is technically not a watch ( it does display the hour though) , but I saw its power and I use the features daily. And looks totally geeky on my hand.
if you could merge the garmin forerunner 610/620 (or equivalent running program), and a bluetooth music player, that would be nirvana for me.
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/prod122785.html#specsTab
i like the running apps for iphone but i hate wearing it during a run or workout. just extra weight i don't need.
Another nice one: if you decide to take the phone with you, it functions as a wireless headset!
And the best of all: is fully hackable!! Some reference : http://blog.martinh.net/2013/05/hacking-google-smartwatch.ht...
But just being able to never worry about forgetting it, or having to charge the dang thing, and be able to contact anyone anytime would be very sci fi. And of course the most important feature of all would have to be: disabling it easily to prevent interruption.
If you can offload the energy hungry tasks, these devices become much more realistic faster.
Of course there are plenty of downsides. Constantly glancing at your watch is just as rude if not worse than looking at your smartphone in a meeting, conversation, etc. As you mentioned, there is the high cost for a fairly dumb device. Charging it. And depending on the person, every notification is wedged that much further in to your daily life which is probably not for everybody.
I'm not sure there is a lot of value in a super interactive smart watch that allows you to write texts, make calls and take pictures. The interface seems to be small enough that it's kind of prohibitive among other things. But as a read-only satellite device that displays information from a smartphone/tablet/etc, a smart watch can definitely be a thing.
Despite all of efforts in the wrist space, the Pebble is the best in my mind. Why do you want a stylus? Who would type emails on their wrist? My Pebble kicks butt as it reduces the needs I have for my phone, just as the smartphone and tablet reduced the need to find a desktop, but didn't replace them.
(Nike got it right with the Fuel Band: if you're going to put something on your body, it becomes as much a fashion accessory as a gadget. Design counts.)
Furthermore, the watch is going to have to do something that smartphones can't. It needs to go above and beyond, taking full advantage of whatever areas wearables can take advantage of. Google Glass I get. The possibilities there are fantastic (if the design leaves a bit to be desired). But a watch? It had better do more than just display the weather and run awkward, one-handed variations of Android apps on a smaller screen.
I'm not convinced there is a market for a smartwatch, such as it is. But if there ever will be, it'll be something entirely different from what we've been seeing so far. The technology exists to make thin, translucent, bendable screens -- so in theory, you could have a smart "bracelet" that is entirely a screen. That's somewhat more interesting, at least design wise. But we still need real-world functionality that a smartphone can't replicate.
So far, most of these smartwatch specs remind me of the Segway: a very minimal improvement in quality of life at a tremendous cost in personal appearance. That math rarely works out well for consumer products.
I get your point, but using high school as an example is detracting from it. We're not in high school anymore, nobody is going to get their asses kicked for wearing something. I'm sure if the most popular guy in high school showed up with the Samsung watch, he wouldn't get his ass kicked, either.
As for the watch, make it work like science fiction where you can raise your wrist and talk and I bet a lot would join in. I would not mind having a wrist device, even if it only queried my phone in my pocket, which I give simple voice commands. Bonus points to being a real phone.
"How soon before it rains" "Call boss" "Time to next bus"
When you look at your smartphone impatiently, you could be looking at anything -- because it can do almost anything. Watches have until now been about one thing: timekeeping. And looking at your watch is (was?) a recognizable social cue.
The wristwatch market is a luxury market, one that abhors mass production. They want mechanical over quartz. They want handcrafted, custom, exclusive watches from far off lands. It's part jewelry and part status symbol. A mass produced Google wrist computer from China is none of these things.
There are generally three types of people that wear wristwatches in 2013: kids, dorks, and people with money. And I'm not so sure about kids today.
Google may be a bunch of smart people doing smart things. But they are profoundly out of touch with consumers and what it takes to connect, on an emotional level, products with consumers. Google Glass went as far as alienating tech people. People that were on Google's side were stepping back and saying "you know, Google might be losing their mind a little."
Do you guys use Siri for that? (I have an "old" 3GS)
Together with notifications it could easily be a big enough reason for getting a smartwatch, sort of Google Glass on your wrist.
ps. I hope we see an embedded Linux SoC, meaning that you do not need to tether this with your phone, the watch is stand alone, and will likely replace the phone down the road. Most other smart watches require that you tether with your phone, which acts as the brain, so it makes programming difficult, and battery life suffers, since you have radios talking.
[0] http://appleinsider.com/articles/13/08/30/google-buys-smart-...
