> What the watch gives you is hands-free informationBut 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.