Wearables aren't dead but apps on wearables might be Sales of wearables did okay in the Christmas quarter, but sales of apps for wearables are in the doldrums. That's the opinion of abacus-twirlers at IDC in the latest Worldwide Quarterly Wearable Device Tracker. “Early on, the market was bifurcated between smart wearables – those capable of running third party apps – and Basic …
I find that as I get older, my eyesight isn't good enough to read small print on a watch so it's of limited use to me. If I have to faff around getting my reading glasses out then I might as well just pull out my phone too.
I do have an early model Pebble watch but it's been sat quietly on the shelf for the last year while my wrist develops a more even suntan.
"I find that as I get older, my eyesight isn't good enough to read small print on a watch so it's of limited use to me."
Analogue dial wristwatches are also becoming more about style than readability. Fortunately a recent £3.50 digital purchase from Aldi has a large diameter, slim, stainless steel body - and a crisp black on white analogue sweep display.
I always wondered why there was this great desire to run apps on a watch. Surely the processing overhead will eat the device's battery?
I always thought wearables/smart watches would be best as second displays for a smartphone for things like notifications, current fitness stats, etc. Plus, also, heart rate sensor for fitness tracking.
"I always wondered why there was this great desire to run apps on a watch. Surely the processing overhead will eat the device's battery?
"I always thought wearables/smart watches would be best as second displays for a smartphone for things like notifications, current fitness stats, etc. Plus, also, heart rate sensor for fitness tracking."
Pretty much this. When I first bought my fruity wrist computer, I did have a Solitaire app on it. Bad move. The screen is too small, and it guzzled the battery even more than the damned thing does anyway. (The Series 2 is a *lot* better about this, except that now I have a dual-core CPU in my *watch*.)
And you missed one app that it has that I find useful: remote control for the iOS music app, so the phone can stay in the pocket where it belongs. My overall list: time, date, fitness rings, next/current appointment from the phone's calendar, watch battery state, notifications, heart rate check occasionally, and the current temperature from the phone's Weather app.
On my Appley watch, the health and fitness data is the killer app along with Apple Pay, timers, notifications, Apple Music remote and Apple Home remote (for controlling lights etc). Anything more complex takes too long to load (and I'm a patient soul). My Series 2 is nearly arrived, so will see if that improves matters. Obviously more non battery draining sensors like blood pressure would be great and greater battery life (2 days is nothing to be sniffed at though, now I've become used to it). All this Health data is monetized through my Health insurance provider to reduce my premiums, earn me free Starbucks and Cinema tickets and also speaks to the App I use for the gym to recover HealthKit data, so I at least *feel* that I'm using its functions or it would live in the drawer.
Except I don't give a ##### about any health-related tech on my display-less "dumb" wristband. Least of all of any "steps tracker" - the open source app I'm using to access it apparently fails to read its heart rate sensor and I couldn't even be bothered to fill out a bug report on that yet (incidentally, the Xiaomi band that "nobody heard about" is apparently somehow popular enough to have an alternative non-official, painstakingly reverse-engineered support app that works fairly well beyond the issue mentioned).
I don't even connect to it for weeks on end - I just use it as a vibrating silent alarm clock to wake me up in the morning; it's pretty decent for that and you can't beat the $10 price...
I've got a Withings and I think it's great. Does the usual health stuff, lasts for 20+ days between charge. It's got notifications for calls and texts which is handier than you'd think (phone in pocket on vibrate and coat is on the back of a chair at work, for example).
Don't see the need for any apps as they all need your phone in any case and the longer battery is far more preferable.
It's got notifications for calls and texts which is handier than you'd think (phone in pocket on vibrate and coat is on the back of a chair at work, for example).
I second that. Getting notification on calls and texts is the most useful feature. Obviously it also needs to be able to tell the time or it wouldn't be much of a watch.
Not so "tech devices". These have the powerful Silicon Valley Reality Distortion Field to generate endless hype and breathless predictions of future world domination. This hype machine helps questionable products carry on much longer than they should. "Wearables" and their ilk will stumble on for years, propelled by the fervent desires and self-delusion of an industry totally out of touch with the public. The writing was on the wall years ago, but they're still forging ahead anyway.
I agree to an extent, but you do have to give products the benefit of the doubt to create a market while they get over their teething problems and evolve without slamming them on day 2. The people who actually own devices like the Apple Watch seem to really like them and find them useful.
The predictions of doom on 3D, VR, Wearables come thick and fast, mostly from people who've not actually used optimal versions of the products, ever used them at all or extremely early in the tech's life. This means that revenue from version 1 is not great enough to justify a version 2 in some cases as the product is deemed to flop and the risk-averse bean counters pull the plug. Not necessarily in the public's best interest. For example 3d on an LG 4k OLED is the best version of the tech yet, but by the time it was available, the industry was about to give up on 3D and now it's been canned, so nobody gets to enjoy it.
You could also argue that a product should not be on the market until it is ready for prime time, and that is probably the bigger problem which leads people to increasingly 'wait for version 2' in nearly all cases, not just Apple's launches. This is due to internal company pressure to release the next big thing, shareholder expectations and industry hype.
"For example 3d on an LG 4k OLED is the best version of the tech yet, but by the time it was available, the industry was about to give up on 3D and now it's been canned, so nobody gets to enjoy it."
But the odds are the fad would just fade anyway. It's not what people really wanted, which is lightfield 3D voxels a la The Jetsons where you didn't need glasses (problematic if you already wear them) or particular positioning (which kills lenticulars like Nintendo's 3DS) to work. Sure, there are fans, but there were plenty of detractors, too. I'm among them since watching Avatar through those polarized glasses was underwhelming and gave me a headache.
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