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Comment by crazypyro | Hacker News Reader

I just don't think the watch market is really there. I feel like its shrinking steadily among younger people as the need for a time teller is replaced by the modern cell phone. I believe people have convinced themselves into convincing companies that they actually want a high tech wrist watch when, in reality, the market isn't that big and it is shrinking. I believe this whole craze started with the pebble. People see and think "cool", but then realize after a week of wearing it that they have no additional need being filled by it. There are of course exceptions (joggers for example might be a specific use case), but overall I think demand is lower than the current market saturation.

Also it requires an iPhone.

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Please forgive the repost but I replied just yesterday on a similar comment, different thread and don't want to type it all out again. I think the answer is more applicable here though.

Repost: I was gifted a Pebble over a year ago and I admit I thought it was a bit of a gimmick at the time. I did however start wear it out of consideration for the person that gave it to me and the novelty of a new toy. :) (note too that I am an old-timer who still wears a watch regularly)

What happened however surprised me. I found the simple change of having notifications pop up on my wrist was saving me from pulling the phone out of its holder over and over during a day every time it chimed with an email or message. I get a ton of communication during the day but 70% of it doesn't require a response from me immediately... the remaining 30% however does. I was now able to filter incoming messages with barely an interruption to what I was doing at the time.

From there I expanded Apps to bringing up my calendar overview, putting navigation directions on my wrist, using silent alarms (wrist vibration) to alert me during meetings, etc. It allows me to be more connected to my phone, without being more connected to my phone, if you know what I mean.

I have since moved to an LG watch and I do like it. No more week long battery life but it will go well over a day easily. Lots more gimmicky applications like remote camera control, etc. but also useful things, like ticking items off my Keep grocery list as I wander the store... without holding my phone.

Is it perfect for everyone? Nothing is. But I will stand corrected for my early mocking of the form factor. I "don't leave home without it" now.

Edit: One other point I missed. I also wander around the house without carrying my phone anymore. The watch stays connected and I can get alerts without needing to have it beside me.

> "I just don't think the watch market is really there. I feel like its shrinking steadily among younger people as the need for a time teller is replaced by the modern cell phone."

The market for a smartwatch isn't the same as the market for watches, in the same way that the market for smartphones isn't the same as the market of people who make phone calls.

Telling time is practically a formality on these devices, their selling point is basically everything else they do.

Whether or not Apple Watch is a competent entry into this category remains to be seen...

Most activity in a gym benefits from a watch. I weight train and I already know the app I want for this.

ps -- I don't bring my phone because (1) the gym is gross, (2) I sweat like a pig, (3) I don't want to kill it; I bruise myself enough that between bars, plates, dumbbells, kettlebells, etc, there is 0% chance I wouldn't smash it. My wrist just doesn't get smacked as much as my pocket / upper thighs.

What's the advantage of this over an arm sleeve that your phone sits in for your specific use case though? Also, will you still have to have your iPhone on you or in your bag to use it at the gym? What tech is being used to communicate between the two devices and is it strong enough that you can wear the watch and have your iPhone at home? Sorry if they have answered these questions.

I've tried to use iPhone with arm sleeves in gym and when jogging. It's really inconvenient and I usually resort to using just earbud controls. We will see if Apple Watch is any better, but based on the announcement demos, it looks promising on that front.

Still doesn't solve the problem of needing the iPhone on you for the watch to connect, if that is indeed the case. Is there any info on the tech used to connect the devices besides a single mention of wifi on the site?

The benefit for something like a rest timer is you have to interact with it all the time so it's a giant pain to get your phone in and out of a sleeve repeatedly. Plus, again, I sweat like a pig when I lift heavy or run and the phones don't seem particularly waterproof. Plus my hands sweat too and I will drop it.

Think about the tens (hundreds?) of millions of teenagers that already have an iPhone - now they'll be able to "chat" back-and-forward at school, home, etc. etc. extremely easily and fast.

I honestly don't think too many people will be using it to tell time, they'll be using it to chat back and forward in a fast, convenient way and to interact with apps they love - twitter, Facebook, etc.

When you go to a restaurant or bar, how many people put their phone on the table and glace at it constantly? All of those people would use an Apple Watch.

Chat really fast on a screen that size?

that explains why they came up with that ability to send finger drawings back and forth so easily. You can use Siri to text. And since it dynamically extracts multiple choice buttons from questions with "or", replies are a simple touch.

EDIT: Just found this which says the same: http://techcrunch.com/2014/09/09/apple-watch-digital-touch/

Yes.

Remember, it's "chat" in the loosest sense of the word - it's more or less time wasting banter back and forward. It's not supposed to be productive or achieve anything, other than back and forth games.

Good thing Apple didn't create just another watch. I own a Pebble and outside of persistent connection issues, when it would work, I became very used to it and it integrated well with my life. It appears the Apple Watch is a better executed version of Pebble, and as such, I'm an instant customer.

That's because all a watch did up to now was tell time, was wasn't enough to justify hanging one off your wrist unless you wished to signal your fashion sense/wealth. This watch does an awful lot more and appears to do it very very well. They'll sell by the truckload.

Pulse rate monitors, calculators, altimeters. Watches have done these things for years.

How many emails do get a day? How much are you talking face to face with people? Wrist notifications are incredibly useful. Server down? Or just someone wanting to go to Chipolte? These devices enable us to filter out a lot of 'noise'.

And are incredibly dependent on picking which notifications to push to the wrist, implicitly raising their importance. Unfortunately, ml has not been a strong spot for apple historically, though after the maps debacle they may not underestimate it anymore.

There's value even in unfiltered notifications - at worst I've wasted a glance, as opposed to rooting around my pockets for my phone.

I've had a Pebble for the last year, and even its unfiltered notifications has been tremendously preferable over digging out my phone to see what's up.

really -- I had thought it would be annoying. You're the first person I've heard say that. That's really interesting.

I am also a pebble owner that feels the same way. If I don't check my phone or email fast enough I end up with a deluge of communication that I have to slog through and prioritize. The pebble keeps me 'honest' and I know exactly who is sending me stuff when.

Only annoying when you run into the people who insist on sending 10 2-word SMSes instead of a single 20-word SMS.

I find phone notifications much more annoying. Your phone buzzes in your pocket, you have no idea if it's important or if it's someone liking your Facebook status (or equally inane thing).

On the Pebble I take one look and dismiss it, which is still time wasted, but a lot less time wasted than pulling my phone out, and less risky than simply ignoring your phone when it buzzes.

>> These devices enable us to filter out a lot of 'noise'.

I would argue that these devices create even more noise, given how they are even more accessible than a phone in a pocket or sitting on a desk.

there's a reason the wrist watch replaced the pocket watch.

>> there's a reason the wrist watch replaced the pocket watch.

The funny thing is that I stopped wearing wrist watches when phones started fitting in my pocket. So my phone, while having extra features, isn't very different from a pocket watch.

And if there are a lot of people like me, you can make the argument that the pocket (or purse) watch subsequently replaced the wrist watch.

It's a cyclic evolution. Pocket watch to wrist watch to pocket phone to wrist phone. With technological breakthroughs practicality has to take one step back before catching up again.

Well, but screen size is an issue with "wrist phone". People like being able to watch videos, and reading stuff on their : "pocket phones". If anything, phone screens have been getting bigger.

Holographic displays.

Well yeah, the smart pocket watch obviously trumps the dumb wrist watch. The point here is that now the wrist watch is smart again, it is likely to take over again for the same reasons it beat the pocket watch the first time.

EDIT: To clarify, I'm not saying they'll completely replace smartphones, just that enough features can be moved to the wrist to make it worth wearing.

>> just that enough features can be moved to the wrist to make it worth wearing.

I'm afraid it's not quite so simple as that. It also has to be more than simply worth wearing.

* It has to be worth adding to the pile of devices that you're managing (remembering to charge, remembering to wear, connecting to your phone, security settings, etc).

* It has to be worth taking up another USB port in your charger (since it's not using a lightning or micro USB port)

* It has to be worth taking up more space on your nightstand for charging.

While I see a lot of benefits for sporty/health types and FOMO-afflicted notification addicts, I'm not so sure it's going to eat up the market the same way the iPhone and iPad did.

People didn't live, eat, work, and sleep within 12 feet of 5 different clocks back then.

Of course, if they had, then they wouldn't have worn watches at all, just like most folks today do not wear watches for anything other than fashion. This doesn't in any way contest his point.

Sure it does. The fact that clocks weren't as ubiquitous provided an incentive to move the "personal clock" to the wrist, where it would be easier to check. Pocket watches wouldn't have been replaced by wristwatches in the modern world; they would simply have vanished.

If anything, your argument advocates for smartwatches. When I get a notification and I'm not physically at a desktop computer, there is no way for me to check that notification other than my phone. It's the exact same problem that you just wrote about pocket watches, except it's not about the time -- it's about all the other information that we now want instant access to and can only get by removing a physical device from our pockets.

You should not define a market by a product. THe value of this is so that you do not have to pull bigger and bigger phones out of your pocket. It is not a watch, it is an easily seen notification device and simple input device. I think that people who are always looking at their phone need something like this. People that do not spend much time looking at texts, and screening calls will not need this.

I think the watch as a phone accessory is a waste of time. Developed countries are still selling dumbphones like crack, the number of people who want a smartphone with a 2nd, expensive interface to it is probably pretty boring.

But these are going somewhere interesting - they could end up replacing phones, 4g sticks / hotspots, usb sticks etc.

Developed countries are still selling dumbphones like crack

But those people don't have any money, or at least don't spend any money, and are consequently of no interest to the larger ecosystem that can be built around smart devices. A cynical view, perhaps, but a realistic one.

I don't doubt that the watch market is there. I just can't imagine myself wearing a watch. Having constant heart rate records is the only tangible benefit I can think of, but I'd rather have that on a much more subtle ankle or wrist bracelet.

Fitbit and Fuel Band prove there's a market, but these aren't mass market devices. Maybe the idea is to fit that functionality into a traditional mass market device and see if they can make it work.

I can't live without my Pebble and I'm definitely not a jogger. Just a normal consumer. For me, it's revolutionary.

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