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from the watch-that-is-essential-to-breathing... dept.
You would probably say the same if you were Eric Migicovsky, who runs smartwatch maker Pebble, whose business model involves selling people computers to wear on their bodies.
Even so, Migicovsky's confidence in the wider trend fuelling that business is notable, at a time when despite Apple and Google's moves into the smartwatch market, there is still widespread scepticism about what exactly these devices are for.
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So, what are smartwatches for? Migicovsky compares the current state of the market with smartphones in 2007, in the early days of iPhone and Android.
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For smartwatches in 2015, those core use cases appear to be activity-tracking and notifications – 90% of Pebble owners use notifications every day, according to Migicovsky – with watch-face customisation also scoring highly in Pebble's case.
On paper the case for something like Google Glass becoming indispensible seems stronger. Is Pebble right?
Original Submission
(Score: 2) by Dr Spin on Friday July 17 2015, @08:10AM
It is not so convenient if you are over 40, and your lenses have hardened - focussing on small, nearby objects, and then refocussing on distant objects is not convenient at all.
Also, if you go out and about, you will likely hit the damn thing causing hundreds of pounds worth of damage - typically getting in or out of a vehicle, but other ways of smashing watches exist, hence I gave up wearing one even before smart phones.
[If you are lucky, one day you will be as old as me]
Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2015, @08:37AM
Well, I'm over 40, started to wear a watch as a child and ever since wore one, and I didn't smash my watch even once. I also don't have problems to read my watch. Indeed, I can even read my watch if I intentionally blur my view of it. That's the advantage of a classic clock hands display; if you know what direction is up (which you can easily infer from the position of your arm) and in which directions the hands point (which isn't hard to recognize) you know what time it is.
A smartwatch, I don't have a use for.
(Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Friday July 17 2015, @02:55PM
The battery died in my watch and I kept forgetting to replace it, then I lost the watch. That was 1995 and I haven't missed it a bit. There's a clock on everything, everywhere you go.
As for vision, I'm getting closer to 50 and it's getting to be a real bitch -- a shuffle between my distance glasses, my reading glasses (both prescription), or no glasses, depending on size and distance. A smart watch for me would be a never ending headache.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Friday July 17 2015, @03:37PM
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈
(Score: 1) by Francis on Saturday July 18 2015, @05:21AM
Serious question. What do you use it for? Whenever I think of those types of devices I can't think of anything that's actually worth paying that kind of money for and dealing with the battery life issues over a normal watch.
(Score: 2) by Tork on Saturday July 18 2015, @05:56AM
I bought the watch as a toy to play with not expecting it to become as useful as it did. Basically it not only means my phone spends a lot more time in my pocket, but it also means I check my email at work far less frequently. If my watch buzzes, I glance at it, and can tell it's one of my coworkers sending around another cat gif and not even need to open my my client.
What I'm describing is a little tiny thing that in my case happens often enough the time savings are worthwhile. If you don't need your messages that fast, you will not find the Pebble Watch terribly interesting.
One limitation of the Pebble Watch is that it cannot show me a full email. On the iPhone it only shows what turns up in your Notification Center. While this suffices, it is a significant limitation. I would love to have an Apple Watch because I believe it'd let me scroll through an entire message. I also think it'd show me photos that come through via text (I get enough of those to be wortwhile), the Pebble can't do that. I think calling Siri from my watch would be handy, I do use that feature quite a bit when I'm using my headphones. And I like the idea that the Apple Watch will some day use wifi to stay connected with my phone if BlueTooth goes out of range.
The problem I have is I see $250 worth of features there, not $400. *Maybe* if they get local apps running AND developers do something interesting with them. Until then I am quite happy with my $130 Pebble Watch. I charge it every Saturday and you can't get a better smartwatch to use in daylight.
Oh... one other thing. I often get telemarketing calls on my cell phone. It's nice to see the Caller ID with a turn of my wrist, I hate taking my phone out for that. I'm not really sure if the bigger benefit to me of this watch is the value it brings or the significant amount of time wastage it saves.
🏳️🌈 Proud Ally 🏳️🌈