity for phone destruction.
Solve the power problem and we'll see a huge jump in technology. Right now they are trying to solve it by making more and more efficient processors that use less power and perform better over the same amount of time.
We didn't get to see a steampunk future starting with the early 1900s even though books like Jules Verne's were quite popular at the time (and quite some time after that), so I don't think we're going to see a cyberpunk future anytime soon, if ever. The best that we can do is to re-watch shows like "Akira" and think about what could have been.
Google Glass was obscenely expensive, invitation-only -- circumstances around its availability made it clear it's a tech demo for technology 'futurists', and not a product within reach (or intended for) the general public. Naive defaults about it recording everything caused a privacy storm; behavior on part of its users led to widespread derision.
Smartwatches in their current form are solutions looking for a problem. It's obscene that notifications and fitness are the only two use-cases most makers were able to identify.
All these devices are plagued by voice control: speaking to your device in public is neither very considerate to those around you, nor privacy-preserving. The fact is, even if speech recognition systems are working well, most people are uneasy issuing content-rich commands, like entire bodies of emails, in public earshot. Until someone solves this shortcoming reliably, none of these devices will see widespread public appeal.
You mean, crypto wars and threats of civilization impacting DDoS don't count?
They have GPS watches, but the battery seems to last maybe a day or two. My dad isn't going to remember to do that, so I would need to do so on a less frequent basis.
Maybe with some self-charging based on user movement (they used to make self-winding watches)? Keep GPS off until receive (authenticated) SMS message asking it to turn on, then report back position? Or maybe just triangulate position based on cell towers every 15 min...
But it does pretty much everything I need right now so I don't see a point in upgrading. The analysts are hoping for an upgrade market.
Hence I charge phones and laptops during the day and only when someone is around to supervise.
That's all I wanted it for, that's all it does. And most importantly - it's priced like that's all it does.
But they seem to get equal or better battery life out of the Transflective LCDs currently used, which operate on a similar principle as e-ink, in the sense of how the light reaches your eyes:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_d...
I now pay for gas, small groceries and various other things with my watch. I unlock my computer by just pressing the spacebar instead of typing my password. The killer app for me is when I'm cycling or motorbiking and have directions appear on my wrist instead of my pocket.
The charge seems to last just enough to fall flat at the most inconvenient times, i.e. when I am just about to leave the house all day, or right when I am about to go to bed (I use the watch primarily for sleep tracking).
Most of the apps on the watch kind of require you to wear it consistently all of the time to give you meaningful data, however current battery life means you end up with large gaps in your human telemetry that your data is always missing vital chunks.
Your friend gave you a $300+ Apple Watch, not a $50 sleep tracker. Charge it at night and if you really do want a sleep tracker then buy a sleep tracker.
Strange analogies aside - the point of my post is that the Apple Watch uses too much of my time and energy to 'baby' it and make sure it is operationally ready. Yes, I love unlocking my Mac with it, getting the time and reading notifications on it, so big bonus there. I did used to have Fitbit device for a long while there and enjoyed the fact that I only had to plan and think about charging it every 2 or 3 weeks, rather than every 1.3 days.
Even if it was an even 24 hours recharge cycle for the Watch, it would be a darn sight more convenient, as I could get into routine of charging it at a set time every day, but the fact that it (a) runs out of charge at different times of the day and (b) takes a long time to fully charge up means that it just takes up too much of my conscious thought to manage it, and I would far rather spend that time and energy elsewhere on things I consider more important. Heck, I have enough trouble keeping my cats fed and happy - I don't need something else constantly bullying me as well.
Similar with your Ferrari analogy above. Rules permitting, it would make an awesome golf cart and I would do so without hesitation. My main problem would be 'babying' it again and worrying about other golfers denting it with errant shots or thrown clubs (you'd have to play golf with me one day to see how prevalent that is among the guys I play with!) :)
First world problems, I know, but I think it is a big factor as to why most of the first world seems to shun the smart watches.
Also, you are a way better driver than me.
I wear "nice" watches occasionally, usually any time i have to wear a suit. As a toy, an epaper watch with actual physical hands would be pretty cool. The two extra hands on something like a diving watch could be used for other gauges, maybe unread email count or something goofy like that.
A watch seems like the right target for that semi connected on call state. Sort of like a modern pager. I'm not reading email, or available on hangouts. But i'll get the alert that we need to communicate. Low key, non intrusive, acceptable at a funeral. Just a few bits of information.
One of the original smart watches was Swatch's The Beep - a watch / pager mashup.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/wear-your-heart-on-y...
I do see value added in the notification mirroring, however. There are many situations where it's useful to see updates without taking out and unlocking your phone: at a meeting, with your hands full, walking around in a crowd. I hadn't worn my watch for the better chunk of a year until two weeks ago when I needed instant Twitter notifications during business hours should a convention I attend start selling its badges. Now that I have those badges, it's back into the drawer until needed again. My calculator watch is more comfortable and I have metal watches that look nicer. Unless I have a defined need for notifications on my wrist, I currently am better off with a conventional watch.
If I just needed to know the time, I'd buy a watch. If I need to know the time and make a call, I'd buy a smartphone.
Which I did.
Welcome to the future. We don't really solve problems - we just invent new ones and call the old problems solved.
Hell, I don't even remember what problem smartwatches were supposed to solve!
I'm going to go get off my own damn lawn.
- Screening calls
- Switching/pausing music
- Reading and (briefly) responding to texts
- checking the time (no, seriously : p)
I have the first generation of motorola 360, I wear it every day and charge it every night. The hardware is fine (for a first gen) and I like its style. But, I unpaired it from my phone a long time ago, because I ran into too many issues. First the connection was sucking my phone's battery to a point it wasn't funny anymore, then updating an app on my phone would crash the watch's OS, and again randomly causing the thing to become uncomfortably hot. Finally the overhaul quality of the ecosystem went down with each updates (notifications delayed, vibrations missed, glitches...)
The features I don't miss:
- Fitness & heart rate (that thing was a joke)
- Music (I have a phone for that, thank you)
- Note taking (just no. I'm not ever again talking to my watch in public)
- Text responding (what is wrong with you?)
The features I do miss a little bit:
- GPS guidance with vibrations when biking (two for left, three for right, - that was genius)
- getting my phone's notifications (when it was working)
USAA has a great watch app, though, which somehow has many fewer reliability/latency problems than every other app. I can do most of my banking just walking down the hall while my phone is locked up at my desk.
I own an Apple Watch, and a Pebble before it, but honestly until more devices are addressable by such devices, it's usability is limited.
I think it may also have something to do with the relative popularity of Alexa and pervasive voice input in general - though I shy away from those due to privacy concerns. I mean, why wear a watch and tap for Siri when you can just call out for Alexa (and now Google) to ask about weather?
(edited for clarity)
instead, i want a band. I'm still waiting for an Android Wear band. i want something a bit like the Microsoft band 2 [1], but slimmer and a smaller screen. something as a notification device and to take voice notes. but i don't need it to replace my watch because it's not "on" when i look at it.
For telling the time, I'll either wear a "proper" watch (as well) or none at all.
[1] I'm on my 3rd ms band. they randomly die (stop charging). ms are good about it and replace it quickly... but soon my warranty will be up and it's all over.
The reality is that the smart watch is little more than a smaller screen attached by wireless personal area network to the real computer; which has a better (bigger, brighter, larger buttons) and more responsive screen.
I stopped wearing a normal watch once I had a decent pocket chronometer (a comparatively primitive simple pocket flip phone).
I think that's the marketing problem here; it isn't clear to the average consumer what the use case, if any, actually is.
I continue to wear one because it is easier to check the time that way than dig the thing out of my pocket, turn it on, get it to recognize my thumb or demand a pin, etc., especially when driving.
And, of course, because I'm old and not hip.
https://www.etsy.com/listing/57044295/samsonite-briefcase-wi...
It works great as a case for my laptop. It's fun being unhip :-)
Edit: I've used modern soft laptop bags, but they tend to develop tears and small holes through which things fall out unnoticed. Urgh. The Samsonite doesn't have that failure mode.
It had 3 uses: 1) seeing who's ringing and dismissing calls in meetings where you left the ringtone on 2) being able to read full message threads through the notifications without having to "read" them in the apps (sneaky for Messenger and Hangouts) 3) pretending you're not a tourist by getting navigation directions on the wrist rather than being obvious and looking at your phone.
Suffice to say, I now wear a nice normal watch that I love dearly.
Smartwatches will always be a secondary display and should be marketed as such.
2017 may well be the year for watches. This topic is pointless now given it's end of Oct and BF and Christmas is coming up soon. Let's revisit this topic mid 2017.
*edit, spelling.
As a former owner of the old Casio and Timex first waves of smartwatches, I fail to get any interest on 21st version of them.
So you should be able to go out with your Pebble + SomethingElse and leave the phone at home, if we're talking GPS or tracking.
Disclaimer: I own a Pebble Time, I backed the Pebble Time 2 and the Pebble Core.
- Pebble 2: 7 days
- Pebble Time 2: 10 days
- Pebble Time: 5 days
In practice, the Pebble Time is good for about 4 days. I suspect that the other estimates are about a day above what most people will see as well.