
Google Rumored To Be Making A Smartwatch, Too - AndreasLuckey
http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/22/google-rumored-to-be-making-a-smartwatch-too/
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jws
The name "Watch" misleads. No one¹ needs a dedicated device to tell time
anymore.

What may work in the market is one more tier of information interface. cloud >
desktop > tablet > phone > ???.

I keep my phone in a front trouser pocket. I find that the overwhelming
majority of the "dig out the phone"² events during the day are to observe a
bit of recently arrived information, or, less frequently, to issue a
temporally context sensitive command. Both of these actions would be easily
handled by a tiny display with enough room for a few touch zones and limited
gesture recognition.³

It doesn't need to be strapped to my wrist. I might prefer it clipped to my
sleeve or in a shirt pocket. (return of the fob to keep it from escaping?)

It won't work for everyone. It will be useless to people who spend the day
with uncorrected farsighted vision. They might as well pull out their phones
as their eye glasses.

It only needs enough energy to get through the day, I'll put it in a charger
at night. Make it cheap enough and sell it in a two pack and I'll just swap
them in the morning.

Do the software right with proximity detection, and I'll have a virtual one on
my desktop screen, and a slightly larger one stuck to my car dashboard (solar
charger to avoid cable).

␄

¹ except nurses, and…

² I also find that my "drop the phone" events are almost all precipitated by a
"dig out the phone". Eliminate the dig, avoid the drop. Women who use purses
appear to have similar issues.

³ I'd also like to give it voice commands rather than navigating a complex UI,
but that is just feeding a mic to the phone or tablet. And if I could hold it
to my ear and let it tell me something that would also be great, but don't
make it too big to cram in that feature. Still, we are talking a <$100 device
here. Bluetooth 4.0 covers all the communications, tiny touch display,
speaker, mic, accelerometer.

~~~
VLM
"I might prefer it clipped to my sleeve or in a shirt pocket."

COTS "Sony Ericsson liveview bluetooth phone remote". $25 from amazon,
eligible for free prime shipping too. Comes with a clip holder and a watch
holder.

UI is a fail, also charging. Oh and its buggy and the battery life is
supposedly dismal. Aside from the 99 other things it can do when its actually
working, which is why the UI fails, it can act as a music player remote (hit
pause, etc). I wanted one for in my car as a simple remote when I'm listening
to music. The UI doesn't do "simple" and is worse than just fumbling around
with the phone. Also charging issues in the car. Oh well.

The biggest problem with bluetooth watches and phones is all the marketing is
front loaded on R+D, everyone hears about "might be sold next year". No
marketing at or beyond launch, no one knows there's a zillion already
available. It doesn't help that whats delivered is usually an epic fail if
GOOG shipped something that merely met its advertised specs, unfortunately
that in itself would be revolutionary in the bluetooth watch field. GOOG is
good at that, look a the nexus line, its basically an honest device without
the shovelware and thats all you need to beat the competition who have
dishonest claims and chock full of shovelware.

~~~
Someone
In this case, it is not just a matter of good execution. The first successful
product also must solve the 'why put something on your arm again' problem.

If I had to direct designers, I would send them away with something like
'display that communicates wirelessly with a master device, as thick and as
durable as a tattoo, one month battery life, input device desirable, but
optional'.

Nobody would meet those requirements, but it helps setting the goalposts. It
definitely would direct them away from the one cm or so thick design in the
article being discussed.

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MatthewPhillips
I'll go ahead and predict that smart watches flop. Hard. I think people want
some new thing after tablets are becoming normal, and we thought that was
going to be TV, but the content industry has built really good moats around TV
so no one can shake it up. So in the urgency to create a new market, smart
watches are easy, are direct-to-consumer, have been done in the past and only
need polish. That doesn't mean anyone will want one once the "shiny new thing"
feeling wears off.

~~~
roc
> _"have been done in the past and only need polish."_

That's the truly hilarious part. If someone delivers a smartwatch that might
work, it'll be derided as being "lesser" than the preceding products. [1]

If they deliver something that throws the kitchen sink at the watch form-
factor, it will be derided because people have been doing that
(unsuccessfully) for years now.

If you ask me, the killer approach for a 'smartwatch' is fuelband/fitbit-style
passive data collection [2] paired with proximity based two-factor
authentication for smartphones and computers. [3] You can throw in
notifications with swipe-to-dismiss. [4] But much more than that is just never
going to work well enough to be worthwhile. [5]

The very idea of prolonged interaction with a watch is silly. It's _going_ to
be too fiddly to be faster than just pulling your phone out. So why would
anyone even bother?

But the tech press would trash such a device.

[1] polish will almost certainly include stripping away functionality that's
currently present on watch-phones, just as tablets had to shed desktop OSes.

[2] just go hog-wild with sensors. the biggest value-add will be in providing
more/better data to apps and services accessed on other devices.

[3] e.g. you step up to your PC in the morning, it asks your password. For the
rest of the day, when you walk away it auto-locks and when you come back, it
unlocks. Similarly your phone only asks for an unlock code once every 4 or 8
hours and in between treats the presence of the watch as a sufficient token.

[4] Also: "swipe to open this on my phone". So one doesn't see a notification
on their watch, see something that deserves attention and then have to re-
navigate to that notification or app to act upon it.

[5] And, no, no-one wants to talk on a watch-phone like Dick Tracy. And
bluetooth headsets & earPod-style headphone/mic combos already have buttons
you can press to answer calls without grabbing your phone.

------
ignostic
> _Google Glass takes wearable computing a step beyond the basic wrist watch.
> However, the rate of adoption will almost certainly be lower..._

Nonsense. Everyone I've talked to about Glass has suggested a new use that I
haven't thought of yet, and I've only met one person who wasn't excited about
the project.

Everyone I've talked to about smartwatches, on the other hand, doesn't
understand. "Why? What can it do that my phone can't?" "But I already have a
clock on my phone."

This sentiment is mirrored in the tech media. This might be anecdotal at this
point, but I'm predicting a flop for watches and a lot of wasted time and
money.

But then, maybe I'm wrong like I was wrong about tablets before the iPad
started selling.

~~~
unavoidable
Smart watches can succeed because they have different use cases than phones.
Do people look at their phones because there is a clock on it, or for some
other reason?

I am using a Pebble now and since I have gotten it I no longer look at my
phone on a regular basis. In fact I often lose track of my phone because I so
rarely take it out.

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bertomartin
Was there any official statement from Apple that they're working on a smart
watch? I don't know, but I just think this is a head-fake from them...Like a
few other posters, I just don't see the big deal about a 'smart' watch. I want
a simple watch.

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hfsktr
I agree with most of the people that commented already. I have though about
getting a watch (novelty/binary). Then I realize that my phone is always on me
and the time is right there.

The only watches I've seen appear to be to signal status. Smart phones do that
just as well too.

There are probably special occasions that a watch would be better than a phone
but I can't even think of any decent ones. Best I can do is comment that
watches are touching you and could include that feedback from your
body...heart rate, bp etc. Pretty narrow use case if you ask me though.

~~~
nmcfarl
On just the subject of a watches and status/fashion.

If I’m going to a formal event I’m going to be be wearing a watch with my
suit. It’s a status symbol perhaps, but I’d put it closer to a fashion. And
it’s an old fashion - this is not something I see changing in my lifetime.

I would tend to think that a 'smart watch' and a suit is a misstep, more
frequently than a winning style. Of course we are talking about products that
for practical purposes doesn’t exist. However history has shown that taking
tech into fashion is a hard go and this is not the slam dunk that Techcrunch
is raving about.

~~~
dandellion
From wikipedia:

In the early 1900s, the wristwatch, originally called a Wristlet, was reserved
for women and considered more of a passing fad than a serious timepiece. Men,
who carried pocket watches, were quoted as saying they would "sooner wear a
skirt as wear a wristwatch"

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checker659
Here we go. 3DTV all over again.

~~~
IanDrake
Hundreds of people will want these! Hundreds.

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bertomartin
Interesting how the 'competition' isn't in smart glasses ala google glasses.
Guess there's not much competition when real innovation is involved.

~~~
tomrod
While I've heard much about them, I have yet to try out Google glasses. So the
innovation is still on the horizon from my perspective.

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noonespecial
Unfortunately for the smartwatch folks, a friend of mine in fashion, (who
seems to get this stuff right with uncanny frequency) tells me that the "watch
the size of a dinner plate" thing is starting to play out. The new new in
watches is going to be understated and ultra-thin.

They may have missed their golden moment when having something enormous and
bling-y on you wrist wasn't dorky.

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arocks
Since smart phones became ubiquitous, most of my friends have stopped wearing
watches. The phone already tells you the time. So I find the trend of every
smart phone manufacturer trying to built a smart watch as extremely ironical.

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chewxy
No one's going to mention that Microsoft again had been there and done it?
(see: SPOT watch)

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Personal_Objects_Technolo...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Personal_Objects_Technology)

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jfb
I'm deeply skeptical of the whole Apple iWatch thing.

~~~
joezydeco
I would LOVE to find out this whole iWatch thing is a huge fakeout from Apple
to get the competition distracted.

~~~
wklauss
It would be even funnier if competitions tart working on it and suddenly
create a market for the device, even if it's small.

~~~
joezydeco
Well there's no doubt that people want some kind of wearable extension of
their phones. The Pebble kickstarter showed that.

~~~
jfb
Which is all well and good; there's a market for hideous stuffed animals with
human teeth [1], but that's not an argument for Apple (or Samsung, or Google)
to get into it. Basically, it seems really out of character for Apple to do
this sort of thing. To be honest, I would expect a Google Glass sort of
ubiquitous computer before a "smartwatch"; at least the former has the
potential to turn into another pillar for Apple.

[1] <http://www.etsy.com/shop/cathairandteeth> \-- I have one and it's
_awesome_

~~~
joezydeco
Yes, that was the second sentence I forgot to type. There's _some_ need, but
probably not one that Apple deems large enough to necessitate a new product
category.

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mtct
Smartwatches were cool...in the eighties. Now, not so much, they are too
flashy.

~~~
swah
Flashy? The trend for bigger and bigger watches is going strong for a few
years now. (Nixon is one brand that has those, IIRC... young people seem to
love them).

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xmpir
if one has google glasses i don't really see a use case for the watch...

~~~
Shooti
Remote trackpad for Glass? Seems that would be more convenient/accessible than
using a trackpad on the side of your head.

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iTrollFreely
though i'd love to wear a smartwatch, my primary concern is battery life.
having to plug it into a charger every other night would be a huge
dealbreaker. it would have to use sort of inductive charging (still not
optimal since you need a mat everywhere you go). Mechanical watches for
decades have used hand winding, kinetic self winding, solar recharging
technologies, but would these be sufficient to charge a full -on electronic
device? doubtful.

once they solve the battery issue, the idea will be a HUUUGE cash cow.

~~~
unavoidable
Once you get used to charging it, it's no longer a problem. People were
annoyed when smartphones came out and they had to charge them every night
instead of once a week or so.

