Comment by HCIdivision17 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by HCIdivision17 | Hacker News Reader

I can't buy into this analysis. I just got a Gear S3 Frontier. It's a literal cell phone, but it looks like a watch. It's fairly comfortable (after the absurdly bad band is replaced), and its interface feels natural.

It's the watch I wanted when I was a little kid with the cereal box Tetris watch. [0] I had a whole bunch of Casio databanks, from the 32 number to 150 number [1] to the neato 'touch screen' version I saved up for a year to buy [2]. I remember dreaming of getting that computer watch off SkyMall's catalog (can't find a link just now), and dreamed of having something like it. Now I have a gizmo more powerful that Roger Smith's in BigO.

Again, it is an actual cell phone. My inner child is gleeful about it. But here's the gripe: the software to talk to it is only available on a mobile device. ONLY. Any my phone is more than 4 years old, so it turns out my bluetooth can't talk to it.

Still an awesome watch, and I can't wait to upgrade my phone and load my usual apps on it. Would I have gotten it if it were smaller, less capable? Probably. I tried to get an S2, but my phone store wouldn't sell it while the S3 was on the way.

EDIT: This is one of the first watches I've seen that is capable of standing on its own (somewhat) if untethered from a phone. There have been cell phone watches, but not at this price point, and not with the same slick interface.

[0] You know the one: https://stevecochrane.com/v3/2006/09/15/tetris-should-be-eve... [1] http://archive.casio.com/products/archive/watches/databank/d... [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/timepieceslove/6362901777/

>This is one of the first watches I've seen that is capable of standing on its own (somewhat) if untethered from a phone. There have been cell phone watches, but not at this price point, and not with the same slick interface.

Am I living in a parallel universe or just the future? You can get watch phones for less than the price of an actual (decent) watch. You can get ones that run Android for less than a hundred bucks. I don't understand all the hype about these super-expensive, low-functionality things (although your Gear S3 Frontier seems nice).

Here's one: http://m.banggood.com/KINGWEAR-KW88-1_39-inch-MTK6580-Quad-C...

Nope, I just live under a rock apparently. The S3 nails the sweet spot of functionality and form for me, but from the looks of it I apparently could have gone all-in much sooner.

Nah, it's not just you. I just find it inexplicable when Apple releases "the Apple watch! Super expensive! Doesn't make phone calls! Doesn't have a camera! Almost completely pointless!" and the crowd goes nuts.

Apple is generally not the first out of the gate in a product category, but that hasn't hampered their success. I fully expect an untethered Apple Watch sometime.

To be sure. I really don't like the style, but I can't deny that they boomed the market for smartwatches. You could by a cell phone watch decades ago, but it wasn't particularly awesome. But now, with the amount of tech that can be crammed in the same space, combined with the fantastic power management and battery densities, we're seeing real functional stuff.

And you bet Apple will have some sort of untethered watch. I bet it's expensive though. Not as a joke, but to make sure it doesn't compete with their flagship. Or maybe not; if Samsung's method works and people bundle the 4G watch with a phone just as much, maybe we just get that much more connected.

Regardless, I think it's pretty premature to be whinging about the market for smartwatches failing like the article.

Apple is not averse to cannibalizing one of the products for another of their products (because it's better for them to do it than for a competitor to do it!). It's hard to imagine a watch form factor replacing many uses of the smartphone, but I could imagine some people who opt for watch + tablet rather than watch + phone. The screen on the watch is just too small for many of the things that people use their phones for.

I didn't interpret the article as saying that the market for smartwatches was failing. My read of it was that smartwatches are consolidating around the Apple Watch, given marketshare numbers and what has happened with the competitors so far.

IMHO, there's a lot of room for growth and there's no reason to assume that Apple will dominate in marketshare (though if recent history is a guide they may dominate in profit).

Soo .... it's a cell phone that needs a cell phone to work ?

Sounds more like a bluetooth headset that you wear on your wrist

It doesn't need a cell phone to work. It's got it's own 4g connection. He mentioned that his watch doesn't connect to his phone.

What he mentioned was :

> But here's the gripe: the software to talk to it is only available on a mobile device. ONLY.

talk is ambiguous

No, that's the cool bit: it's like a cell phone on your wrist!

The 4g connection is pretty good, and I think the call quality is pretty decent. Battery can only handle maybe an hour and a half of call per day (between charges), but I'm not too chatty, so it works great for me.

> But here's the gripe: the software to talk to it is only available on a mobile device. ONLY.

So "talk" here means "change settings"? That's what confused me.

Right? It really violates the Law of Least Astonishment. I think part of the idea is that the phone serves as a close hub to get push notifications from, since it doesn't retrieve my mail without the phone. Which honestly I'm starting to think I preferred (you really start to notice how much nonsense heads your way when the notifier is on your wrist).

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