Google Rumored To Be Making A Smartwatch, Too | Hacker News Reader

Google Rumored To Be Making A Smartwatch, Too

techcrunch.com

25 pointsAndreasLuckey48 comments

The name "Watch" misleads. No one¹ needs a dedicated device to tell time anymore.

What may work in the market is one more tier of information interface. cloud > desktop > tablet > phone > ???.

I keep my phone in a front trouser pocket. I find that the overwhelming majority of the "dig out the phone"² events during the day are to observe a bit of recently arrived information, or, less frequently, to issue a temporally context sensitive command. Both of these actions would be easily handled by a tiny display with enough room for a few touch zones and limited gesture recognition.³

It doesn't need to be strapped to my wrist. I might prefer it clipped to my sleeve or in a shirt pocket. (return of the fob to keep it from escaping?)

It won't work for everyone. It will be useless to people who spend the day with uncorrected farsighted vision. They might as well pull out their phones as their eye glasses.

It only needs enough energy to get through the day, I'll put it in a charger at night. Make it cheap enough and sell it in a two pack and I'll just swap them in the morning.

Do the software right with proximity detection, and I'll have a virtual one on my desktop screen, and a slightly larger one stuck to my car dashboard (solar charger to avoid cable).

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¹ except nurses, and…

² I also find that my "drop the phone" events are almost all precipitated by a "dig out the phone". Eliminate the dig, avoid the drop. Women who use purses appear to have similar issues.

³ I'd also like to give it voice commands rather than navigating a complex UI, but that is just feeding a mic to the phone or tablet. And if I could hold it to my ear and let it tell me something that would also be great, but don't make it too big to cram in that feature. Still, we are talking a <$100 device here. Bluetooth 4.0 covers all the communications, tiny touch display, speaker, mic, accelerometer.

"I might prefer it clipped to my sleeve or in a shirt pocket."

COTS "Sony Ericsson liveview bluetooth phone remote". $25 from amazon, eligible for free prime shipping too. Comes with a clip holder and a watch holder.

UI is a fail, also charging. Oh and its buggy and the battery life is supposedly dismal. Aside from the 99 other things it can do when its actually working, which is why the UI fails, it can act as a music player remote (hit pause, etc). I wanted one for in my car as a simple remote when I'm listening to music. The UI doesn't do "simple" and is worse than just fumbling around with the phone. Also charging issues in the car. Oh well.

The biggest problem with bluetooth watches and phones is all the marketing is front loaded on R+D, everyone hears about "might be sold next year". No marketing at or beyond launch, no one knows there's a zillion already available. It doesn't help that whats delivered is usually an epic fail if GOOG shipped something that merely met its advertised specs, unfortunately that in itself would be revolutionary in the bluetooth watch field. GOOG is good at that, look a the nexus line, its basically an honest device without the shovelware and thats all you need to beat the competition who have dishonest claims and chock full of shovelware.

In this case, it is not just a matter of good execution. The first successful product also must solve the 'why put something on your arm again' problem.

If I had to direct designers, I would send them away with something like 'display that communicates wirelessly with a master device, as thick and as durable as a tattoo, one month battery life, input device desirable, but optional'.

Nobody would meet those requirements, but it helps setting the goalposts. It definitely would direct them away from the one cm or so thick design in the article being discussed.

No one needs an iPhone as a dedicated cellphone either (surely you can get any other low end device, and Androids sync to Google out of the box.)

Moreover, the name 'watch' isn't misleading in that it's kept highly relevant to all you described. You have a little device "on watch" for all the info you need, at a glance's notice. By itself, "watch" doesn't imply time, so I don't see your point in as much as usage of words evolve organically and don't need to perfectly describe their job.

Ah, a little blindspot on my part from that word. I don't associate the verb form of "watch" with the timekeeping noun form "watch" in any way.¹ Wikipedia guesses at the origin of the timekeeping device "watch" name as a corruption of an Old English word for watchman, or inherited from the concept of a naval duty shift, "watch".

I have no intention of "watching" my device. If we are going to repurpose an existing word, let's call it a "glance", though that ignores the command giving aspect. I propose we call these little information tabs "glance-and-pokes"².

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¹ I feel sorry for anyone learning English, who will come to visit, be met at the airport after a long flight, stressed to finally try his English in America, and be asked by his new American counterpart: "Djeetchet?"

² There is a long standing corporate policy preventing me, explicitly me, from naming any customer facing entity which I create. I admit it is well founded. I've learned to ensure my project names can be easily replaced without renaming files and too many internal variables.

Also slap in a pedometer and sleep monitor and that itself creates a whole new market opportunity. I cant wait for these watches.

Motorola basically already shipped one in 2011:

https://motoactv.com/ http://www.motorola.com/us/consumers/8GB-or-16GB-MOTOACTV/79...

Given the bulk of it, the positioning as a fitness device makes sense.

I'll go ahead and predict that smart watches flop. Hard. I think people want some new thing after tablets are becoming normal, and we thought that was going to be TV, but the content industry has built really good moats around TV so no one can shake it up. So in the urgency to create a new market, smart watches are easy, are direct-to-consumer, have been done in the past and only need polish. That doesn't mean anyone will want one once the "shiny new thing" feeling wears off.

> "have been done in the past and only need polish."

That's the truly hilarious part. If someone delivers a smartwatch that might work, it'll be derided as being "lesser" than the preceding products. [1]

If they deliver something that throws the kitchen sink at the watch form-factor, it will be derided because people have been doing that (unsuccessfully) for years now.

If you ask me, the killer approach for a 'smartwatch' is fuelband/fitbit-style passive data collection [2] paired with proximity based two-factor authentication for smartphones and computers. [3] You can throw in notifications with swipe-to-dismiss. [4] But much more than that is just never going to work well enough to be worthwhile. [5]

The very idea of prolonged interaction with a watch is silly. It's going to be too fiddly to be faster than just pulling your phone out. So why would anyone even bother?

But the tech press would trash such a device.

[1] polish will almost certainly include stripping away functionality that's currently present on watch-phones, just as tablets had to shed desktop OSes.

[2] just go hog-wild with sensors. the biggest value-add will be in providing more/better data to apps and services accessed on other devices.

[3] e.g. you step up to your PC in the morning, it asks your password. For the rest of the day, when you walk away it auto-locks and when you come back, it unlocks. Similarly your phone only asks for an unlock code once every 4 or 8 hours and in between treats the presence of the watch as a sufficient token.

[4] Also: "swipe to open this on my phone". So one doesn't see a notification on their watch, see something that deserves attention and then have to re-navigate to that notification or app to act upon it.

[5] And, no, no-one wants to talk on a watch-phone like Dick Tracy. And bluetooth headsets & earPod-style headphone/mic combos already have buttons you can press to answer calls without grabbing your phone.

> Google Glass takes wearable computing a step beyond the basic wrist watch. However, the rate of adoption will almost certainly be lower...

Nonsense. Everyone I've talked to about Glass has suggested a new use that I haven't thought of yet, and I've only met one person who wasn't excited about the project.

Everyone I've talked to about smartwatches, on the other hand, doesn't understand. "Why? What can it do that my phone can't?" "But I already have a clock on my phone."

This sentiment is mirrored in the tech media. This might be anecdotal at this point, but I'm predicting a flop for watches and a lot of wasted time and money.

But then, maybe I'm wrong like I was wrong about tablets before the iPad started selling.

Smart watches can succeed because they have different use cases than phones. Do people look at their phones because there is a clock on it, or for some other reason?

I am using a Pebble now and since I have gotten it I no longer look at my phone on a regular basis. In fact I often lose track of my phone because I so rarely take it out.

Although in theory I agree with your idea, the relevant price points of the two products would probably be an important factor in their popularity.

Even if the glass was to be reduced to a $1000 product, I still feel that a lot of people would find that sort of luxury product a little over their price point.

We know so little about the watch (down to its very existence) however you would expect the price point to be similar to other smart watches which are in and around $100. If this was the case, the smaller amount of uses of a $100 device out trumps the virtues of a $1000 device for the vast majority of budget users.

Absolutely! It is a lot easier to introduce a new, innovative product that everyone can visually and conceptually understand as something new. But trying to reinvent a (more or less dead) market is a lot more difficult.

I could see the chances as slightly better for Apple, as they are already in the high priced segment on the verge to a lifestyle/design product. This should connect better to the existing (male) watch market which looks to the outside as having become completely a luxury/accessories market.

Was there any official statement from Apple that they're working on a smart watch? I don't know, but I just think this is a head-fake from them...Like a few other posters, I just don't see the big deal about a 'smart' watch. I want a simple watch.

I agree with most of the people that commented already. I have though about getting a watch (novelty/binary). Then I realize that my phone is always on me and the time is right there.

The only watches I've seen appear to be to signal status. Smart phones do that just as well too.

There are probably special occasions that a watch would be better than a phone but I can't even think of any decent ones. Best I can do is comment that watches are touching you and could include that feedback from your body...heart rate, bp etc. Pretty narrow use case if you ask me though.

On just the subject of a watches and status/fashion.

If I’m going to a formal event I’m going to be be wearing a watch with my suit. It’s a status symbol perhaps, but I’d put it closer to a fashion. And it’s an old fashion - this is not something I see changing in my lifetime.

I would tend to think that a 'smart watch' and a suit is a misstep, more frequently than a winning style. Of course we are talking about products that for practical purposes doesn’t exist. However history has shown that taking tech into fashion is a hard go and this is not the slam dunk that Techcrunch is raving about.

From wikipedia:

In the early 1900s, the wristwatch, originally called a Wristlet, was reserved for women and considered more of a passing fad than a serious timepiece. Men, who carried pocket watches, were quoted as saying they would "sooner wear a skirt as wear a wristwatch"

Well, watch has another little feature: it is almost always on your hand. Now combine that with motion sensors and you have xbox like controller for anything you want, e.g. tablet, TV or computer. Swipe to see next page, next channel, scroll hacker news down. Actually nothing new but better than stupid wrist for motion detection because watch as you said signals status. Apple devices signals status, Apple's watch wouldn't do less. Questions is if technology is small enough to implement that.

Anyway, let's wait and see what market will offer. I remember talking with my coworker about tablets (iPad) 2 years ago wondering what useful they could be for (just checked wikipedia to see that iPad is not even 3 years old). Now tablets are almost commodity.

"I have though about getting a watch (novelty/binary)."

I had one of those a decade ago. Generally the marketing people have no idea what the difference is between binary and BCD, and binary is a little too fiddly to read comfortably at a glance (was that 4 0s in the middle or 3?) so examine the pictures carefully...

I think I thought binary because that was the label but now that I looked it up it was BCD. Still the price combined with already having the clock on the phone (and everything else that is/has a computer now) made it seem like a waste of money.

A watch is good for utility and fashion/status symbol, however I would argue that a smart phone is not remotely on the same level as a watch.

An iPhone or any phone isn't going to make statement compared to an IWC or Patek or most watches.

And really, does a $99 Apple/Samsung/Google &c. watch act as a social signal? I don't think so.

Maybe not to you or me but we might not be the right audience. A phone doesn't signal much to me (or lots of people I'm sure) but there is no shortage of people letting you know what kind of phone they have now.

There are many things that cost less than $99 that act as social signals (there are brands for just about everything).

As someone said above about tablets seeming useless. Maybe there will be a use that nobody is thinking of and it will explode.

Here we go. 3DTV all over again.

Hundreds of people will want these! Hundreds.

3D TV has become a non-issue because it essentially comes for free. All you need is a 120hz display and a transmitter for active glasses. More or less every TV selling for more than £500 includes 3D.

Interesting how the 'competition' isn't in smart glasses ala google glasses. Guess there's not much competition when real innovation is involved.

While I've heard much about them, I have yet to try out Google glasses. So the innovation is still on the horizon from my perspective.

Unfortunately for the smartwatch folks, a friend of mine in fashion, (who seems to get this stuff right with uncanny frequency) tells me that the "watch the size of a dinner plate" thing is starting to play out. The new new in watches is going to be understated and ultra-thin.

They may have missed their golden moment when having something enormous and bling-y on you wrist wasn't dorky.

Since smart phones became ubiquitous, most of my friends have stopped wearing watches. The phone already tells you the time. So I find the trend of every smart phone manufacturer trying to built a smart watch as extremely ironical.

No one's going to mention that Microsoft again had been there and done it? (see: SPOT watch)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Personal_Objects_Technolo...

I'm deeply skeptical of the whole Apple iWatch thing.

I would LOVE to find out this whole iWatch thing is a huge fakeout from Apple to get the competition distracted.

It would be even funnier if competitions tart working on it and suddenly create a market for the device, even if it's small.

Well there's no doubt that people want some kind of wearable extension of their phones. The Pebble kickstarter showed that.

Which is all well and good; there's a market for hideous stuffed animals with human teeth [1], but that's not an argument for Apple (or Samsung, or Google) to get into it. Basically, it seems really out of character for Apple to do this sort of thing. To be honest, I would expect a Google Glass sort of ubiquitous computer before a "smartwatch"; at least the former has the potential to turn into another pillar for Apple.

[1] http://www.etsy.com/shop/cathairandteeth -- I have one and it's awesome

Yes, that was the second sentence I forgot to type. There's some need, but probably not one that Apple deems large enough to necessitate a new product category.

It just reeks of stupid to me.

Yes, considering the iPod touch easily turns into a wristwatch.

Smartwatches were cool...in the eighties. Now, not so much, they are too flashy.

Flashy? The trend for bigger and bigger watches is going strong for a few years now. (Nixon is one brand that has those, IIRC... young people seem to love them).

if one has google glasses i don't really see a use case for the watch...

Remote trackpad for Glass? Seems that would be more convenient/accessible than using a trackpad on the side of your head.

Like you say: IF

Google glasses seems to me like an ill fitted concept. It's expensive and you need to wear it constantly. A watch is more discreet and doesn't create that feeling of "I'm being filmed by that person" on those around you.

I'm not sure the watch is a great device for everyone but I think it's a more realistic wearable companion for the phone than Google glasses.

Don't take me wrong. I think technically Google glasses are an interesting engineering endeavor. It's just that I see limited appeal to them.

A watch seems like a good logical step from the Nike Fuelband concept. Track my activity, sense what I'm doing and also display my texts or emails and incoming calls, maybe small maps or very targeted info.

not necessarily... I wouldn't want to wear those glasses...Especially those people who are not even short-sighted! I imagine that to be very uncomfortable!

though i'd love to wear a smartwatch, my primary concern is battery life. having to plug it into a charger every other night would be a huge dealbreaker. it would have to use sort of inductive charging (still not optimal since you need a mat everywhere you go). Mechanical watches for decades have used hand winding, kinetic self winding, solar recharging technologies, but would these be sufficient to charge a full -on electronic device? doubtful.

once they solve the battery issue, the idea will be a HUUUGE cash cow.

Once you get used to charging it, it's no longer a problem. People were annoyed when smartphones came out and they had to charge them every night instead of once a week or so.

I'd love it even if only for notifications. What about e-ink?

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