8 ms·

Smartwatch sales are tanking

102 points by sua_3000 10y ago

sua_3000 10y ago
had one and returned it. They don't provide much value beyond real-time notifications & a fancy pedometer.
- drcross 10y ago
  Same. I had a huawei and it was like using the original iphone; had potential but needs constant kid gloves to operate and couldnt go far from the charge dock. Going through menus took almost seconds, even with different versions of Android wear.
- adrr 10y ago
  Have an apple watch. Notifications are useful but charging it every day is such a huge inconvenience that i don't bother with it.
  - 6nf 10y ago
    When I'm getting ready for bed I remove my watch and pop it on the charging dock on my bedside. In the morning when I wake up I put it back on. Do you sleep with your watch or why is it such a pain to charge it at night like your phone?
    - dingaling 10y ago
      It's not just the hassle of charging overnight but also the fire risk; charging Lithium batteries a metre from my head whilst I sleep is not an attractive idea. Hence I charge phones and laptops during the day and only when someone is around to supervise.
      - 6nf 10y ago
        You could charge your watch at that same time. It doesn't take long.
- problems 10y ago
  Yeah, this is why I went with the Pebble over the others - it gets the realtime notifications and the fancy sleep tracker and pedometer - and due to eink, can keep its screen on without the need to be charged every night. That's all I wanted it for, that's all it does. And most importantly - it's priced like that's all it does.
  - milesokeefe 10y ago
    Pebbles haven't used e-ink since the first version. But they seem to get equal or better battery life out of the Transflective LCDs currently used, which operate on a similar principle as e-ink, in the sense of how the light reaches your eyes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_d...
    - problems 10y ago
      Interesting, I seem to remember them calling it color epaper in some marketing material so I just assumed it was a similar product to eink. Cool though.
- helthanatos 10y ago
  I think that android Casio smartwatch looks pretty cool... But I'm not paying more than $200 for a watch. When they can operate as a regular watch and a good notification device, I'll consider paying maybe $300. It's just a lot of money for a relatively useless object on your wrist.
- xutopia 10y ago
  I won my Apple watch in a contest. I wouldn't have bought it. I find the notifications on my wrist are really great. I don't take my phone out nearly as often as before. I now pay for gas, small groceries and various other things with my watch. I unlock my computer by just pressing the spacebar instead of typing my password. The killer app for me is when I'm cycling or motorbiking and have directions appear on my wrist instead of my pocket.
carsongross 10y ago
Seems like they will stay a niche until they can replace phones entirely, and perhaps even past then. A lot of people just don't like having something strapped to their wrist and/or want a large screen. As a watch guy (and most watch people are guys) the first smart watch I've been excited about is the upcoming gear S3: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s3/ http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s3/ Because it looks like a real watch and has the rotating bezel for input, but I recognize I'm a tiny market. I hope it doesn't set my wrist on fire.
- bobajeff 10y ago
  Yeah that's me I'm waiting for them to come out with one that's a replacement for a phone not some unjustifiably expensive accessory for a phone. That or just make phones smaller. My favorite flip phone is smaller than even the smallest iPhone. I'd probably still use it today if my network still supported 2g.
- sosuke 10y ago
  I saw the Fossil Q (https://www.fossil.com/us/en/wearable-technology.html https://www.fossil.com/us/en/wearable-technology.html) in the wild the other day and it looked very attractive. I love that bezel input idea! I hadn't seen the Gear S3
  - tgb 10y ago
    What does the "charging not required" claim mean for the hybrid watches? They claim a 6-month battery life. What do you do afterwards? Replace the battery?
    - sosuke 10y ago
      There are several types of self charging watches out there. Solar are some, kinetic watches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_quartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_quartz I think that means it will sit on a shelf unworn for 6 months
- BoorishBears 10y ago
pcunite 10y ago
When I'm not wearing my mechanical Seiko, I wear a Garmin GPS for running. Always-on is big for me. Are there any that have that feature these days?
- sp332 10y ago
  Always-on... screen? Pebbles have that. They don't have GPS built-in though so you'll have to bring your phone with you. You can control the running apps through the watch interface at least.
  - darklajid 10y ago
    Note that there are 3rd party solutions for the Pebble (straps that use their extension/accessory pins to add GPS and a bit more juice) and that Pebble plans to release the Pebble Core in January - a tiny wearable Android device with GPS included. So you should be able to go out with your Pebble + SomethingElse and leave the phone at home, if we're talking GPS or tracking. Disclaimer: I own a Pebble Time, I backed the Pebble Time 2 and the Pebble Core.
- jsight 10y ago
  The Pebble 2, Pebble Time 2, and the original Pebble Time all have always-on screens. The battery life is as follows: - Pebble 2: 7 days - Pebble Time 2: 10 days - Pebble Time: 5 days In practice, the Pebble Time is good for about 4 days. I suspect that the other estimates are about a day above what most people will see as well.
- nfriedly 10y ago
  A lot of Android Wear watches have an always-on screen option. A Huawei Watch lasts ~2 days with the screen always on and light usage.
- snarkyturtle 10y ago
  I feel like the newer Garmins are a good middle-ground for smartwatches. Always-on, 1+ week battery life, phone/email/calender notifications. And you get GPS built-in with a step tracker. I'd recommend the forerunner 230 which has a 5 week battery life: https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/into-sports/running/forerunner-230/prod523893.html https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/into-sports/running/forerunn...
mjevans 10y ago
I suspect people /want/ a smart watch so they can feel like Dick Tracy and Roger Smith (Anime, Big O). The reality is that the smart watch is little more than a smaller screen attached by wireless personal area network to the real computer; which has a better (bigger, brighter, larger buttons) and more responsive screen. I stopped wearing a normal watch once I had a decent pocket chronometer (a comparatively primitive simple pocket flip phone). I think that's the marketing problem here; it isn't clear to the average consumer what the use case, if any, actually is.
- WalterBright 10y ago
  > I stopped wearing a normal watch once I had a decent pocket chronometer I continue to wear one because it is easier to check the time that way than dig the thing out of my pocket, turn it on, get it to recognize my thumb or demand a pin, etc., especially when driving. And, of course, because I'm old and not hip.
  - shuntress 10y ago
    I'm young and not hip and I wear a conventional watch almost every day.
    - WalterBright 10y ago
      Haha, I have a "Mad Men" style Samsonite briefcase that my father gave me in the 1970s. Here's a picture of one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/57044295/samsonite-briefcase-with-key-charcoal https://www.etsy.com/listing/57044295/samsonite-briefcase-wi... It works great as a case for my laptop. It's fun being unhip :-) Edit: I've used modern soft laptop bags, but they tend to develop tears and small holes through which things fall out unnoticed. Urgh. The Samsonite doesn't have that failure mode.
      - douche 10y ago
        Stuff from that era that still exists might as well be indestructible. A little bit of survivorship bias, but it's hard to find anything that well made at any price now.
sp332 10y ago
Man, I didn't expect Pebble to be down so much. My wife and I have 5 of them between us. The always-on screen and a week of battery life make them much more attractive than most other smartwatches.
- treve 10y ago
  If you buy 5 when you only have 4 arms, you might be biased about the pebble's success ;)
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - sp332 10y ago
    It's true! We got one each when they first came out on Kickstarter, then I bought a Steel because it looked nicer, then we both got Times when they came out, then I got her a Round because she liked the look. counts Oh wait, that's 6. And the last one was in December... so actually, we're part of the reason for the YoY decline!
    - harlanji 10y ago
      I'm with you, been wearing the Steel daily since it came out. Lovely product. Firmware upgrade was actually welcome; I'll keep it, I love that you can roll back easily by installing a different app version. Dismal market share! :( -- though, people have complimented it frequently, most don't know it's a smart watch which I consider a feature. Looks like they should turn to some niche marketing strategies if they're not already because people who like Pebbles REALLY like Pebbles I find, though they are rare to begin with.
- gnicholas 10y ago
  Ditto—I love mine and am anxiously awaiting delivery of my next one. For me, it doesn't have to replace a smartphone, it just has to make it much easier for me to see and categorize the influx of information. It answers the question of (1) did I just feel my phone buzz? and (2) if so, do I need to read/respond right now. Since I previously wore watches, I find it natural to wear. And because I never had luxury watches (Seiko was my ceiling), I don't mind that smartwatches aren't fancier-looking. I understand that watch-nevers and timepiece aficionados may feel differently...
aschampion 10y ago
I like my 2nd gen Moto 360 as a watch, for its aesthetics, and as a simple notifier, but almost everything else on it is beyond broken. Just trying to check the weather takes 20+ seconds and fails half the time, even on wifi. Pull out the phone and the weather is already there, updated. What the hell. Ok Google could be useful, except for the situations you'd want to use it (hands full, crowded environment) are exactly the situations where it fails. USAA has a great watch app, though, which somehow has many fewer reliability/latency problems than every other app. I can do most of my banking just walking down the hall while my phone is locked up at my desk.
newswriter9 10y ago
I don't get it. Decades of science fiction depicting Heads-up-Display glasses and wrist-strapped laptops, with people wishing and wishing we lived in such a world. Now here we are and society isn't going in for it. Bluetooth head sets, smartwatches, Google Glass, none of it is sticking. Even though smart phones are becoming cumbersome due to size and inability to use hands-free or even one-handed well. Are we ever going to see a cyberpunk future?
- knz 10y ago
  Could it be that smartwatches and google glass don't have suitable input methods yet? They're adequate for displaying information but not great for extensive input or manipulation of data. Most people also don't want yet another device to recharge each night either. I have a Nexus 6 (one of the larger phones) and don't find it cumbersome at all. It's certainly more practical compared to trying to do anything meaningful on a smartwatch.
  - newswriter9 10y ago
    My Nexus 4 was (at the time, 2013) huge to me because I had just switched from a tiny little qwerty flip phone. Getting used to it took forever, but my number one problem was making it fit on me without being bulky or getting scratched up/damaged. Mind you I had a blue collar job at the time so there was a lot of opportunity for phone destruction.
  - ChicagoBoy11 10y ago
    I think there is more to your comment than initially meets the eye. I've been watching "Black Mirror" the past few days, and the one thing that all episodes share in common when it comes to their futuristic UX is the tremendous expressiveness that they derive from unbelievably simple and quick input methods, where you can clearly see that the user communicated far more intent than even the number of DOF that their supposed input device even allowed. The only thing I can think of as helping to bridge that gap is AI
- sosuke 10y ago
  The limitations of power have put a choke-hold on the future you and I read about in science fiction. After the power issue is solved the next problem will be heat I think. Solve the power problem and we'll see a huge jump in technology. Right now they are trying to solve it by making more and more efficient processors that use less power and perform better over the same amount of time.
Theodores 10y ago
Festive gadget: https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=apple%20watch,pebble%20watch,android%20watch,samsung%20watch,fitbit https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=apple%20watch,pebb... Seems interest in smart watches happens at Christmas time. There is a problem with that because you don't buy people the same present every year and there cannot be that many people wanting a new smart watch at Christmas, particularly if it is marginally better than their existing smart watch. I think the same people that bought 3D televisions and tablets bought smart watches, they will be wanting something else next. Maybe they will return to buying smart watches when there is some new battery-defying functionality to them, i.e. they are as good as smart phones in miniature with lots of previously unimagined 'Pokemon Go' grade apps that make the upgrade worth it. I also do not believe that any of the smart watches cut the mustard as far as true watch aficionados are concerned. To some people the fanciest ceramic iWatch is on an equal par with a resin calculator watch, lacking intangible heritage things and therefore not a cool item in their minds (they probably fear not being able to use a smart watch). These same people were equally snobbish about digital photography, therefore it could take a generation before smart watches are accepted 'artistically' by people who are like that. I am hoping that a category killing smart watch gets made by Google in the same price range as a Chromecast. For £30 a lot of people would give a smart watch a go.
jfoutz 10y ago
I've always been skeptical of smart watches. As others say, if it can't outright replace my phone, i just don't see much value in them. I wear "nice" watches occasionally, usually any time i have to wear a suit. As a toy, an epaper watch with actual physical hands would be pretty cool. The two extra hands on something like a diving watch could be used for other gauges, maybe unread email count or something goofy like that. A watch seems like the right target for that semi connected on call state. Sort of like a modern pager. I'm not reading email, or available on hangouts. But i'll get the alert that we need to communicate. Low key, non intrusive, acceptable at a funeral. Just a few bits of information.
- DanBC 10y ago
  > Sort of like a modern pager. One of the original smart watches was Swatch's The Beep - a watch / pager mashup. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/wear-your-heart-on-your-wrist-1619632.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/wear-your-heart-on-y...
- rubber_duck 10y ago
  I like the idea of having a reliable health monitor inside a watch (pedometer, heart rate, oxygen levels, etc.) Especially if they can combine that with data analytics and find some early symptoms of serious issues or help me optimize my day. Combined with existing smartwatch functionality I'd get that. But right now the devices I've seen are too limited/imprecise or too expensive.
nfriedly 10y ago
I liked my Android Wear watch, but it never completely worked. Things like dismissing a reminder on the watch would get a sad cloud rather than also dismiss it on my phone. I thought maybe it was because I was running cyanogenmod, so I went back to stock Verizon firmware, but it had all the same bugs. A few weeks later, the Android Wear app started crashing in the background 2-3 times per minute and giving me a popup each time. I disabled it and haven't really used the watch since.
fuzzythinker 10y ago
It will continue to tank until they become the phone and the phone becomes just another screen (eg. ipod touch, mini tablets).
- technofiend 10y ago
  I honestly thought that was one possible outcome of Project Ara if Google decided that the phone's component inventory didn't literally need to be connected to the base station. It would have made sense to extend Ara communication to BLE, Zigbee or some other low power wireless rather than wired interface. But that dream died with the Ara project itself. Oh well.
gtrubetskoy 10y ago
If I ever do get a smartwatch, it would be because it's a sensor. I think the health/medical/biohacking potential there is huge. The only thing is - must it really be on my wrist, and do I really need to look at it or touch/push buttons on it?
- steaminghacker 10y ago
  im thinking biosensors evenually have to go subcutaneous with the watch/band being the reader.
post_break 10y ago
Probably because there hasn't been an updated android wear watch in ages besides the fossil, which I bought after my moto 360 died. Google is dragging their feet.
- steaminghacker 10y ago
  isn't there supposed to be a major update Jan?
steaminghacker 10y ago
Haven't they figured out yet that telling the time is the thing that smart watches do the worst. instead, i want a band. I'm still waiting for an Android Wear band. i want something a bit like the Microsoft band 2 [1], but slimmer and a smaller screen. something as a notification device and to take voice notes. but i don't need it to replace my watch because it's not "on" when i look at it. For telling the time, I'll either wear a "proper" watch (as well) or none at all. [1] I'm on my 3rd ms band. they randomly die (stop charging). ms are good about it and replace it quickly... but soon my warranty will be up and it's all over.
- milesokeefe 10y ago
  Pebble doesn't have that problem.
  - steaminghacker 10y ago
    can i do voice recognition on a pebble?
    - zevyoura 10y ago
      Yes, if you have an Android phone.
    - wvenable 10y ago
      Yes, and not just on Android. Pebble has a microphone and voice-recognition. One of the more popular apps is effectively wrist-based Siri.
philfrasty 10y ago
If you can't use them....shoot them https://youtu.be/JumhJWgAS4U?t=16s https://youtu.be/JumhJWgAS4U?t=16s
cyberferret 10y ago
As the comments in that article pointed out - the hassle far outweighs the value. After not wearing a watch for over 20 years, I've had an Apple Watch for about 3 months now (it was a free gift), and honestly, as much as the device is useful, it is a pain - especially when it comes to battery life. The charge seems to last just enough to fall flat at the most inconvenient times, i.e. when I am just about to leave the house all day, or right when I am about to go to bed (I use the watch primarily for sleep tracking). Most of the apps on the watch kind of require you to wear it consistently all of the time to give you meaningful data, however current battery life means you end up with large gaps in your human telemetry that your data is always missing vital chunks.
- lowbloodsugar 10y ago
  Someone gave me a golf cart last year. Actually they gave me a Ferrari 458 Spider. But I wanted a golf cart, so I'm using it as golf cart. Its hassle far outweighs its value. It destroys the fairway with its huge torque. And its rear wheel drive makes it really hard to control on grass. And it uses a lot of gas, so it runs out at the most inconvenient times. My friend doesn't understand, saying he drives his around town, on tarmac, and passes gas stations all the time, but he fails to realize that there aren't any gas stations on the golf course. Your friend gave you a $300+ Apple Watch, not a $50 sleep tracker. Charge it at night and if you really do want a sleep tracker then buy a sleep tracker.
  - cyberferret 10y ago
    Not sure about you, but I would have the skills to actually use a Ferrari 458 Spider as a golf cart without tearing up the fairways or using too much fuel. It would be cool. Strange analogies aside - the point of my post is that the Apple Watch uses too much of my time and energy to 'baby' it and make sure it is operationally ready. Yes, I love unlocking my Mac with it, getting the time and reading notifications on it, so big bonus there. I did used to have Fitbit device for a long while there and enjoyed the fact that I only had to plan and think about charging it every 2 or 3 weeks, rather than every 1.3 days. Even if it was an even 24 hours recharge cycle for the Watch, it would be a darn sight more convenient, as I could get into routine of charging it at a set time every day, but the fact that it (a) runs out of charge at different times of the day and (b) takes a long time to fully charge up means that it just takes up too much of my conscious thought to manage it, and I would far rather spend that time and energy elsewhere on things I consider more important. Heck, I have enough trouble keeping my cats fed and happy - I don't need something else constantly bullying me as well. Similar with your Ferrari analogy above. Rules permitting, it would make an awesome golf cart and I would do so without hesitation. My main problem would be 'babying' it again and worrying about other golfers denting it with errant shots or thrown clubs (you'd have to play golf with me one day to see how prevalent that is among the guys I play with!) :) First world problems, I know, but I think it is a big factor as to why most of the first world seems to shun the smart watches.
elchief 10y ago
Can someone make a super-low energy, classic looking watch with GPS? For people with Alzheimer's / Dementia. Could make a kids version too. They have GPS watches, but the battery seems to last maybe a day or two. My dad isn't going to remember to do that, so I would need to do so on a less frequent basis. Maybe with some self-charging based on user movement (they used to make self-winding watches)? Keep GPS off until receive (authenticated) SMS message asking it to turn on, then report back position? Or maybe just triangulate position based on cell towers every 15 min...
- zimpenfish 10y ago
  http://www.back2you.com/alzheimer-dementia-gps-tracker.html http://www.back2you.com/alzheimer-dementia-gps-tracker.html does a week but sadly lacks the "classic looking watch" form factor (unless you get creative with a Dremel, I suppose)
dfar1 10y ago
I've been wanting one but given their prices and longevity I rather just get a nicer phone.
choward 10y ago
The biggest issue for me with the "smartwatch" is that they don't have feature parody with dumb watches. I've had many watches in the past and the battery lasts for years. I can also turn my wrist and see the time instantly. Who would have thought? What I get now is some piece of crap that needs to be charged every night. So I basically have no features while I'm sleeping. I can't just wake up in the middle of the night an instantly know what the time is. As a battery saving measure, the time isn't displayed until I turn my wrist and wait some obscene amount of time (around a second?). It also goes from being dark to being lit... so much for being discrete. I wish they would stop calling these things "watches" just because they go on your wrist. I expect anything called a watch to have the features of a watch and be on my wrist pretty much all of the time. Call it a fitness tracker if it's not meant to be worn 24/7. Let me know when battery life is within a couple of orders of magnitude of real watches, then maybe I'll revisit.
- ska 10y ago
  "feature parody" Some might say that's exactly what they have :)
- dublinben 10y ago
  I would say that most smartwatches are indeed a parody of real watches. They certainly do not have feature parity with their traditional competitors.
  - nemothekid 10y ago
    I saw that typo too. I assumed auto-correct boned him, and opted to skip the english lesson.
    - dozzie 10y ago
      > [I] opted to skip the english lesson. Good, because of the pot and kettle thing.
    - credit_guy 10y ago
      For the non-native English speakers, or for the native but non-US speakers, this was a very interesting misspelling. A lot of native US speakers pronounce the two words absolutelly in the same way. The British pronounciation is a bit different, as I suspect to be the case in many other English speaking countries. Even in the US not everyone pronounces the 't' in "parity" the same as the 'd' in "parody", I would estimate it's about fifty-fifdy.
shepard 10y ago
I'm wondering why no one discusses that Q3 was the Quarter right before new Apple Watch introduction, and Apple owns a majority share in the market? Of course people were waiting to buy a new device. Q4/Q1 will be more relevant.
huangc10 10y ago
Someone mentioned it in the comments on TC. The decline may have been due to the Apple Watch v2's imminent announcement. I think people are willing to try it but not if there is "most definitely" a newer and improved version coming out soon for the same price. 2017 may well be the year for watches. This topic is pointless now given it's end of Oct and BF and Christmas is coming up soon. Let's revisit this topic mid 2017. *edit, spelling.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
drivingmenuts 10y ago
Why do I need a smartwatch, when I have a perfectly acceptable smartphone that does about 10x10 things more than the smartwatch will ever be able to do? If I just needed to know the time, I'd buy a watch. If I need to know the time and make a call, I'd buy a smartphone. Which I did. Welcome to the future. We don't really solve problems - we just invent new ones and call the old problems solved. Hell, I don't even remember what problem smartwatches were supposed to solve! I'm going to go get off my own damn lawn.
- FLGMwt 10y ago
  Dunno if it's just because of Chicago winters, but not having to unglove and unbundle my phone is pretty nice for: - Screening calls - Switching/pausing music - Reading and (briefly) responding to texts - checking the time (no, seriously : p)
r00fus 10y ago
I predict Apple is very happy with the smartwatch market being down, much like Microsoft loved it (back in '99) when internet stocks were down. They are an iPhone company, and probably prefer (as a company) to defer threats to that incumbency. I own an Apple Watch, and a Pebble before it, but honestly until more devices are addressable by such devices, it's usability is limited. I think it may also have something to do with the relative popularity of Alexa and pervasive voice input in general - though I shy away from those due to privacy concerns. I mean, why wear a watch and tap for Siri when you can just call out for Alexa (and now Google) to ask about weather? (edited for clarity)
carldotac 10y ago
I bought one of the first generation Android Wear devices for $50 a few months after they debut. There was some convenience to the simple verbal commands for timers and the instant answers made for a neat party trick, but the speech-to-text wasn't good enough for moderately complex messaging (I once said I would be there in "a bit over 15 minutes" and got the fraction bit/15 minutes) and it was heavy and uncomfortable. I've also become less and less comfortable with being so intimate with Google. I do see value added in the notification mirroring, however. There are many situations where it's useful to see updates without taking out and unlocking your phone: at a meeting, with your hands full, walking around in a crowd. I hadn't worn my watch for the better chunk of a year until two weeks ago when I needed instant Twitter notifications during business hours should a convention I attend start selling its badges. Now that I have those badges, it's back into the drawer until needed again. My calculator watch is more comfortable and I have metal watches that look nicer. Unless I have a defined need for notifications on my wrist, I currently am better off with a conventional watch.
scottmf 10y ago
Misleading title. You can't compare sales from the Apple Watch's initial release with the months leading up to a new model. If you take Apple out of the picture sales stay pretty steady. Samsung grows a little, Garmin grows a lot. Far from "tanking". Smartwatches will continue to sell steadily (to early adopters and developers) until the tech catches up. The new Apple Watch is already a huge improvement over the last model, but mainly in software. WatchOS was terrible until 3.0 and it still isn't there. It tries to do too much because Apple doesn't quite seem sure what it's supposed to do. For telling the time, displaying notifications, fitness tracking, and a couple of other things it's great. Why then is the homescreen a complete mess of icons for half-features? Why (until WatchOS 3.0) could it take upwards of ten seconds to open an app? I imagine Apple would never release the iPad today without first-party weather/stocks/calculator apps.
- bduerst 10y ago
  Yep - this is a mistake people when evalutating gadget sales in general. The timeframe has to be set to the product lifecycle (i.e. t=0 is the launch) to make comparisons or determine trends. YoY is skewed heavily by the product launches.
- throwa18 10y ago
  Didn't the Apple Watch launch a quarter later this year compared to its initial launch?
fisherjeff 10y ago
I think their conclusion is a little misguided - if you remove the Apple Watch from the list, overall sales are roughly flat, at 1.6-1.7m units.
kingmanaz 10y ago
As a wearer of a 1950s Bulova selfwinder, rather than the face, I'd like to see smatwatch vendors focus on the band. In other words, a third-party creates a 16mm or 18mm Nato style strap which embeds the battery, heartrate sensors, motion sensors, etc. and communicates to a smartphone or PC via bluetooth for data collection. The same 1950s Bulova (or whatever) face is attached to the band.
- steaminghacker 10y ago
  i agree. Stuffing everything into one tin makes it too big with too short battery life. The problem with putting sensors & power in the strap is that it's not longer a watch insofar as you can change straps. personally, i think the "band" format is superior, mainly for these reasons.
nercht12 10y ago
Smart watches don't have any particular niche to capture that other devices don't have. Maybe if they expanded into large screen computers, that would be cool. It'd be nice to have a rolled up monitor on my arm - it'd be great for maps cause I could unroll it with the other hand to get a peek at the map and then let it auto-re-roll itself. Sorry - I don't have a diagram to show you the idea, but maybe you can catch my drift. I'm aware there are some flexible screens already (some organic stuff), but I don't know much about the progress in that area.
pjmlp 10y ago
Of course they are, they are just a gimmick to try to sell gadgets to those that already own a PC, tablet and phones and overcome the flat downwards curve in sales, now that all those devices are good enough for most people. As a former owner of the old Casio and Timex first waves of smartwatches, I fail to get any interest on 21st version of them.
cpprototypes 10y ago
The "smartwatch" from Apple and Android is not a good idea. Fitbit and Pebble are closer to the right direction. Apple/Android keep trying to make watch-sized smartphones. But they will never compete with actual smartphones, they will just always be annoying inferior smartphones on your wrist. The key factor is to consider which senses are optimal UI for each device. Smartphones dominate the visual and audio senses. Smartwatch simply can't compete there. So smartwatch should have a very simple very low power display like the Fitbit and Pebble and maybe a simple speaker/mic. So what sense is the smartwatch good for? It's touch. There is a lot of potential of using vibrations/touch as a UI. For example, I think the Apple watch vibrates for turns when you do a Maps route. That's a good start. They need to focus more on things like this. There's a lot you can communicate with vibration, kind of like morse code (such as two quick vibrates, a long vibrate, etc.) And now Apple has a very advanced touch sensor (the new one in iphone 7). Get rid of that silly big screen on Apple watch. Put the touch sensor there. Why not just allow thumbprint scan, wave my watch at a Apple Pay terminal, and buy things? Way less effort than taking out my phone. These kind of pure touch and vibration UI is a huge open field. And I think Apple somewhat understands this. But they need to make the big step of dropping that screen. Because that's not where the smartwatch is strong. And it would also allow long battery life which is more important for smartwatch. People are used to daily charge for phones. But much less tolerant of that for watches.
- kenferry 10y ago
  > Get rid of that silly big screen on Apple watch. Put the touch sensor there. Why not just allow thumbprint scan, wave my watch at a Apple Pay terminal, and buy things? Way less effort than taking out my phone. Just in case you missed it, this is already supported, and it's somewhat better than you're suggesting. Once the watch is unlocked, it does not need additional authentication to pay until it leaves your wrist (at which point it relocks). Double click the side button to put it into pay mode.
Fiahil 10y ago
Of course sales are tanking, these things are bloody useless. I have the first generation of motorola 360, I wear it every day and charge it every night. The hardware is fine (for a first gen) and I like its style. But, I unpaired it from my phone a long time ago, because I ran into too many issues. First the connection was sucking my phone's battery to a point it wasn't funny anymore, then updating an app on my phone would crash the watch's OS, and again randomly causing the thing to become uncomfortably hot. Finally the overhaul quality of the ecosystem went down with each updates (notifications delayed, vibrations missed, glitches...) The features I don't miss: - Fitness & heart rate (that thing was a joke) - Music (I have a phone for that, thank you) - Note taking (just no. I'm not ever again talking to my watch in public) - Text responding (what is wrong with you?) The features I do miss a little bit: - GPS guidance with vibrations when biking (two for left, three for right, - that was genius) - getting my phone's notifications (when it was working)
gumby 10y ago
I'm really shocked by how much I appreciate my Apple watch. I bought it figuring I'd try it for 13 days and return it. Instead, I forgot to put it on in the morning of the fifth day and turned around on the way to work to get it -- it made that much difference. My GF, likewise, finds hers indispensable. But it does pretty much everything I need right now so I don't see a point in upgrading. The analysts are hoping for an upgrade market.
pmontra 10y ago
What killed the smart watch for me is the watch form factor. I don't want stuff strapped to my body. I had to stop wearing a watch many years ago for a few months and I couldn't do it again since I lost the habit. It just feels unnatural. I understand that it can be laughed at, because I wear glasses. An extremely lightweight notification device inside my glasses would be the right form factor for me.
canada_dry 10y ago
When I was in Shenzhen recently I noted that smart watch shops were everywhere, with literally hundreds of different models to choose from... but very few people were actually wearing one! I believe this will be (er, has) become the CB radio fad of this generation.
AvenueIngres 10y ago
Pebble is rather good, I would say it is easily the best price:quality smartwatch available out there.
norea-armozel 10y ago
I must be a curmudgeon but what's the purpose of a smart watch? It always seemed like a solution in search of a problem.
frenchman_in_ny 10y ago
This is slightly misleading -- and the table is missing its footnotes from the original article -- since the "data only includes smartwatches capable of running third party applications". As a result, it ignores a lot of great wearables that for some reason IDC doesn't consider "smartwatches" which don't need third party apps.
luckydata 10y ago
I love my Pebble, I'm now late to 50% less of my scheduled appointments :-)

102 points by sua_3000 10y ago

sua_3000 10y ago

had one and returned it. They don't provide much value beyond real-time notifications & a fancy pedometer.

drcross 10y ago
Same. I had a huawei and it was like using the original iphone; had potential but needs constant kid gloves to operate and couldnt go far from the charge dock. Going through menus took almost seconds, even with different versions of Android wear.
adrr 10y ago
Have an apple watch. Notifications are useful but charging it every day is such a huge inconvenience that i don't bother with it.
- 6nf 10y ago
  When I'm getting ready for bed I remove my watch and pop it on the charging dock on my bedside. In the morning when I wake up I put it back on. Do you sleep with your watch or why is it such a pain to charge it at night like your phone?
  - dingaling 10y ago
    It's not just the hassle of charging overnight but also the fire risk; charging Lithium batteries a metre from my head whilst I sleep is not an attractive idea. Hence I charge phones and laptops during the day and only when someone is around to supervise.
    - 6nf 10y ago
      You could charge your watch at that same time. It doesn't take long.
problems 10y ago
Yeah, this is why I went with the Pebble over the others - it gets the realtime notifications and the fancy sleep tracker and pedometer - and due to eink, can keep its screen on without the need to be charged every night. That's all I wanted it for, that's all it does. And most importantly - it's priced like that's all it does.
- milesokeefe 10y ago
  Pebbles haven't used e-ink since the first version. But they seem to get equal or better battery life out of the Transflective LCDs currently used, which operate on a similar principle as e-ink, in the sense of how the light reaches your eyes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_display https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transflective_liquid-crystal_d...
  - problems 10y ago
    Interesting, I seem to remember them calling it color epaper in some marketing material so I just assumed it was a similar product to eink. Cool though.
helthanatos 10y ago
I think that android Casio smartwatch looks pretty cool... But I'm not paying more than $200 for a watch. When they can operate as a regular watch and a good notification device, I'll consider paying maybe $300. It's just a lot of money for a relatively useless object on your wrist.
xutopia 10y ago
I won my Apple watch in a contest. I wouldn't have bought it. I find the notifications on my wrist are really great. I don't take my phone out nearly as often as before. I now pay for gas, small groceries and various other things with my watch. I unlock my computer by just pressing the spacebar instead of typing my password. The killer app for me is when I'm cycling or motorbiking and have directions appear on my wrist instead of my pocket.

carsongross 10y ago

Seems like they will stay a niche until they can replace phones entirely, and perhaps even past then. A lot of people just don't like having something strapped to their wrist and/or want a large screen. As a watch guy (and most watch people are guys) the first smart watch I've been excited about is the upcoming gear S3: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s3/ http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s3/ Because it looks like a real watch and has the rotating bezel for input, but I recognize I'm a tiny market. I hope it doesn't set my wrist on fire.

bobajeff 10y ago
Yeah that's me I'm waiting for them to come out with one that's a replacement for a phone not some unjustifiably expensive accessory for a phone. That or just make phones smaller. My favorite flip phone is smaller than even the smallest iPhone. I'd probably still use it today if my network still supported 2g.
sosuke 10y ago
I saw the Fossil Q (https://www.fossil.com/us/en/wearable-technology.html https://www.fossil.com/us/en/wearable-technology.html) in the wild the other day and it looked very attractive. I love that bezel input idea! I hadn't seen the Gear S3
- tgb 10y ago
  What does the "charging not required" claim mean for the hybrid watches? They claim a 6-month battery life. What do you do afterwards? Replace the battery?
  - sosuke 10y ago
    There are several types of self charging watches out there. Solar are some, kinetic watches. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_quartz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automatic_quartz I think that means it will sit on a shelf unworn for 6 months
BoorishBears 10y ago

pcunite 10y ago

When I'm not wearing my mechanical Seiko, I wear a Garmin GPS for running. Always-on is big for me. Are there any that have that feature these days?

sp332 10y ago
Always-on... screen? Pebbles have that. They don't have GPS built-in though so you'll have to bring your phone with you. You can control the running apps through the watch interface at least.
- darklajid 10y ago
  Note that there are 3rd party solutions for the Pebble (straps that use their extension/accessory pins to add GPS and a bit more juice) and that Pebble plans to release the Pebble Core in January - a tiny wearable Android device with GPS included. So you should be able to go out with your Pebble + SomethingElse and leave the phone at home, if we're talking GPS or tracking. Disclaimer: I own a Pebble Time, I backed the Pebble Time 2 and the Pebble Core.
jsight 10y ago
The Pebble 2, Pebble Time 2, and the original Pebble Time all have always-on screens. The battery life is as follows: - Pebble 2: 7 days - Pebble Time 2: 10 days - Pebble Time: 5 days In practice, the Pebble Time is good for about 4 days. I suspect that the other estimates are about a day above what most people will see as well.
nfriedly 10y ago
A lot of Android Wear watches have an always-on screen option. A Huawei Watch lasts ~2 days with the screen always on and light usage.
snarkyturtle 10y ago
I feel like the newer Garmins are a good middle-ground for smartwatches. Always-on, 1+ week battery life, phone/email/calender notifications. And you get GPS built-in with a step tracker. I'd recommend the forerunner 230 which has a 5 week battery life: https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/into-sports/running/forerunner-230/prod523893.html https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/into-sports/running/forerunn...

mjevans 10y ago

I suspect people /want/ a smart watch so they can feel like Dick Tracy and Roger Smith (Anime, Big O). The reality is that the smart watch is little more than a smaller screen attached by wireless personal area network to the real computer; which has a better (bigger, brighter, larger buttons) and more responsive screen. I stopped wearing a normal watch once I had a decent pocket chronometer (a comparatively primitive simple pocket flip phone). I think that's the marketing problem here; it isn't clear to the average consumer what the use case, if any, actually is.

WalterBright 10y ago
> I stopped wearing a normal watch once I had a decent pocket chronometer I continue to wear one because it is easier to check the time that way than dig the thing out of my pocket, turn it on, get it to recognize my thumb or demand a pin, etc., especially when driving. And, of course, because I'm old and not hip.
- shuntress 10y ago
  I'm young and not hip and I wear a conventional watch almost every day.
  - WalterBright 10y ago
    Haha, I have a "Mad Men" style Samsonite briefcase that my father gave me in the 1970s. Here's a picture of one: https://www.etsy.com/listing/57044295/samsonite-briefcase-with-key-charcoal https://www.etsy.com/listing/57044295/samsonite-briefcase-wi... It works great as a case for my laptop. It's fun being unhip :-) Edit: I've used modern soft laptop bags, but they tend to develop tears and small holes through which things fall out unnoticed. Urgh. The Samsonite doesn't have that failure mode.
    - douche 10y ago
      Stuff from that era that still exists might as well be indestructible. A little bit of survivorship bias, but it's hard to find anything that well made at any price now.

sp332 10y ago

Man, I didn't expect Pebble to be down so much. My wife and I have 5 of them between us. The always-on screen and a week of battery life make them much more attractive than most other smartwatches.

treve 10y ago
If you buy 5 when you only have 4 arms, you might be biased about the pebble's success ;)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- sp332 10y ago
  It's true! We got one each when they first came out on Kickstarter, then I bought a Steel because it looked nicer, then we both got Times when they came out, then I got her a Round because she liked the look. counts Oh wait, that's 6. And the last one was in December... so actually, we're part of the reason for the YoY decline!
  - harlanji 10y ago
    I'm with you, been wearing the Steel daily since it came out. Lovely product. Firmware upgrade was actually welcome; I'll keep it, I love that you can roll back easily by installing a different app version. Dismal market share! :( -- though, people have complimented it frequently, most don't know it's a smart watch which I consider a feature. Looks like they should turn to some niche marketing strategies if they're not already because people who like Pebbles REALLY like Pebbles I find, though they are rare to begin with.
gnicholas 10y ago
Ditto—I love mine and am anxiously awaiting delivery of my next one. For me, it doesn't have to replace a smartphone, it just has to make it much easier for me to see and categorize the influx of information. It answers the question of (1) did I just feel my phone buzz? and (2) if so, do I need to read/respond right now. Since I previously wore watches, I find it natural to wear. And because I never had luxury watches (Seiko was my ceiling), I don't mind that smartwatches aren't fancier-looking. I understand that watch-nevers and timepiece aficionados may feel differently...

aschampion 10y ago

I like my 2nd gen Moto 360 as a watch, for its aesthetics, and as a simple notifier, but almost everything else on it is beyond broken. Just trying to check the weather takes 20+ seconds and fails half the time, even on wifi. Pull out the phone and the weather is already there, updated. What the hell. Ok Google could be useful, except for the situations you'd want to use it (hands full, crowded environment) are exactly the situations where it fails. USAA has a great watch app, though, which somehow has many fewer reliability/latency problems than every other app. I can do most of my banking just walking down the hall while my phone is locked up at my desk.

newswriter9 10y ago

I don't get it. Decades of science fiction depicting Heads-up-Display glasses and wrist-strapped laptops, with people wishing and wishing we lived in such a world. Now here we are and society isn't going in for it. Bluetooth head sets, smartwatches, Google Glass, none of it is sticking. Even though smart phones are becoming cumbersome due to size and inability to use hands-free or even one-handed well. Are we ever going to see a cyberpunk future?

knz 10y ago
Could it be that smartwatches and google glass don't have suitable input methods yet? They're adequate for displaying information but not great for extensive input or manipulation of data. Most people also don't want yet another device to recharge each night either. I have a Nexus 6 (one of the larger phones) and don't find it cumbersome at all. It's certainly more practical compared to trying to do anything meaningful on a smartwatch.
- newswriter9 10y ago
  My Nexus 4 was (at the time, 2013) huge to me because I had just switched from a tiny little qwerty flip phone. Getting used to it took forever, but my number one problem was making it fit on me without being bulky or getting scratched up/damaged. Mind you I had a blue collar job at the time so there was a lot of opportunity for phone destruction.
- ChicagoBoy11 10y ago
  I think there is more to your comment than initially meets the eye. I've been watching "Black Mirror" the past few days, and the one thing that all episodes share in common when it comes to their futuristic UX is the tremendous expressiveness that they derive from unbelievably simple and quick input methods, where you can clearly see that the user communicated far more intent than even the number of DOF that their supposed input device even allowed. The only thing I can think of as helping to bridge that gap is AI
sosuke 10y ago
The limitations of power have put a choke-hold on the future you and I read about in science fiction. After the power issue is solved the next problem will be heat I think. Solve the power problem and we'll see a huge jump in technology. Right now they are trying to solve it by making more and more efficient processors that use less power and perform better over the same amount of time.

Theodores 10y ago

Festive gadget: https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=apple%20watch,pebble%20watch,android%20watch,samsung%20watch,fitbit https://www.google.co.uk/trends/explore?q=apple%20watch,pebb... Seems interest in smart watches happens at Christmas time. There is a problem with that because you don't buy people the same present every year and there cannot be that many people wanting a new smart watch at Christmas, particularly if it is marginally better than their existing smart watch. I think the same people that bought 3D televisions and tablets bought smart watches, they will be wanting something else next. Maybe they will return to buying smart watches when there is some new battery-defying functionality to them, i.e. they are as good as smart phones in miniature with lots of previously unimagined 'Pokemon Go' grade apps that make the upgrade worth it. I also do not believe that any of the smart watches cut the mustard as far as true watch aficionados are concerned. To some people the fanciest ceramic iWatch is on an equal par with a resin calculator watch, lacking intangible heritage things and therefore not a cool item in their minds (they probably fear not being able to use a smart watch). These same people were equally snobbish about digital photography, therefore it could take a generation before smart watches are accepted 'artistically' by people who are like that. I am hoping that a category killing smart watch gets made by Google in the same price range as a Chromecast. For £30 a lot of people would give a smart watch a go.

jfoutz 10y ago

I've always been skeptical of smart watches. As others say, if it can't outright replace my phone, i just don't see much value in them. I wear "nice" watches occasionally, usually any time i have to wear a suit. As a toy, an epaper watch with actual physical hands would be pretty cool. The two extra hands on something like a diving watch could be used for other gauges, maybe unread email count or something goofy like that. A watch seems like the right target for that semi connected on call state. Sort of like a modern pager. I'm not reading email, or available on hangouts. But i'll get the alert that we need to communicate. Low key, non intrusive, acceptable at a funeral. Just a few bits of information.

DanBC 10y ago
> Sort of like a modern pager. One of the original smart watches was Swatch's The Beep - a watch / pager mashup. http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/wear-your-heart-on-your-wrist-1619632.html http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/wear-your-heart-on-y...
rubber_duck 10y ago
I like the idea of having a reliable health monitor inside a watch (pedometer, heart rate, oxygen levels, etc.) Especially if they can combine that with data analytics and find some early symptoms of serious issues or help me optimize my day. Combined with existing smartwatch functionality I'd get that. But right now the devices I've seen are too limited/imprecise or too expensive.

nfriedly 10y ago

I liked my Android Wear watch, but it never completely worked. Things like dismissing a reminder on the watch would get a sad cloud rather than also dismiss it on my phone. I thought maybe it was because I was running cyanogenmod, so I went back to stock Verizon firmware, but it had all the same bugs. A few weeks later, the Android Wear app started crashing in the background 2-3 times per minute and giving me a popup each time. I disabled it and haven't really used the watch since.

fuzzythinker 10y ago

It will continue to tank until they become the phone and the phone becomes just another screen (eg. ipod touch, mini tablets).

technofiend 10y ago
I honestly thought that was one possible outcome of Project Ara if Google decided that the phone's component inventory didn't literally need to be connected to the base station. It would have made sense to extend Ara communication to BLE, Zigbee or some other low power wireless rather than wired interface. But that dream died with the Ara project itself. Oh well.

gtrubetskoy 10y ago

If I ever do get a smartwatch, it would be because it's a sensor. I think the health/medical/biohacking potential there is huge. The only thing is - must it really be on my wrist, and do I really need to look at it or touch/push buttons on it?

steaminghacker 10y ago
im thinking biosensors evenually have to go subcutaneous with the watch/band being the reader.

post_break 10y ago

Probably because there hasn't been an updated android wear watch in ages besides the fossil, which I bought after my moto 360 died. Google is dragging their feet.

steaminghacker 10y ago
isn't there supposed to be a major update Jan?

steaminghacker 10y ago

Haven't they figured out yet that telling the time is the thing that smart watches do the worst. instead, i want a band. I'm still waiting for an Android Wear band. i want something a bit like the Microsoft band 2 [1], but slimmer and a smaller screen. something as a notification device and to take voice notes. but i don't need it to replace my watch because it's not "on" when i look at it. For telling the time, I'll either wear a "proper" watch (as well) or none at all. [1] I'm on my 3rd ms band. they randomly die (stop charging). ms are good about it and replace it quickly... but soon my warranty will be up and it's all over.

milesokeefe 10y ago
Pebble doesn't have that problem.
- steaminghacker 10y ago
  can i do voice recognition on a pebble?
  - zevyoura 10y ago
    Yes, if you have an Android phone.
  - wvenable 10y ago
    Yes, and not just on Android. Pebble has a microphone and voice-recognition. One of the more popular apps is effectively wrist-based Siri.

philfrasty 10y ago

If you can't use them....shoot them https://youtu.be/JumhJWgAS4U?t=16s https://youtu.be/JumhJWgAS4U?t=16s

cyberferret 10y ago

As the comments in that article pointed out - the hassle far outweighs the value. After not wearing a watch for over 20 years, I've had an Apple Watch for about 3 months now (it was a free gift), and honestly, as much as the device is useful, it is a pain - especially when it comes to battery life. The charge seems to last just enough to fall flat at the most inconvenient times, i.e. when I am just about to leave the house all day, or right when I am about to go to bed (I use the watch primarily for sleep tracking). Most of the apps on the watch kind of require you to wear it consistently all of the time to give you meaningful data, however current battery life means you end up with large gaps in your human telemetry that your data is always missing vital chunks.

lowbloodsugar 10y ago
Someone gave me a golf cart last year. Actually they gave me a Ferrari 458 Spider. But I wanted a golf cart, so I'm using it as golf cart. Its hassle far outweighs its value. It destroys the fairway with its huge torque. And its rear wheel drive makes it really hard to control on grass. And it uses a lot of gas, so it runs out at the most inconvenient times. My friend doesn't understand, saying he drives his around town, on tarmac, and passes gas stations all the time, but he fails to realize that there aren't any gas stations on the golf course. Your friend gave you a $300+ Apple Watch, not a $50 sleep tracker. Charge it at night and if you really do want a sleep tracker then buy a sleep tracker.
- cyberferret 10y ago
  Not sure about you, but I would have the skills to actually use a Ferrari 458 Spider as a golf cart without tearing up the fairways or using too much fuel. It would be cool. Strange analogies aside - the point of my post is that the Apple Watch uses too much of my time and energy to 'baby' it and make sure it is operationally ready. Yes, I love unlocking my Mac with it, getting the time and reading notifications on it, so big bonus there. I did used to have Fitbit device for a long while there and enjoyed the fact that I only had to plan and think about charging it every 2 or 3 weeks, rather than every 1.3 days. Even if it was an even 24 hours recharge cycle for the Watch, it would be a darn sight more convenient, as I could get into routine of charging it at a set time every day, but the fact that it (a) runs out of charge at different times of the day and (b) takes a long time to fully charge up means that it just takes up too much of my conscious thought to manage it, and I would far rather spend that time and energy elsewhere on things I consider more important. Heck, I have enough trouble keeping my cats fed and happy - I don't need something else constantly bullying me as well. Similar with your Ferrari analogy above. Rules permitting, it would make an awesome golf cart and I would do so without hesitation. My main problem would be 'babying' it again and worrying about other golfers denting it with errant shots or thrown clubs (you'd have to play golf with me one day to see how prevalent that is among the guys I play with!) :) First world problems, I know, but I think it is a big factor as to why most of the first world seems to shun the smart watches.

elchief 10y ago

Can someone make a super-low energy, classic looking watch with GPS? For people with Alzheimer's / Dementia. Could make a kids version too. They have GPS watches, but the battery seems to last maybe a day or two. My dad isn't going to remember to do that, so I would need to do so on a less frequent basis. Maybe with some self-charging based on user movement (they used to make self-winding watches)? Keep GPS off until receive (authenticated) SMS message asking it to turn on, then report back position? Or maybe just triangulate position based on cell towers every 15 min...

zimpenfish 10y ago
http://www.back2you.com/alzheimer-dementia-gps-tracker.html http://www.back2you.com/alzheimer-dementia-gps-tracker.html does a week but sadly lacks the "classic looking watch" form factor (unless you get creative with a Dremel, I suppose)

dfar1 10y ago

I've been wanting one but given their prices and longevity I rather just get a nicer phone.

choward 10y ago

The biggest issue for me with the "smartwatch" is that they don't have feature parody with dumb watches. I've had many watches in the past and the battery lasts for years. I can also turn my wrist and see the time instantly. Who would have thought? What I get now is some piece of crap that needs to be charged every night. So I basically have no features while I'm sleeping. I can't just wake up in the middle of the night an instantly know what the time is. As a battery saving measure, the time isn't displayed until I turn my wrist and wait some obscene amount of time (around a second?). It also goes from being dark to being lit... so much for being discrete. I wish they would stop calling these things "watches" just because they go on your wrist. I expect anything called a watch to have the features of a watch and be on my wrist pretty much all of the time. Call it a fitness tracker if it's not meant to be worn 24/7. Let me know when battery life is within a couple of orders of magnitude of real watches, then maybe I'll revisit.

ska 10y ago
"feature parody" Some might say that's exactly what they have :)
dublinben 10y ago
I would say that most smartwatches are indeed a parody of real watches. They certainly do not have feature parity with their traditional competitors.
- nemothekid 10y ago
  I saw that typo too. I assumed auto-correct boned him, and opted to skip the english lesson.
  - dozzie 10y ago
    > [I] opted to skip the english lesson. Good, because of the pot and kettle thing.
  - credit_guy 10y ago
    For the non-native English speakers, or for the native but non-US speakers, this was a very interesting misspelling. A lot of native US speakers pronounce the two words absolutelly in the same way. The British pronounciation is a bit different, as I suspect to be the case in many other English speaking countries. Even in the US not everyone pronounces the 't' in "parity" the same as the 'd' in "parody", I would estimate it's about fifty-fifdy.

shepard 10y ago

I'm wondering why no one discusses that Q3 was the Quarter right before new Apple Watch introduction, and Apple owns a majority share in the market? Of course people were waiting to buy a new device. Q4/Q1 will be more relevant.

huangc10 10y ago

Someone mentioned it in the comments on TC. The decline may have been due to the Apple Watch v2's imminent announcement. I think people are willing to try it but not if there is "most definitely" a newer and improved version coming out soon for the same price. 2017 may well be the year for watches. This topic is pointless now given it's end of Oct and BF and Christmas is coming up soon. Let's revisit this topic mid 2017. *edit, spelling.

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

drivingmenuts 10y ago

Why do I need a smartwatch, when I have a perfectly acceptable smartphone that does about 10x10 things more than the smartwatch will ever be able to do? If I just needed to know the time, I'd buy a watch. If I need to know the time and make a call, I'd buy a smartphone. Which I did. Welcome to the future. We don't really solve problems - we just invent new ones and call the old problems solved. Hell, I don't even remember what problem smartwatches were supposed to solve! I'm going to go get off my own damn lawn.

FLGMwt 10y ago
Dunno if it's just because of Chicago winters, but not having to unglove and unbundle my phone is pretty nice for: - Screening calls - Switching/pausing music - Reading and (briefly) responding to texts - checking the time (no, seriously : p)

r00fus 10y ago

I predict Apple is very happy with the smartwatch market being down, much like Microsoft loved it (back in '99) when internet stocks were down. They are an iPhone company, and probably prefer (as a company) to defer threats to that incumbency. I own an Apple Watch, and a Pebble before it, but honestly until more devices are addressable by such devices, it's usability is limited. I think it may also have something to do with the relative popularity of Alexa and pervasive voice input in general - though I shy away from those due to privacy concerns. I mean, why wear a watch and tap for Siri when you can just call out for Alexa (and now Google) to ask about weather? (edited for clarity)

carldotac 10y ago

I bought one of the first generation Android Wear devices for $50 a few months after they debut. There was some convenience to the simple verbal commands for timers and the instant answers made for a neat party trick, but the speech-to-text wasn't good enough for moderately complex messaging (I once said I would be there in "a bit over 15 minutes" and got the fraction bit/15 minutes) and it was heavy and uncomfortable. I've also become less and less comfortable with being so intimate with Google. I do see value added in the notification mirroring, however. There are many situations where it's useful to see updates without taking out and unlocking your phone: at a meeting, with your hands full, walking around in a crowd. I hadn't worn my watch for the better chunk of a year until two weeks ago when I needed instant Twitter notifications during business hours should a convention I attend start selling its badges. Now that I have those badges, it's back into the drawer until needed again. My calculator watch is more comfortable and I have metal watches that look nicer. Unless I have a defined need for notifications on my wrist, I currently am better off with a conventional watch.

scottmf 10y ago

Misleading title. You can't compare sales from the Apple Watch's initial release with the months leading up to a new model. If you take Apple out of the picture sales stay pretty steady. Samsung grows a little, Garmin grows a lot. Far from "tanking". Smartwatches will continue to sell steadily (to early adopters and developers) until the tech catches up. The new Apple Watch is already a huge improvement over the last model, but mainly in software. WatchOS was terrible until 3.0 and it still isn't there. It tries to do too much because Apple doesn't quite seem sure what it's supposed to do. For telling the time, displaying notifications, fitness tracking, and a couple of other things it's great. Why then is the homescreen a complete mess of icons for half-features? Why (until WatchOS 3.0) could it take upwards of ten seconds to open an app? I imagine Apple would never release the iPad today without first-party weather/stocks/calculator apps.

bduerst 10y ago
Yep - this is a mistake people when evalutating gadget sales in general. The timeframe has to be set to the product lifecycle (i.e. t=0 is the launch) to make comparisons or determine trends. YoY is skewed heavily by the product launches.
throwa18 10y ago
Didn't the Apple Watch launch a quarter later this year compared to its initial launch?

fisherjeff 10y ago

I think their conclusion is a little misguided - if you remove the Apple Watch from the list, overall sales are roughly flat, at 1.6-1.7m units.

kingmanaz 10y ago

As a wearer of a 1950s Bulova selfwinder, rather than the face, I'd like to see smatwatch vendors focus on the band. In other words, a third-party creates a 16mm or 18mm Nato style strap which embeds the battery, heartrate sensors, motion sensors, etc. and communicates to a smartphone or PC via bluetooth for data collection. The same 1950s Bulova (or whatever) face is attached to the band.

steaminghacker 10y ago
i agree. Stuffing everything into one tin makes it too big with too short battery life. The problem with putting sensors & power in the strap is that it's not longer a watch insofar as you can change straps. personally, i think the "band" format is superior, mainly for these reasons.

nercht12 10y ago

Smart watches don't have any particular niche to capture that other devices don't have. Maybe if they expanded into large screen computers, that would be cool. It'd be nice to have a rolled up monitor on my arm - it'd be great for maps cause I could unroll it with the other hand to get a peek at the map and then let it auto-re-roll itself. Sorry - I don't have a diagram to show you the idea, but maybe you can catch my drift. I'm aware there are some flexible screens already (some organic stuff), but I don't know much about the progress in that area.

pjmlp 10y ago

Of course they are, they are just a gimmick to try to sell gadgets to those that already own a PC, tablet and phones and overcome the flat downwards curve in sales, now that all those devices are good enough for most people. As a former owner of the old Casio and Timex first waves of smartwatches, I fail to get any interest on 21st version of them.

cpprototypes 10y ago

The "smartwatch" from Apple and Android is not a good idea. Fitbit and Pebble are closer to the right direction. Apple/Android keep trying to make watch-sized smartphones. But they will never compete with actual smartphones, they will just always be annoying inferior smartphones on your wrist. The key factor is to consider which senses are optimal UI for each device. Smartphones dominate the visual and audio senses. Smartwatch simply can't compete there. So smartwatch should have a very simple very low power display like the Fitbit and Pebble and maybe a simple speaker/mic. So what sense is the smartwatch good for? It's touch. There is a lot of potential of using vibrations/touch as a UI. For example, I think the Apple watch vibrates for turns when you do a Maps route. That's a good start. They need to focus more on things like this. There's a lot you can communicate with vibration, kind of like morse code (such as two quick vibrates, a long vibrate, etc.) And now Apple has a very advanced touch sensor (the new one in iphone 7). Get rid of that silly big screen on Apple watch. Put the touch sensor there. Why not just allow thumbprint scan, wave my watch at a Apple Pay terminal, and buy things? Way less effort than taking out my phone. These kind of pure touch and vibration UI is a huge open field. And I think Apple somewhat understands this. But they need to make the big step of dropping that screen. Because that's not where the smartwatch is strong. And it would also allow long battery life which is more important for smartwatch. People are used to daily charge for phones. But much less tolerant of that for watches.

kenferry 10y ago
> Get rid of that silly big screen on Apple watch. Put the touch sensor there. Why not just allow thumbprint scan, wave my watch at a Apple Pay terminal, and buy things? Way less effort than taking out my phone. Just in case you missed it, this is already supported, and it's somewhat better than you're suggesting. Once the watch is unlocked, it does not need additional authentication to pay until it leaves your wrist (at which point it relocks). Double click the side button to put it into pay mode.

Fiahil 10y ago

Of course sales are tanking, these things are bloody useless. I have the first generation of motorola 360, I wear it every day and charge it every night. The hardware is fine (for a first gen) and I like its style. But, I unpaired it from my phone a long time ago, because I ran into too many issues. First the connection was sucking my phone's battery to a point it wasn't funny anymore, then updating an app on my phone would crash the watch's OS, and again randomly causing the thing to become uncomfortably hot. Finally the overhaul quality of the ecosystem went down with each updates (notifications delayed, vibrations missed, glitches...) The features I don't miss: - Fitness & heart rate (that thing was a joke) - Music (I have a phone for that, thank you) - Note taking (just no. I'm not ever again talking to my watch in public) - Text responding (what is wrong with you?) The features I do miss a little bit: - GPS guidance with vibrations when biking (two for left, three for right, - that was genius) - getting my phone's notifications (when it was working)

gumby 10y ago

I'm really shocked by how much I appreciate my Apple watch. I bought it figuring I'd try it for 13 days and return it. Instead, I forgot to put it on in the morning of the fifth day and turned around on the way to work to get it -- it made that much difference. My GF, likewise, finds hers indispensable. But it does pretty much everything I need right now so I don't see a point in upgrading. The analysts are hoping for an upgrade market.

pmontra 10y ago

What killed the smart watch for me is the watch form factor. I don't want stuff strapped to my body. I had to stop wearing a watch many years ago for a few months and I couldn't do it again since I lost the habit. It just feels unnatural. I understand that it can be laughed at, because I wear glasses. An extremely lightweight notification device inside my glasses would be the right form factor for me.

canada_dry 10y ago

When I was in Shenzhen recently I noted that smart watch shops were everywhere, with literally hundreds of different models to choose from... but very few people were actually wearing one! I believe this will be (er, has) become the CB radio fad of this generation.

AvenueIngres 10y ago

Pebble is rather good, I would say it is easily the best price:quality smartwatch available out there.

norea-armozel 10y ago

I must be a curmudgeon but what's the purpose of a smart watch? It always seemed like a solution in search of a problem.

frenchman_in_ny 10y ago

This is slightly misleading -- and the table is missing its footnotes from the original article -- since the "data only includes smartwatches capable of running third party applications". As a result, it ignores a lot of great wearables that for some reason IDC doesn't consider "smartwatches" which don't need third party apps.

luckydata 10y ago

I love my Pebble, I'm now late to 50% less of my scheduled appointments :-)