10 ms·

The Elephant in the Smartwatch Room

56 points by JamilD 10y ago

dumb-saint 10y ago
Boring
- sctb 10y ago
  Please don't post like this here.
pklausler 10y ago
The idiom "elephant in the room" means "a difficult-to-discuss problem that we all know we have to talk about but that we're all pretending doesn't exist". I don't see how the title here is relevant for the linked article, which is a dull summary of low sales of "smart" watches and how most of them are Apples.
- carussell 10y ago
  I've found some people misunderstand and misuse the colloquialism in instances where the phrase "800 lb gorilla" would be more appropriate. This seems to be one of those cases.
  - pklausler 10y ago
    Maybe. But the "800 pound gorilla" idiom refers to a beast that can do whatever it wants to do with impunity, and I don't see how that applies to this story either.
    - carussell 10y ago
      If I understand the author's intent correctly—and I'm not sure that I do—I think the idea is that diversity in the market is dying off, and Apple is on its way to becoming the 800 pound gorilla.
      - Zaak 10y ago
        That really stinks. I don't like Apple's idea of what a smart watch should be. :(
  - Yhippa 10y ago
    The 800 lb. gorilla in the elephant room made of glass.
    - harlanlewis 10y ago
      You're beating around the bull in this China shop. (yeah yeah it's a Reddit -like comment but this whole thread should probably be downvoted)
      - pitaj 10y ago
        Why can't we have a little fun on HN? Maybe we should have a flag for "humor" and let people opt in to seeing comments flagged as such.
        RandomOpinion 10y ago
        I'd rather see HN focused on being a site for substantive, in-depth commentary rather than a slew of one line comments attempting to be witty (and failing), a la Reddit and Slashdot.
    - Spooky23 10y ago
      But is the gorilla reaching out to pick low hanging fruit?
- choward 10y ago
  I thought the same thing. I thought the "elephant in the room" was going to be something like: "smartwatches will never have feature parity with normal watches". For example, they will never have a battery life of 3 years.
  - pbhjpbhj 10y ago
    Meanwhile elsewhere in the news atomic power units made from nuclear waste that have 1 billion times the Wh of an AA battery. Never say never!
- Mz 10y ago
  FWIW, some people seem to (use the phrase "The Elephant in the room" to) just mean "The big obvious thing that no one is commenting on."
  - pklausler 10y ago
    And some people use the perfectly well defined word "literally" to mean "figuratively". Because some people are idiots.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
- stonemetal 10y ago
  > how most of them are Apples. No, most of them are fitbit's but they don't fit with his narrative so they don't count.
kolemcrae 10y ago
We really are in an awkward place because people simply aren't seeing the value in smart watches just yet. The technology is also just a bit behind. People see it as geeky and not really solving any problems they have. Personally I am a fan of the new hybrid watches that are coming out. They look great (they look exactly like classic watches, because they are), the battery issue is gone (modern hybrids last up to 6 months or longer) and do what people really want a smart watch to do: see if that notification is something worth taking your phone out for. (most hybrids have different symbols or vibrations or lights that show what it is and who its from). Throw in the activity tracking and controlling your music from your wrist and you have the perfect combo. If the marketing is done right I can see hybrids really taking off.
- DanielBMarkham 10y ago
  I'm interested in watching this develop. As a nerdy guy, I love signaling my nerdiness with gadgets -- tablets, notebooks, cars, etc. But watches? When I wear a watch I want something analog with a lot of gears and complexity, not a stupid cell phone OS crammed on my wrist. Have you seen folks in airports and such poking at their watch, trying to open apps? Talking to their wrist? It does not leave one with a positive impression.
  - HCIdivision17 10y ago
    I'm gonna shill here and say check the S3 (or S2 classic). The spinning bevel is really slick, and the OS feels really natural. Partly because it seems to understand there's approximately enough space on a watch to put like 4 icons ever. The voice works great, and I've had conversations with my arm at my side (but really, get a bluetooth headset - airports are too crowded to use a speakerphone). And some of the watch faces are clever. The default chronograph one actually fakes the light reflecting around the face as your wrist moves. Complete BS, but passes the illusion nicely.
  - curun1r 10y ago
    It sounds like you want one of the hybrid watches. No LCD, so they look like a traditional watch and don't have abysmal (for a watch, which I believe needs to go months between charges) battery life like the iWatch. But they connect with your phone over BlueTooth and give you vibrating alerts and the ability to control your phone using the watch buttons. Here's one I came across today: https://www.fossil.com/us/en/products/q-nate-hybrid-stainless-steel-smartwatch-sku-ftw1123p.html https://www.fossil.com/us/en/products/q-nate-hybrid-stainles... (Disclaimer: I don't own one of these or recommend them...just pointing to one example. There are probably other vendors offering similar products)
HCIdivision17 10y ago
I can't buy into this analysis. I just got a Gear S3 Frontier. It's a literal cell phone, but it looks like a watch. It's fairly comfortable (after the absurdly bad band is replaced), and its interface feels natural. It's the watch I wanted when I was a little kid with the cereal box Tetris watch. [0] I had a whole bunch of Casio databanks, from the 32 number to 150 number [1] to the neato 'touch screen' version I saved up for a year to buy [2]. I remember dreaming of getting that computer watch off SkyMall's catalog (can't find a link just now), and dreamed of having something like it. Now I have a gizmo more powerful that Roger Smith's in BigO. Again, it is an actual cell phone. My inner child is gleeful about it. But here's the gripe: the software to talk to it is only available on a mobile device. ONLY. Any my phone is more than 4 years old, so it turns out my bluetooth can't talk to it. Still an awesome watch, and I can't wait to upgrade my phone and load my usual apps on it. Would I have gotten it if it were smaller, less capable? Probably. I tried to get an S2, but my phone store wouldn't sell it while the S3 was on the way. EDIT: This is one of the first watches I've seen that is capable of standing on its own (somewhat) if untethered from a phone. There have been cell phone watches, but not at this price point, and not with the same slick interface. [0] You know the one: https://stevecochrane.com/v3/2006/09/15/tetris-should-be-everywhere/ https://stevecochrane.com/v3/2006/09/15/tetris-should-be-eve... [1] http://archive.casio.com/products/archive/watches/databank/dbc150-1/ http://archive.casio.com/products/archive/watches/databank/d... [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/timepieceslove/6362901777/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/timepieceslove/6362901777/
- SixSigma 10y ago
  Soo .... it's a cell phone that needs a cell phone to work ? Sounds more like a bluetooth headset that you wear on your wrist
  - hnal943 10y ago
    It doesn't need a cell phone to work. It's got it's own 4g connection. He mentioned that his watch doesn't connect to his phone.
    - 10y ago
yalogin 10y ago
Much more interesting to me is the impact of smart watches on the high end regular watch category. I have a feeling that category has been rejuvenated by the Apple watch. I would love some actual numbers on that though.
- noir-york 10y ago
  > high end regular watch category Would that be the Tissot's (higher-end quartz movements) of the world? Or the Omega/Panerai's? Maybe there is an impact on the former, but I cannot see anyone picking an iWatch over a SpeedMaster, let alone an AP.
  - zeveb 10y ago
    If it's quartz, I don't think it really counts as high-end. High-end watches are all about jewelry, romance and human involvement — AFAIK they're always mechanical, with more & more complications the higher-end they get.
  - yalogin 10y ago
    I may have used the word high end erroneously here forgetting that the high end in watches is really high. I was thinking more about the $400-1000 category, comparable to an apple watch
douche 10y ago
If I want a watch, I want a $20 Timex beater that will go until it is physically smashed up or the battery dies years later. Not a very expensive, fragile, fiddly, power-hungry gizmo.
- heywire 10y ago
  And that is exactly why I think the industry messed up by calling them smart watches. Telling the time is probably one of the least important things these devices do. If all you need is a way to tell the time, one of these devices would be a huge waste of money and inconvenience.
  - MBCook 10y ago
    What else would you call them though? Calling it a watch makes it very clear where you're intended to wear it and that it will always be there.
    - heywire 10y ago
      I think the category of "wearables" does a better job of describing them, but you're right, I'm not sure I have a better name. Honestly, I don't think I'd really care if mine didn't even tell the time. Then again, I've just never been one to wear a wristwatch.
      - MBCook 10y ago
        I'd say watches are a subset of wearables. Thing like the FitBit I had (which you could clip on your belt, keep in your pocket, etc.) was well described by 'wearables', but we have a more accurate term available for the Apple Watch or Moto 360.
    - zgramana 10y ago
      It will be interesting to see if people eventually normalize 'smart watch' into 'watch' and old school watches become referred to separately as 'timepieces' (for example).
bryanlarsen 10y ago
Pebble was a great little company, and could have stayed a great little company, but somehow everybody decided that smartwatches were the next big thing. Pebble started hiring to grow into a billion dollar company, ran out of money and died.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  [*] Pebble, the only smartwatches that actually made sense. As a happy user, I'm very sad to see them gone.
  - J5892 10y ago
    I'm pretty excited about the third party development that's growing from Pebble's former employees and dev community. Seems like they may eventually have custom firmware, and they have backups of the entire Pebble Store.
entee 10y ago
The elephant in the article is that he mentions Garmin, as a major player, then nearly completely ignores it. The industry isn't an Apple Watch industry, it's Apple/Samsung accessory on one side, and true fitness watch on the other. As a Garmin user (Fenix 3 HR), I find it indispensable on my rides, swims, runs, etc. Nothing works better with the same battery life and integration. The notifications are kinda nice, but honestly the fitness part of it matters far more. Apple clearly has been moving in the fitness watch direction, but it's unlikely they'll get the same performance because they're unwilling to sacrifice svelte design (dedicated altimeter, GPS, temperature, extra radios plus long-life battery take more space). Even in the current watch they have about 1/3 the battery life using GPS. Of course that's fine for a lot of people, but there's a healthy number who want more. I think the final layout will be Apple/Samsung with a large majority of the market, and sports specialists (Garmin) having the rest, but that segment being quite strong and healthy over the long term. Where that leaves Fitbit, I don't know. They don't have a model that meets the needs of someone who wants a Garmin (though Garmin is expanding down into their space), and they'll never have the integration the "cool-accessory" market wants.
- wf 10y ago
  Disclaimer: I work for Garmin, but not on smart watches. This is exactly what I came here to say. On top of that I'm not sure how the data from the second chart got put together? It just says that the data came from their own site and IDC. IDC's report for the 3rd quarter puts three competitors above Apple in terms of market share, YOY growth, and unit sales.[1] [1] http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41996116 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41996116
  - diego_moita 10y ago
    Your link changes the whole discussion and makes the original post irrelevant. If the data is correct: 1) Garmin is selling almost 20% more than Apple 2) Fitness is the killer app for wrist-wearables. The 3 front runners are fitness focused.
  - chetanahuja 10y ago
    "Xiaomi's new Mi Band includes heart rate tracking and is priced well below any competition, making it more suitable for impulse buying than any other fitness band. Despite its worldwide growth in 3Q16, the company managed to lose market share as almost every other vendor outpaced its growth. Xiaomi, across all business lines, continues to struggle to gain any significant traction outside its home country of China." Problem with Xiaomi have been more supply side than demand side. I know because I tried to buy MiBand 2 when it originally came out and for weeks most vendors were sold out. It's possible that Xiaomi is having trouble keeping up the manufacturing volumes at the low price point they've entered the market.
tdburn 10y ago
Siri for sending txt messages is much more useful on the Apple watch. Also checking messages is more discrete and less disruptive with the apple watch. Use mine constantly for this. Don't care about the health trackers, wish I could delete that completely
- heywire 10y ago
  And for me, it is completely the opposite. Text messages are for when I can't or don't want to speak on the phone (sometimes because I don't want the whole room to hear my conversation). So I have no need to send text messages from my watch. I'm more interested in the constant monitoring of heart rate, movement, etc., with the added features of notifications, silent alarms, and music control (though I don't really use music control either). That is precisely why I chose the Fitbit Blaze over the Apple Watch, even though I'm a very happy iPhone owner.
  - MBCook 10y ago
    > I'm more interested in the constant monitoring of heart rate, movement, etc., with the added features of notifications, silent alarms, and music control (though I don't really use music control either). It does all that. The Siri integration is a killer-app for me though. I use it all the time (when alone) to set reminders, reply to texts, etc. But since it's from Apple it will always have better messaging integration than any 3rd party could EVER provide. Of course I'm guessing the Blaze is much cheaper. While it doesn't apply here, I'll also say that I've come to hate FitBit. They really don't want to play with other people and I had to buy an extra app (that I have to run every few days) just to sync data from my last remaining FitBit device to Health on my iPhone. Since I first bought one they seem to have gone from very open to hostile and closed. And I don't want to reward that. (And that ignores my customer support experience, which alone turned me off from them)
    - heywire 10y ago
      > It does all that. Sure, I didn't mean to imply that it doesn't. I was simply illustrating how different people have different use cases for these wearable devices. While we may see some more convergence, I think that multiple categories will remain (fitness, etc). > I use it all the time (when alone) to set reminders, reply to texts, etc. The great thing about the iPhone and Siri is that you don't need a watch to do that. Most of the time I don't even have to pull my phone from my pocket to do a "Hey Siri". Apple seems to have done a pretty decent job with the voice recognition and hotword detection (I think that's the right term). > Of course I'm guessing the Blaze is much cheaper. Actually not much. The Blaze retails for $199.
niftich 10y ago
I'd re-order the 'four reasons' for the Apple Watch's success and put 'it's made by Apple' up top, which is a superset of its integration with the iPhone. Apple's brand power and brand loyalty are well-reported and much-discussed, and compare favorably to Samsung's try-everything-and-see-what-doesn't-fail approach -- all the while being a mainstream brand with an appeal that transcends several income bands, and not just a purely luxury aspirational product for the ultra-rich.
gregmac 10y ago
Several months ago I decided to buy a Huawei watch [0] - black with metal band. It's a good-looking, comfortable watch, and reasonably functional. I had been wanting to get an all-black watch anyway, and one day when I saw this on sale I decided to give it a shot. The big draws for me were the full circle face (I don't like the look of the square ones or the 'flat tire' on some of the earlier cirlce watch faces), the fact it looks like a basically normal watch, and that it runs Android Wear (I considered a Samsung Gear, but I don't like that it's within the Samgsung software ecosystem). I wear it pretty much every day, though I often take it off while I'm coding/keyboarding (which I've done whenever I wore a watch). I've never wore a watch while I sleep, and always just put it on my nightstand beside the bed. The magnetic base is on my nightstand, and it takes about 2 extra seconds to put it on the charger vs just set it down, so I generally charge it every night. I've forgotten a couple times, and it easily gets through two days anyway. For me the most useful things are message notifications and the ability to reply quickly with a couple canned responses and agenda. I actually use Microsoft's Outlook watch face. The outer permiter shows blocks of time for the next 12 hours where something is scheduled and it's pretty cool. I didn't find any other faces that had quite the same functionality, but I think I could build one using one of the custom watch face apps, I just haven't bothered to spend the time yet. I don't use the fitness tracking on it. An interesting side effect though is that my phone counts more steps. When I'm sitting at my desk, I tend to take my watch off but keep my phone in my pocket -- so if I get up to go to someone else's desk, bathroom or get coffee, my phone counts those steps whereas before I had the watch, I'd often take my phone out and then forget it on my desk when I did those things. The Google Authenticator app is almost useful on it, but it generally only works if I've recently opened it on my phone. I rarely have to use it more than once in day, so I just use my phone. Weather is useful. Oh, I also use Stocard to manually enter loyalty numbers at a gas pump. I've never tried using in store. It's kind of neat for controlling Google Music whether I'm listening with bluetooth or casting to my living room stereo, but not something I use regularly nor would miss if it didn't exist. I don't really use any other apps on it. I had to block quite a few notifications of random things -- it seems everyone thinks their app notifications are really important and should show up my on wrist. People find it a combination of fascinating/impressive/weird that I can pull up a live HD view of my baby camera (via TinyCam connected to a Foscam HD IP camera). I don't find that to be a useful feature so don't do it other than when my wife asks me to show someone. So I know there's a lot of negativity here about 'smart' watches, but overall I'm pretty happy with it and really have no big complaints. It's got a couple handy functions vs a normal watch. It costs within the same ballpark as what I was going to spend on a watch anyway (I'm not a watch guy). It looks like a regular watch (a few times I've had someone see me activate it and say something to the effect of "oh, it's a smart watch! I was wondering how you could tell time on that blank black face". [0] http://consumer.huawei.com/en/wearables/huawei-watch/index.htm http://consumer.huawei.com/en/wearables/huawei-watch/index.h...
sssilver 10y ago
I would love me an Apple Watch, and I would pay double the price, if only the damn thing lasted at least a month on a single charge. Unfortunately, the technology just isn't there.
- sanswork 10y ago
  Why do you need so long on a single charge? Even on my non-smart watches I take them off at some point during the day(those ones normally for sleep). With my Apple watch I take it off in the morning while I get ready and stick it to the charger and by the time I'm done it's ready for another day.
  - sssilver 10y ago
    That's an interesting paradigm. I do take my Casio Protrek off during sleep, but I kinda enjoy the fact that my watch is the single gadget in my life that requires zero maintenance. It'll outlast my body in any and every circumstance. I basically only need to replace the battery once every 5-7 years, since it just charges through the solar element that's the surface of the watch dial. I feel like having to plug the watch into a charger is yet another thing to worry about during the day. And with my chaotic life, there'll be a few days during the week where I won't know where the charger is, or I left it at work, or it's in the car, or the nearest outlet is occupied by the kitchen blender, and I'll be too lazy to reach the outlet in the next room, etc. I feel like a month would give me reasonable legroom to keep it constantly running. In my perception, a watch should be something that is zero hassle, and smartwatches just ain't it.
    - sanswork 10y ago
      I guess with everything it's a trade off. I get a lot more functionality than a standard watch but the trade off is once a day I need to stick it on the charger for a few minutes.
quanticle 10y ago
One thing the article doesn't talk about is how sustainable the Apple Watch's dominance is going to be. The iPod gained dominance via its superior UI (namely, the clickwheel), but what allowed it to sustain that dominance was the fact that iTunes' music selection and integration with the iPod was unparalleled. Does Apple have a similar advantage with iOS/watchOS and the Apple Watch?
- dangoor 10y ago
  The article does talk about this in one respect: the integration with the iPhone would seem to be the primary (and substantial) advantage that Apple Watch has. You could argue that this limited Apple Watch to a minority of smartphone owners, but it's still an addressable market of 700M. Plus, the Apple Watch will likely not always be tethered to an iPhone.
msabalau 10y ago
Perhaps the elephant in the story is that with 35 million smartwatches sold, ever, compared to 1.4 billion smartphones sold globally this year, smartwatches simply don't matter.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
mtw 10y ago
This reads like someone who's fallen in love with his Apple Watch but actually never used a Garmin or a Fitbit and doesn't really get why someone would spend $200 or $400 on a Garmin. It's like someone who used a DSLR camera all his life and then tries to write why GoPro don't make any sense, without every trying one. The writing and the graphs are nice though. Now go out of your ivory tower
chetanahuja 10y ago
Smartwatches are today where iPhone was in 2008-9 timeframe. If and when technology in smartwatches get to a price-point where value/price ratio becomes hard to ignore for the global middle classes (like smartphones hit in about 2009-2010 timeframe), Android watches will flood the market and take it over. If that time ever comes. What seems much more likely to me is that middle-class wrist space will be claimed more by fitness devices which encroach more and more on the smartwatch territory without all the frills. E.g. Something like Xiomi Miband 2 at ~$40 is hard to resist with a tiny LED display and 20 day (yes.. actual 20 days) battery life. What I want on my wrist is something tiny, cheap, waterproof and hardy I can wear and forget (for weeks on end) as opposed to something bulky, delicate, not quite waterproof (say, in the swimming pool) and requires nightly charging. Who needs that?
1_2__3 10y ago
It wasn't until I was 2/3rds of the way through the article that the supporting evidence he's provided wasn't an indictment of the viability of smartwatches as even a product, and was only an effort to demonstrate how dominant Apple is. It's completely baffling. He's completely ignoring that all the numbers he gives in the article paint a picture of a failing/foundering product segment that if anything are a compelling argument for Apple to exit the space now before it's too late.

56 points by JamilD 10y ago

dumb-saint 10y ago

Boring

sctb 10y ago
Please don't post like this here.

pklausler 10y ago

The idiom "elephant in the room" means "a difficult-to-discuss problem that we all know we have to talk about but that we're all pretending doesn't exist". I don't see how the title here is relevant for the linked article, which is a dull summary of low sales of "smart" watches and how most of them are Apples.

carussell 10y ago
I've found some people misunderstand and misuse the colloquialism in instances where the phrase "800 lb gorilla" would be more appropriate. This seems to be one of those cases.
- pklausler 10y ago
  Maybe. But the "800 pound gorilla" idiom refers to a beast that can do whatever it wants to do with impunity, and I don't see how that applies to this story either.
  - carussell 10y ago
    If I understand the author's intent correctly—and I'm not sure that I do—I think the idea is that diversity in the market is dying off, and Apple is on its way to becoming the 800 pound gorilla.
    - Zaak 10y ago
      That really stinks. I don't like Apple's idea of what a smart watch should be. :(
- Yhippa 10y ago
  The 800 lb. gorilla in the elephant room made of glass.
  - harlanlewis 10y ago
    You're beating around the bull in this China shop. (yeah yeah it's a Reddit -like comment but this whole thread should probably be downvoted)
    - pitaj 10y ago
      Why can't we have a little fun on HN? Maybe we should have a flag for "humor" and let people opt in to seeing comments flagged as such.
      - RandomOpinion 10y ago
        I'd rather see HN focused on being a site for substantive, in-depth commentary rather than a slew of one line comments attempting to be witty (and failing), a la Reddit and Slashdot.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    But is the gorilla reaching out to pick low hanging fruit?
choward 10y ago
I thought the same thing. I thought the "elephant in the room" was going to be something like: "smartwatches will never have feature parity with normal watches". For example, they will never have a battery life of 3 years.
- pbhjpbhj 10y ago
  Meanwhile elsewhere in the news atomic power units made from nuclear waste that have 1 billion times the Wh of an AA battery. Never say never!
Mz 10y ago
FWIW, some people seem to (use the phrase "The Elephant in the room" to) just mean "The big obvious thing that no one is commenting on."
- pklausler 10y ago
  And some people use the perfectly well defined word "literally" to mean "figuratively". Because some people are idiots.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
stonemetal 10y ago
> how most of them are Apples. No, most of them are fitbit's but they don't fit with his narrative so they don't count.

kolemcrae 10y ago

We really are in an awkward place because people simply aren't seeing the value in smart watches just yet. The technology is also just a bit behind. People see it as geeky and not really solving any problems they have. Personally I am a fan of the new hybrid watches that are coming out. They look great (they look exactly like classic watches, because they are), the battery issue is gone (modern hybrids last up to 6 months or longer) and do what people really want a smart watch to do: see if that notification is something worth taking your phone out for. (most hybrids have different symbols or vibrations or lights that show what it is and who its from). Throw in the activity tracking and controlling your music from your wrist and you have the perfect combo. If the marketing is done right I can see hybrids really taking off.

DanielBMarkham 10y ago
I'm interested in watching this develop. As a nerdy guy, I love signaling my nerdiness with gadgets -- tablets, notebooks, cars, etc. But watches? When I wear a watch I want something analog with a lot of gears and complexity, not a stupid cell phone OS crammed on my wrist. Have you seen folks in airports and such poking at their watch, trying to open apps? Talking to their wrist? It does not leave one with a positive impression.
- HCIdivision17 10y ago
  I'm gonna shill here and say check the S3 (or S2 classic). The spinning bevel is really slick, and the OS feels really natural. Partly because it seems to understand there's approximately enough space on a watch to put like 4 icons ever. The voice works great, and I've had conversations with my arm at my side (but really, get a bluetooth headset - airports are too crowded to use a speakerphone). And some of the watch faces are clever. The default chronograph one actually fakes the light reflecting around the face as your wrist moves. Complete BS, but passes the illusion nicely.
- curun1r 10y ago
  It sounds like you want one of the hybrid watches. No LCD, so they look like a traditional watch and don't have abysmal (for a watch, which I believe needs to go months between charges) battery life like the iWatch. But they connect with your phone over BlueTooth and give you vibrating alerts and the ability to control your phone using the watch buttons. Here's one I came across today: https://www.fossil.com/us/en/products/q-nate-hybrid-stainless-steel-smartwatch-sku-ftw1123p.html https://www.fossil.com/us/en/products/q-nate-hybrid-stainles... (Disclaimer: I don't own one of these or recommend them...just pointing to one example. There are probably other vendors offering similar products)

HCIdivision17 10y ago

I can't buy into this analysis. I just got a Gear S3 Frontier. It's a literal cell phone, but it looks like a watch. It's fairly comfortable (after the absurdly bad band is replaced), and its interface feels natural. It's the watch I wanted when I was a little kid with the cereal box Tetris watch. [0] I had a whole bunch of Casio databanks, from the 32 number to 150 number [1] to the neato 'touch screen' version I saved up for a year to buy [2]. I remember dreaming of getting that computer watch off SkyMall's catalog (can't find a link just now), and dreamed of having something like it. Now I have a gizmo more powerful that Roger Smith's in BigO. Again, it is an actual cell phone. My inner child is gleeful about it. But here's the gripe: the software to talk to it is only available on a mobile device. ONLY. Any my phone is more than 4 years old, so it turns out my bluetooth can't talk to it. Still an awesome watch, and I can't wait to upgrade my phone and load my usual apps on it. Would I have gotten it if it were smaller, less capable? Probably. I tried to get an S2, but my phone store wouldn't sell it while the S3 was on the way. EDIT: This is one of the first watches I've seen that is capable of standing on its own (somewhat) if untethered from a phone. There have been cell phone watches, but not at this price point, and not with the same slick interface. [0] You know the one: https://stevecochrane.com/v3/2006/09/15/tetris-should-be-everywhere/ https://stevecochrane.com/v3/2006/09/15/tetris-should-be-eve... [1] http://archive.casio.com/products/archive/watches/databank/dbc150-1/ http://archive.casio.com/products/archive/watches/databank/d... [2] https://www.flickr.com/photos/timepieceslove/6362901777/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/timepieceslove/6362901777/

SixSigma 10y ago
Soo .... it's a cell phone that needs a cell phone to work ? Sounds more like a bluetooth headset that you wear on your wrist
- hnal943 10y ago
  It doesn't need a cell phone to work. It's got it's own 4g connection. He mentioned that his watch doesn't connect to his phone.
  - 10y ago

yalogin 10y ago

Much more interesting to me is the impact of smart watches on the high end regular watch category. I have a feeling that category has been rejuvenated by the Apple watch. I would love some actual numbers on that though.

noir-york 10y ago
> high end regular watch category Would that be the Tissot's (higher-end quartz movements) of the world? Or the Omega/Panerai's? Maybe there is an impact on the former, but I cannot see anyone picking an iWatch over a SpeedMaster, let alone an AP.
- zeveb 10y ago
  If it's quartz, I don't think it really counts as high-end. High-end watches are all about jewelry, romance and human involvement — AFAIK they're always mechanical, with more & more complications the higher-end they get.
- yalogin 10y ago
  I may have used the word high end erroneously here forgetting that the high end in watches is really high. I was thinking more about the $400-1000 category, comparable to an apple watch

douche 10y ago

If I want a watch, I want a $20 Timex beater that will go until it is physically smashed up or the battery dies years later. Not a very expensive, fragile, fiddly, power-hungry gizmo.

heywire 10y ago
And that is exactly why I think the industry messed up by calling them smart watches. Telling the time is probably one of the least important things these devices do. If all you need is a way to tell the time, one of these devices would be a huge waste of money and inconvenience.
- MBCook 10y ago
  What else would you call them though? Calling it a watch makes it very clear where you're intended to wear it and that it will always be there.
  - heywire 10y ago
    I think the category of "wearables" does a better job of describing them, but you're right, I'm not sure I have a better name. Honestly, I don't think I'd really care if mine didn't even tell the time. Then again, I've just never been one to wear a wristwatch.
    - MBCook 10y ago
      I'd say watches are a subset of wearables. Thing like the FitBit I had (which you could clip on your belt, keep in your pocket, etc.) was well described by 'wearables', but we have a more accurate term available for the Apple Watch or Moto 360.
  - zgramana 10y ago
    It will be interesting to see if people eventually normalize 'smart watch' into 'watch' and old school watches become referred to separately as 'timepieces' (for example).

bryanlarsen 10y ago

Pebble was a great little company, and could have stayed a great little company, but somehow everybody decided that smartwatches were the next big thing. Pebble started hiring to grow into a billion dollar company, ran out of money and died.

TeMPOraL 10y ago
[*] Pebble, the only smartwatches that actually made sense. As a happy user, I'm very sad to see them gone.
- J5892 10y ago
  I'm pretty excited about the third party development that's growing from Pebble's former employees and dev community. Seems like they may eventually have custom firmware, and they have backups of the entire Pebble Store.

entee 10y ago

The elephant in the article is that he mentions Garmin, as a major player, then nearly completely ignores it. The industry isn't an Apple Watch industry, it's Apple/Samsung accessory on one side, and true fitness watch on the other. As a Garmin user (Fenix 3 HR), I find it indispensable on my rides, swims, runs, etc. Nothing works better with the same battery life and integration. The notifications are kinda nice, but honestly the fitness part of it matters far more. Apple clearly has been moving in the fitness watch direction, but it's unlikely they'll get the same performance because they're unwilling to sacrifice svelte design (dedicated altimeter, GPS, temperature, extra radios plus long-life battery take more space). Even in the current watch they have about 1/3 the battery life using GPS. Of course that's fine for a lot of people, but there's a healthy number who want more. I think the final layout will be Apple/Samsung with a large majority of the market, and sports specialists (Garmin) having the rest, but that segment being quite strong and healthy over the long term. Where that leaves Fitbit, I don't know. They don't have a model that meets the needs of someone who wants a Garmin (though Garmin is expanding down into their space), and they'll never have the integration the "cool-accessory" market wants.

wf 10y ago
Disclaimer: I work for Garmin, but not on smart watches. This is exactly what I came here to say. On top of that I'm not sure how the data from the second chart got put together? It just says that the data came from their own site and IDC. IDC's report for the 3rd quarter puts three competitors above Apple in terms of market share, YOY growth, and unit sales.[1] [1] http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41996116 http://www.idc.com/getdoc.jsp?containerId=prUS41996116
- diego_moita 10y ago
  Your link changes the whole discussion and makes the original post irrelevant. If the data is correct: 1) Garmin is selling almost 20% more than Apple 2) Fitness is the killer app for wrist-wearables. The 3 front runners are fitness focused.
- chetanahuja 10y ago
  "Xiaomi's new Mi Band includes heart rate tracking and is priced well below any competition, making it more suitable for impulse buying than any other fitness band. Despite its worldwide growth in 3Q16, the company managed to lose market share as almost every other vendor outpaced its growth. Xiaomi, across all business lines, continues to struggle to gain any significant traction outside its home country of China." Problem with Xiaomi have been more supply side than demand side. I know because I tried to buy MiBand 2 when it originally came out and for weeks most vendors were sold out. It's possible that Xiaomi is having trouble keeping up the manufacturing volumes at the low price point they've entered the market.

tdburn 10y ago

Siri for sending txt messages is much more useful on the Apple watch. Also checking messages is more discrete and less disruptive with the apple watch. Use mine constantly for this. Don't care about the health trackers, wish I could delete that completely

heywire 10y ago
And for me, it is completely the opposite. Text messages are for when I can't or don't want to speak on the phone (sometimes because I don't want the whole room to hear my conversation). So I have no need to send text messages from my watch. I'm more interested in the constant monitoring of heart rate, movement, etc., with the added features of notifications, silent alarms, and music control (though I don't really use music control either). That is precisely why I chose the Fitbit Blaze over the Apple Watch, even though I'm a very happy iPhone owner.
- MBCook 10y ago
  > I'm more interested in the constant monitoring of heart rate, movement, etc., with the added features of notifications, silent alarms, and music control (though I don't really use music control either). It does all that. The Siri integration is a killer-app for me though. I use it all the time (when alone) to set reminders, reply to texts, etc. But since it's from Apple it will always have better messaging integration than any 3rd party could EVER provide. Of course I'm guessing the Blaze is much cheaper. While it doesn't apply here, I'll also say that I've come to hate FitBit. They really don't want to play with other people and I had to buy an extra app (that I have to run every few days) just to sync data from my last remaining FitBit device to Health on my iPhone. Since I first bought one they seem to have gone from very open to hostile and closed. And I don't want to reward that. (And that ignores my customer support experience, which alone turned me off from them)
  - heywire 10y ago
    > It does all that. Sure, I didn't mean to imply that it doesn't. I was simply illustrating how different people have different use cases for these wearable devices. While we may see some more convergence, I think that multiple categories will remain (fitness, etc). > I use it all the time (when alone) to set reminders, reply to texts, etc. The great thing about the iPhone and Siri is that you don't need a watch to do that. Most of the time I don't even have to pull my phone from my pocket to do a "Hey Siri". Apple seems to have done a pretty decent job with the voice recognition and hotword detection (I think that's the right term). > Of course I'm guessing the Blaze is much cheaper. Actually not much. The Blaze retails for $199.

niftich 10y ago

I'd re-order the 'four reasons' for the Apple Watch's success and put 'it's made by Apple' up top, which is a superset of its integration with the iPhone. Apple's brand power and brand loyalty are well-reported and much-discussed, and compare favorably to Samsung's try-everything-and-see-what-doesn't-fail approach -- all the while being a mainstream brand with an appeal that transcends several income bands, and not just a purely luxury aspirational product for the ultra-rich.

gregmac 10y ago

Several months ago I decided to buy a Huawei watch [0] - black with metal band. It's a good-looking, comfortable watch, and reasonably functional. I had been wanting to get an all-black watch anyway, and one day when I saw this on sale I decided to give it a shot. The big draws for me were the full circle face (I don't like the look of the square ones or the 'flat tire' on some of the earlier cirlce watch faces), the fact it looks like a basically normal watch, and that it runs Android Wear (I considered a Samsung Gear, but I don't like that it's within the Samgsung software ecosystem). I wear it pretty much every day, though I often take it off while I'm coding/keyboarding (which I've done whenever I wore a watch). I've never wore a watch while I sleep, and always just put it on my nightstand beside the bed. The magnetic base is on my nightstand, and it takes about 2 extra seconds to put it on the charger vs just set it down, so I generally charge it every night. I've forgotten a couple times, and it easily gets through two days anyway. For me the most useful things are message notifications and the ability to reply quickly with a couple canned responses and agenda. I actually use Microsoft's Outlook watch face. The outer permiter shows blocks of time for the next 12 hours where something is scheduled and it's pretty cool. I didn't find any other faces that had quite the same functionality, but I think I could build one using one of the custom watch face apps, I just haven't bothered to spend the time yet. I don't use the fitness tracking on it. An interesting side effect though is that my phone counts more steps. When I'm sitting at my desk, I tend to take my watch off but keep my phone in my pocket -- so if I get up to go to someone else's desk, bathroom or get coffee, my phone counts those steps whereas before I had the watch, I'd often take my phone out and then forget it on my desk when I did those things. The Google Authenticator app is almost useful on it, but it generally only works if I've recently opened it on my phone. I rarely have to use it more than once in day, so I just use my phone. Weather is useful. Oh, I also use Stocard to manually enter loyalty numbers at a gas pump. I've never tried using in store. It's kind of neat for controlling Google Music whether I'm listening with bluetooth or casting to my living room stereo, but not something I use regularly nor would miss if it didn't exist. I don't really use any other apps on it. I had to block quite a few notifications of random things -- it seems everyone thinks their app notifications are really important and should show up my on wrist. People find it a combination of fascinating/impressive/weird that I can pull up a live HD view of my baby camera (via TinyCam connected to a Foscam HD IP camera). I don't find that to be a useful feature so don't do it other than when my wife asks me to show someone. So I know there's a lot of negativity here about 'smart' watches, but overall I'm pretty happy with it and really have no big complaints. It's got a couple handy functions vs a normal watch. It costs within the same ballpark as what I was going to spend on a watch anyway (I'm not a watch guy). It looks like a regular watch (a few times I've had someone see me activate it and say something to the effect of "oh, it's a smart watch! I was wondering how you could tell time on that blank black face". [0] http://consumer.huawei.com/en/wearables/huawei-watch/index.htm http://consumer.huawei.com/en/wearables/huawei-watch/index.h...

sssilver 10y ago

I would love me an Apple Watch, and I would pay double the price, if only the damn thing lasted at least a month on a single charge. Unfortunately, the technology just isn't there.

sanswork 10y ago
Why do you need so long on a single charge? Even on my non-smart watches I take them off at some point during the day(those ones normally for sleep). With my Apple watch I take it off in the morning while I get ready and stick it to the charger and by the time I'm done it's ready for another day.
- sssilver 10y ago
  That's an interesting paradigm. I do take my Casio Protrek off during sleep, but I kinda enjoy the fact that my watch is the single gadget in my life that requires zero maintenance. It'll outlast my body in any and every circumstance. I basically only need to replace the battery once every 5-7 years, since it just charges through the solar element that's the surface of the watch dial. I feel like having to plug the watch into a charger is yet another thing to worry about during the day. And with my chaotic life, there'll be a few days during the week where I won't know where the charger is, or I left it at work, or it's in the car, or the nearest outlet is occupied by the kitchen blender, and I'll be too lazy to reach the outlet in the next room, etc. I feel like a month would give me reasonable legroom to keep it constantly running. In my perception, a watch should be something that is zero hassle, and smartwatches just ain't it.
  - sanswork 10y ago
    I guess with everything it's a trade off. I get a lot more functionality than a standard watch but the trade off is once a day I need to stick it on the charger for a few minutes.

quanticle 10y ago

One thing the article doesn't talk about is how sustainable the Apple Watch's dominance is going to be. The iPod gained dominance via its superior UI (namely, the clickwheel), but what allowed it to sustain that dominance was the fact that iTunes' music selection and integration with the iPod was unparalleled. Does Apple have a similar advantage with iOS/watchOS and the Apple Watch?

dangoor 10y ago
The article does talk about this in one respect: the integration with the iPhone would seem to be the primary (and substantial) advantage that Apple Watch has. You could argue that this limited Apple Watch to a minority of smartphone owners, but it's still an addressable market of 700M. Plus, the Apple Watch will likely not always be tethered to an iPhone.

msabalau 10y ago

Perhaps the elephant in the story is that with 35 million smartwatches sold, ever, compared to 1.4 billion smartphones sold globally this year, smartwatches simply don't matter.

deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

mtw 10y ago

This reads like someone who's fallen in love with his Apple Watch but actually never used a Garmin or a Fitbit and doesn't really get why someone would spend $200 or $400 on a Garmin. It's like someone who used a DSLR camera all his life and then tries to write why GoPro don't make any sense, without every trying one. The writing and the graphs are nice though. Now go out of your ivory tower

chetanahuja 10y ago

Smartwatches are today where iPhone was in 2008-9 timeframe. If and when technology in smartwatches get to a price-point where value/price ratio becomes hard to ignore for the global middle classes (like smartphones hit in about 2009-2010 timeframe), Android watches will flood the market and take it over. If that time ever comes. What seems much more likely to me is that middle-class wrist space will be claimed more by fitness devices which encroach more and more on the smartwatch territory without all the frills. E.g. Something like Xiomi Miband 2 at ~$40 is hard to resist with a tiny LED display and 20 day (yes.. actual 20 days) battery life. What I want on my wrist is something tiny, cheap, waterproof and hardy I can wear and forget (for weeks on end) as opposed to something bulky, delicate, not quite waterproof (say, in the swimming pool) and requires nightly charging. Who needs that?

1_2__3 10y ago

It wasn't until I was 2/3rds of the way through the article that the supporting evidence he's provided wasn't an indictment of the viability of smartwatches as even a product, and was only an effort to demonstrate how dominant Apple is. It's completely baffling. He's completely ignoring that all the numbers he gives in the article paint a picture of a failing/foundering product segment that if anything are a compelling argument for Apple to exit the space now before it's too late.