Poll: Do you want a smart watch? | Hacker News Reader

Poll: Do you want a smart watch?

80 pointse15ctr0n71 comments

Trying to gauge the level of interest in smart watches among the Hacker News readership. Please upvote the poll when casting your vote.

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> Please upvote the poll when casting your vote.

Please don't ask for upvotes. It will likely trigger the voting ring detector.

People should upvote for a story when and only when they find it intellectually interesting.

Sorry, it was not my intention to ask for upvotes for any other reason than to address the quirk in the polling system: voting for an option does not automatically upvote the poll. Sorry if the voting ring detector was triggered. If this poll has been killed by a voting ring detector, any chance that it can be unkilled?

Oh, that's ok. But I wouldn't call this a quirk—it's by design. Voting for an option is how you answer the poll question. Voting for the poll itself says that you think it's an interesting story for HN. Those are different.

This poll no longer appears on the front page, or even the first 3 pages. Any chance this can be fixed so new readers can discover it and weigh in with their opinion?

I almost wonder if Apple already did the market research on smart watches and realized nobody really wants one, and then they did a head fake and convinced all their competitors that they were going into development on this product with all their might. Competitors tie up engineering talent and resources producing a device to compete with something that Apple has zero plans of actually manufacturing. It would be an evil genius move.

Yeah, but remeber all these jokes before iPad came out. Who the hell needs this gigantic iPhone..

> Yeah, but remeber all these jokes before iPad came out. Who the hell needs this gigantic iPhone..

(1) it was more of a gigantic iPod Touch, not a gigantic iPhone, (2) I don't actually remember that many jokes about "who needs" it, though: I remember lots of techies griping that they preferred a tablet to not have iOS style restrictions (because, techies), and jokes about the name.

Most of us thought we were getting an actual computer in tablet form.. (was a big disappointment when I realized what it was... or... more correctly... what it wasn't)

If they made a smart watch that could do time/calendar, phone calls, text messages, emails, and turn-by-turn navigation - all without requiring tethering to a smartphone - I would buy one and probably not even have a smartphone.

I know I'm an anomaly, but I only use my phone to remain contactable and for GPS navigation until I get back to my desktop. A smartphone that didn't have to tether would suit me well, but there doesn't seem to be anything out there like that.

I think that's reasonable. If my watch could do everything my phone could do, I'd rather wear a small watch than carry a larger phone. Then again, I'd prefer glasses over a watch.

do you really want to pay for a second phone line from your carrier just for your watch?

He said he wouldn't have a separate smartphone, so it would be the first phone line. He seems to prefer a smartphone-in-watch-form-factor.

Man I thought I was paranoid now... just wait until everyone is walking around looking like the Fed talking into their wrists...

I think something like that would have to be relatively massive in order to be functional enough to ditch your phone, though

I had a "smart watch" at one point...a Fossil Abacus WristPDA, which actually ran Palm OS 4.0 and had 8 Mb of storage, a fair amount for a Palm device. It was cool, but certainly not as usable as a regular Palm PDA...but you can probably guess what its main issue was: Battery life. The thing sucked down energy like an eight-armed alcoholic, and had to be plugged into the charger every night to avoid dying and completely losing the current time (something you never want to have happen in a watch, and which brings to mind the "You had ONE JOB" meme). And the only way to charge it was with its special USB cable that had an add-on wall wart power supply.

(It also had one of those black rubber watchbands, custom-designed for the watch, with storage for its tiny stylus in the buckle. And, when the band cracked and broke, as those kind of bands inevitably do for me, there was no way to replace it.)

When I got my first iPhone, that watch was one of the three gadgets it replaced. I'm not convinced its modern-day counterparts would work out any better.

There's lots of reasons why I stopped wearing a watch (mostly due to comfort) and I have almost no desire to return to wearing one. Even before smartphones replaced watches for most people, I usually didn't wear one or sported an old fashioned pocket watch because it was more comfortable.

The burden of pulling my phone out of my pocket is not so great that the tradeoff of using an expensive, clumsy, short battery-life wearable device that does some subset of what my phone already does (and requires me to have my phone on me anyway) doesn't seem worth it.

I honestly can't think of a single use-case where I'd prefer to use one over my smartphone. It seems to me that the use-cases being presented for it are either vanity fashion use-case, or cases where even the slightest bit of self-control overwhelms the use-case (I NEED TO SEE THAT EMAIL THAT JUST CAME IN RIGHT NOW AND CAN'T WAIT THE 2 EXTRA SECONDS TO PULL MY PHONE FROM MY POCKET)

I think regular phones replaces watches for most people.

How about "I have no idea what I want"?

Is there a killer feature that a smartwatch would have over my phone which I'm unaware of aside from form factor?

I'd like there to be a reason to buy one, because I like shiny tech things, but I'm not sure I even have a use case.

> How about "I have no idea what I want"?

Guess what the late Steve Jobs said about this? "People don't know what they want until we show it to them."

Same here. So far I don't see any killer feature that would make me want a smartwatch.

Somehow I get a feeling that doing anything more complex than reading a simple message (be it an email, SMS, notification, whatever) would just be slower than if I would take the smartphone out of the pocket and do it the proper way.

I might feel different though if I were into running/cycling/whatever.

I used to buy $10 casio watches and lose them after a month. Since carrying a mobile phone that tells you the time I have not bought another watch. Not even sure why I would need a smartwatch

I want a watch that just handles phone calls, music, and has some sensors - apps and browsing and stuff can be done better on tablets. If it's a wifi hotspot on my wrist that would also be very nice.

I am happy that the days of needing a watch are behind me.

I think the primary annoyance centered around the fact that I'm left-handed. Since I'm left-handed, I only really have the coordination to strap a watch using my left hand, meaning the watch itself is on the right hand.... this interferes with using a mouse with my right hand! The watch would get caught on the edge of my desk. Maybe the fact that I'm a lefty that uses a mouse with my right hand is weird.... but in any case, this all adds up to me not liking to wear watches.

lefty that uses a mouse with my right hand

Same here, so not that weird.

I have actual reasons for this, which are (1) using a shared computer (as a kid, and later the computer labs at university), having to rearrange things got annoying after a while; (2) the nicer mice tend to be "ergonomic" in ways that don't work when used left-handed; (3) when I used to play computer games more, all the keyboard shortcuts assumed the keyboard was to the left.

Edit: And now that I think about it, the standard cut/copy/paste/save shortcuts also use the left hand. I guess I just didn't notice since I was already using the mouse right-handed well before I finished becoming a proper employed adult.

I have an LG G Watch. It's a useless piece of shit (apologies for the harsh language).

I think this is the biggest non-product I have ever owned. The first major flaw in it is that it wants to be talked to, all the time. You can use the clunky navigation (swiping) to get into a menu but the first 8 or so items are just versions of speech actions. All the way at the bottom you can get into the "apps". The only useful app I was able to use was the pedometer (pee-doh-meter), counting your steps but since it's been put back in it's box, that's useless too.

The size of thing is huge. I'm not a small guy but it's like logging a brick around attached to your wrist. It's battery life is about 6 to 7 hours so you can't actually wear it for a full days work. You would have to recharge is (it's way they're pushing the separately available chargers).

It's tethered to your Android device through bluetooth. If this is the case then why haven't they made the main UI the phone itself rather then me having to awkwardly swipe a tiny little screen? The app that runs on your Android device is another piece of crap. You'd expect you have a whole range of customizations for your watch, right? Nope. You can change background and the clock type. How innovative.

Sorry for the rant guys. I think that anyone who wants to buy one of these things should be warned and really know what you're doing. Don't be silly like me.

I think we already know how the Apple iWatch will be:

1) Apple will announce it's entry into the smart watch market

2) Apple will release a technically sub-par product but fans will buy it up

3) Apple won't refresh the iWatch until way after it's overdue, but will continue to charge a premium

4) Android eats up majority of the smart watch market by flooding it with varying price and quality levels, as well as monthly hardware refreshes (due to the number of oem's)... leaving something for everyone

I own a smart watch and it's awesome. Especially with kids, the ability to take calls and see notifications without taking my phone out of my pocket is invaluable. Often I don't have my hands free so having a screen always available on my wrist is super helpful.

In terms of battery life, I charge my watch while I shower and that's enough to keep it going.

I stopped wearing a watch (ubiquitous Casio black plastic one) the last time a watchband broke on me due to the repeated stress it experienced every time I took it off to type with a wristrest/palmrest.

Still wondering a bit about this aspect, although it apparently does not affect/bother everyone.

I have a Pebble, and wore it for about six months. The battery life was great (once a week charging) and the service it provided was also great, as I didn't have to pull my phone out to investigate every buzz. I also missed fewer messages, because a buzz on the wrist is much more distinctive than in the pocket.

Unfortunately, I couldn't get past the aesthetics. I want a nice looking, stylish watch. Not a particularly expensive one, just decent. I didn't like putting on a decent outfit and feeling professional, and then have a cheap-looking piece of black plastic just hanging on my wrist. So I lent it to a friend, who has been using it for the past few months.

Edit: Oh, the one thing that I really miss since lending it out is the easy-to-access music controls. I found them very handy.

When this was released, I was wanting to talk management into getting a few for the guys on call or something. Imagine a server alert where your wrist watch starts freaking out and blinking red... would be hard to "sleep" through that and miss the pager.

Do you like the new Pebbles better, or are they still bad (aesthetically)? https://getpebble.com/steel

I like the look of the brushed stainless much more. I don't have that, but I can imagine wearing it to work without feeling like a high schooler with a calculator watch.

Then they released a decent metal one and made it look terrible by plastering their giant "Pebble" logo across the front.

My ideal smart watch doesn't exist yet, and I don't think it will for quite some time.

I want a watch that has a few minimal buttons, bluetooth, a vibrate notifer, and no screen. Outwardly, it would appear to look like any other watch. Heck, maybe it could even look good!

I realize that the convenience of being able to see a notification without having to pull the phone out is nice, but I would much rather simply not miss any notifications. There's so much more you could pack into a wristwatch if you didn't have to worry about the screen, and still get tons of value out of it. With context-aware buttons, you could still control your music, remotely activate your phone camera, and all that other fun stuff.

I say start with a watch first, then see what you can fit in with that.

Are they actually better than smartphones for anything other than checking for notifications (or the time I guess)?

If pulling out your phone to check is too impolite, that's probably a sign that you shouldn't be checking at all rather than that you should try to hide it by using a watch.

Yes, I do. I want one so that I don't need to look at my phone every time I want to see if I have any notifications. Especially as an Android user, it can be a pain in the butt to see them and seems like a waste. Getting your phone out constantly is generally seen as rude, and it can be distracting, and I'd like my phone to have less of a stranglehold over my attention.*

The Moto 360 looks great. The only issue I have with smart watches is battery life. It does seem pretty crap to have to charge a watch.

* EDIT: Yes, I could just ignore notifications more, or turn them off, but generally I've configured it so that the notifications I get are ones that I actually want.

I have a phone, in my pocket, which is small enough to carry (in my pocket) and does almost all of what I expect a general purpose computer to do.

I'm also old. Harumph.

I want a really good GPS athletic watch, which I have. It tells time and reports it to me in lots of different and specifiable ways. It tells me where I am and where I've been in lots of different and specifiable ways. It's waterproof to 50m.

If I need to know that I got a text when I'm out running, biking or walking, I'll bring my phone. But then, I don't walk around with my head down and my hand in front of me, palm up.

I'm also old. Harumph.

Why smartwatches are great: They increase your phone's battery life

Since I bought my pebble and got used to checking that for the time and text messages I have increased my phone's battery life at least 50%.

The major drain on a phone's battery life is screen (backlight) and OS, and when we pull our phones out with the backlight on full we drain a _ton_ of battery life.

I love the Pebble because it's a developer-centric reinvention of the idea of a "watch". Everyone is invited to re-imagine what a watch is. And it has a 7 day battery life.

I already have two watches of varying smartness:

The Swatch pager watch. It could receive pager messages. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=xyNFzEc8eE4

The Microsoft / Timex Datalink. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timex_Datalink

Both persuaded me that I just want my watch to tell the time, and maybe the date, and nothing else.

I want a smartwatch, but not the ones that are out right now. I want it to be able to supplement input for a VR headset. Having a 9-DOF motion and orientation sensor, as well as a camera and touch screen (even if you won't be able to see it, the key feature would be that it's tied to your arm), would help a lot with that. But I'd also like it to last more than a handful of hours with constant use.

I will get the iWatch or the Android ones .. cannot wait until it is in my fingers ... or better around my arm ,) i looked here http://jmp2.in/getasmartwatch for the one i like most. The Pebble, Qualcomm Toq, Galaxy Gear, Sony Smartwatch 2, MetaWatch, an iWatch .. which one will make the run lets see the poll

I enjoy my Pebble, it has two features that make it totally worth it for me. One it vibrates on my wrist (silent but I can feel it, even in my sleep). Second it puts texts, chats on my wrist. So when someone chats me I can 'check the time' and see if its important. That is so much better than having my phone humm in my pocket or on the table.

So much. Motorola had me literally, physically on the edge of my seat when they announced 360.

I fully realise that there probably is no reason to have one. Especially in the beginning when they're still figuring it out but there may never be one. It is such a cool gadget though. And the round screen with the ambient dial totally sells it.

Missing the option:

* Yes, I want a DIY one.

A friend at a local Hackerspace is building a third generation of his smart-watch, BLE-enabled and with OLED display. I think that the only way it's not going to be better than the current smartwatches on the market is because of the screen.

But honestly, what I really want is:

* No, but I want an all-over display bracelet full of sensors.

My wristwatch doesn't even have a battery - and it won't have one for decades to come.

I will get the iWatch or the Android ones .. cannot wait until it is in my fingers ... or better around my arm ,) i looked here http://jmp2.in/getasmartwatch for the one i like most

I don't want a watch, but I might wear a paper-thin, flexible, all-over display bracelet.

I want a smartwatch that has the capability of accurate and continuous heart rate monitoring (à la Mio Alpha or Link) coupled with a respectable battery life. Until one appears, my opinion of smartwatches will remain that they are quite underwhelming.

Its mankind alone who measures the time, and he is the only being experiencing that one fear: the fear of time running out

-- freely quoted from somewhere

That how i feel about watches, so i don't have any. Phone is enough if i have to catch a Train or wake up for work.

I want Will.i.am's new watch http://thenextweb.com/gadgets/2014/04/05/will-building-smart...

On the occasions that I wear a watch, I deliberately go for analog. I like analog technology, I like gears, etc. I recognize that I'm a severe outlier for this in my age group of 25-35, though.

Yes, but all the watches out there are dumb. Apple was supposed to "fix" wearable so the same way it fixed smartphones. Instead they released a Kin/Rockr.

After seeing Android Wear from LG and Moto, I would get one..but I don't think this gen. I will see next year's lineup.

If it comes with some of the amazing biosensors that have been hinted at, yes. (Otherwise, no, not at all).

I have a smart watch (sony), but haven't used it in a couple of months, don't want another one.

Yes, But I don't need Apple iWatch. In my point of view, Moto 360 is better in style than iWatch.

If I had one that didn't require a phone, and had decent (read: week+) battery life, yes.

But as it is? Nah.

Smart watch is as bad as a smart phone: it requires your hand to be before your eyes.

It is also smaller and less powerful than a smartphone, and probably has worse battery life. It might be a nice fashion accessory, but I'm indifferent towards these.

When something like Google Glass becomes usable and affordable, I'd like to get it. Otherwise, I'll just pull out my smartphone, as I do now.

I would like to know why I even should have a dumb watch before answering question about smart one.

> I would like to know why I even should have a dumb watch before answering question about smart one.

I think the main benefit is that a wrist-worn device takes less time to check the time than pulling out a phone, for the times where you aren't sitting in front of a computer with a clock in some corner of the screen.

For a smart-watch, the main benefit seems to be the same, but generalized to other kinds of quick things that can be checked -- texts and similar notifications.

I have an analog wrist watch, it tells time at a glance.

I don't have to pull it out of my pocket

I don't have to turn on the screen

All I have to do is remember to put it on before I leave the house.

I don't care if you should have one, but it's all I want.

Oh, and the battery doesn't need to be cared about much more than once every several years or so.

I'm waaaaaay less likely to leave my Smart Watch in a bar...

If the battery lasted at least a month. So for now, no.

Yes, I want a smart watch: Apple iWatch

Smart headphones - yes please.

What? We already have bluetooth headphones. An app could read out messages. What else would you want it to do?

Medical sensors.

Apple actually has a patent for it. And somebody recently announced headphones like that.

Also there was a rumour headphones will include iBeacon to find it when you loose it (BS IMHO).

As per Bluetooth, audio has substandard audio quality (and truth to be told all iPhones do too).

No, I do not want one.

No, I have a phone.

no love for Windows Phone?

Pffhaahahaha.

Oh wait, you're serious. Let me laugh even harder.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahhh * wheeze * haha.

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