
The Elephant in the Smartwatch Room - JamilD
https://www.aboveavalon.com/notes/2016/12/15/the-elephant-in-the-smartwatch-room
======
entee
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.

~~~
MBCook
I won't disagree for hardcore fitness people.

But for 'normal' fitness people the Apple watch is a pretty strong value. It's
much better than a basic FitBit but works better. It integrates with your
phone very well and the notification handling quickly became my favorite
feature.

I think the Apple watch is _far more_ than good enough for most people's
fitness needs, and I don't think Garmin's strength there will be enough to
elevate them out of the niche of hard-core fitness people.

~~~
mtw
For normal fitness people, I would think an iPhone would be more than enough
for your needs. Get an iPhone strap or carry it on your hand. There's really
no need to have a watch.

On the other hand, if you are planning for something serious, like running a
half-marathon in spring, or doing interval training, then you begin to need
heart rate monitoring. Many then discovers that the Apple Watch HRM is cr*p
(mine read 215bpm which is at least 25bpm more than my biological max) and you
can't really use Apple Watches for fitness. Apple would need to invest
massively in heart rate monitoring technology (+battery) to get any interest
from fitness crowds.

One are that makes sense for Apple Watch is simple activity tracking. How many
steps, how many floors climbed. Where you have been. How much sleep you had
etc. Those are important metrics for your health and worth the price. But at
the same time, you can get a Fitbit or a Vivoactive for $150 less

~~~
dingaling
> On the other hand, if you are planning for something serious, like running a
> half-marathon in spring

For the encouragement of would-be or newbie runners, it is of course
_entirely_ possible to run a half-marathon distance without any form of
monitoring, diagnostic or tracking equipment.

Invest in good shoes first and don't worry about gadgets. The only one I'd
recommend would be a small mobile phone in a back-pocket in case of emergency
if you're running cross-country or remote roads.

~~~
mtw
Agreed. You don't need a fancy Garmin or the latest gadgets. See the kenyans
who are running and training without fancy gadgets.

A gps sports watch helps though to track progress and also get feedback. It
provides that extra bit of motivation that makes a difference

------
msabalau
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.

------
HCIdivision17
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-eve...](https://stevecochrane.com/v3/2006/09/15/tetris-should-be-
everywhere/) [1]
[http://archive.casio.com/products/archive/watches/databank/d...](http://archive.casio.com/products/archive/watches/databank/dbc150-1/)
[2]
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/timepieceslove/6362901777/](https://www.flickr.com/photos/timepieceslove/6362901777/)

~~~
SixSigma
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

~~~
HCIdivision17
No, that's the cool bit: it's like a cell phone on your wrist!

The 4g connection is pretty good, and I think the call quality is pretty
decent. Battery can only handle maybe an hour and a half of call per day
(between charges), but I'm not too chatty, so it works great for me.

~~~
SixSigma
> But here's the gripe: the software to talk to it is only available on a
> mobile device. ONLY.

So "talk" here means "change settings"? That's what confused me.

~~~
HCIdivision17
Right? It really violates the Law of Least Astonishment. I think part of the
idea is that the phone serves as a close hub to get push notifications from,
since it doesn't retrieve my mail without the phone. Which honestly I'm
starting to think I preferred (you really start to notice how much nonsense
heads your way when the notifier is on your wrist).

------
mtw
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

------
1_2__3
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.

------
pklausler
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
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.

~~~
Yhippa
The 800 lb. gorilla in the elephant room made of glass.

~~~
harlanlewis
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
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
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.

------
kolemcrae
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
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
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.

------
niftich
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.

------
bryanlarsen
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
[*] Pebble, the only smartwatches that actually made sense. As a happy user,
I'm very sad to see them gone.

~~~
J5892
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.

------
chetanahuja
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?

------
quanticle
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
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.

------
tdburn
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
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
> 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
> 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.

~~~
MBCook
I knew you knew it did all the other stuff.

You're right about the phone, but it's very nice to be able to just raise my
wrist and sort of whisper into my watch. I don't have to make sure I'm loud
enough that my phone can hear me from my pocket. It just feels easier/more
natural if you don't already have your phone in your hand.

I wonder if the pricing on the Blaze was set before the latest Apple Watches
came out. That would have been a decent value against $350 or whatever they
were, but now that a very nice one starts at $260 it's a tougher sell.

~~~
brlewis
Blaze does not appear to be a tough sell on Amazon. Right now different Blaze
models place 1st, 3rd, 5th, 8th, 11th and 12th in the top 12 places on
[https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Cell-Phones-
Accessories-...](https://www.amazon.com/Best-Sellers-Cell-Phones-Accessories-
Smart-Watches/zgbs/wireless/7939901011)

Apple Watch models in spots 2 and 10.

~~~
MBCook
Interesting. The big catch on buying an Apple Watch right now is that
depending on the model you want you can still face a pretty decent delay in
being able to get one. All things being equal I wonder how that would affect
the rankings.

------
douche
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
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
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.

~~~
zgramana
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).

~~~
MBCook
I can tell you I don't refer to mine as a smartwatch.

------
sssilver
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
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
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
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.

------
yalogin
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
> 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
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.

------
gregmac
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.h...](http://consumer.huawei.com/en/wearables/huawei-
watch/index.htm)

------
dumb-saint
Boring

~~~
sctb
Please don't post like this here.

