Apple is the captain of a sinking ship:
Maybe not everyone is convinced they need a smartwatch? According to a new industry report from IDC out this morning, smartwatch shipments experienced "significant" declines in the third quarter, as total shipments were down 51.6 percent from the same time last year. Just 2.7 million units were shipped in Q3 2016 versus 5.6 million in Q3 2015. While IDC offers several explanations as to why sales are dropping – including issues related to launch timings, Android Wear delays, and more – the numbers still indicate how smartwatches are having a hard time finding traction among a majority of consumers.
Of course, we need to keep in mind that Apple Watch is the market leader among smartwatches – its Series One device accounted for the majority of shipments in the quarter (1.1 million units shipped, a 72 percent year-over-year decline). That means its ups and downs will have an outsize impact on the industry's numbers at large.
Another factor mentioned: potential Apple Watch customers may have been waiting for second generation version.
On the heels of Misfit announcing the Phase, its first hybrid smartwatch, a bunch of other Fossil Group brands want in on that action. Chaps, Diesel, Emporio Armani, and Michael Kors have all added hybrid smartwatches to their connected devices lineup. All of of their smarthwatches use traditional, analog watch displays, but you can track fitness and delivery notifications on them with just a few taps.
Those brands join other Fossil Group-owned brands that have put their spin on smartwatches and fitness trackers. The Fossil brand launched its Q line of wearables last year, which now includes Android Wear watches, discreet fitness trackers, and hybrid smartwatches. Fossil dabbled in wearables years ago, well before modern fitness trackers or the Apple Watch existed. But the company really began its push into that marketplace after acquiring Misfit last year. Since then, not only has Fossil adapted some of Misfit's technology into its wearables, but Misfit has also taken pages out of its parent company's playbook, particularly with the launch of its Phase hybrid smartwatch.
If smartwatches don't have this feature, I'm just not interested.
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The Apple Watch has found a surprisingly useful home
When the Apple Watch launched in 2015, it wasn't exactly clear who, or what, it was for. It was a phone accessory meant to curtail some of the notification anxiety the phones themselves had created by paring your digital life down to only the most essential disturbances. For many consumers, though, there wasn't a clear reason to keep wearing the watch after the initial sheen had worn off—unless they were fitness freaks, or overly concerned about their heart health. But a growing group of users have found them indispensable.
You might've noticed that the person who took your order at the bar, brought you the shoes you wanted to try on, or perhaps even patted you down at the airport security line, is sporting an Apple Watch, which starts at $329 for the newest Series 3 watch. And there's a pretty simple explanation: Many service-industry jobs where employees have to be on their feet all day don't allow workers to check their phones while they're on the clock. But that rule doesn't necessarily apply to a piece of unobtrusive jewelry that happens to let you text your friends and check the weather.
Quartz spoke with airline attendants, bartenders, waiters, baristas, shop owners, and (very politely) TSA employees who all said the same thing: The Apple Watch keeps them in touch when they can't be on their phones at work. Apple has increasingly been pushing the watch as a health device, and seems to have moved away from marketing it as one that offers more basic utility, as Apple continues do with the iPhone. But given that roughly 23% of the US labor force works in wholesale or retail operations, perhaps it's a market Apple should reconsider.
Related: Apple Watch Leads the Dying Smartwatch Market
FDA Approves First Medical Device Accessory for the Apple Watch
AliveCor Sensor for Apple Watch Could Detect Dangerous Levels of Potassium in the Blood
Apple Building its Own MicroLED Displays for Eventual Use in Apple Watch and Other Products
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:06PM
Turns out the smartwatch idea doesn't work in real life, just like the basic income idea, right?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:12PM
I somehow ended up with a moto sport as a mostly gift. Its basically a very expensive fitbit. Fitbit sells about 5M per year and cost about the same.
The battery quite easily lasts a day, maybe more (maybe I sleep too much?)
I mostly use it as an offbrand fitbit step counter and it is kinda nifty how it acts as a secondary notification screen. Now that "cool phones" are almost the size of older tablets its kinda nice to just glance at the watch.
Early adopter syndrome means I think of it as being $400 or something. They sell for like $140 now. The wellness program at work either gave away a rather nice fitbit coupon or a coupon for the watch so I got the watch. I had not worn a watch in more than a decade due to phones. Kinda weird doing that again.
I don't walk any more than I used to; then again I hike and walk for fun and probably walk more than 98% of the population anyway. The device has little/no effect on my health. My health is good so I suppose it doesn't matter?
You learn to block notifications. both the mail app and the gmail app were spam notifying me for email, I blocked the email apps notifications.
I don't really use it for anything else. I wouldn't spend my own money on it, but I like having it. I'd drop $30 of my own money on a smart watch, sure.
The surprising part of the market is fitbits are selling for like $150 for the loaded ones that CAN do nothing but count steps, my watch is theoretically turing complete and could do anything but had nothing USEFUL to do but count steps (and spam me notifications) and its about the same cost.
I'm a creative dude. I can't think of anything for my watch to do. It already ships with stopwatch and stuff. I added a calculator. 99% of the watch faces suck. After furiously trying like ten watch faces I settled on something called "runner" which shows google fit steps. Its step counter goes to five digits which believe it or not some do not, and thats useful to me.
I pity da fool hardware company that thinks they're gonna ship watches at $500. They can ask $500 but nobody is going to buy.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:25PM
Apple figured out the secret. Instead of $500, Apple asks for $1,249. [arstechnica.com]
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:50PM
> I'm a creative dude. I can't think of anything for my watch to do.
Off the top of my head:
(1) Automatically lock the screen on my PC went I walk away
(2) Warn me when I get too far away from phone and/or laptop
(3) Make my phone play a loud alarm noise when it gets too far away (thief deterrent "help, I am being stolen")
(4) Act as wireless key for my car / front-door
(5) Warn me whenever a bluetooth survellience system tries to ping my phone
(6) Automatically turn the lights on/off as I move around the house
(7) Gesture controls
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:39AM
There's a lot of self imposed limitations
1) It doesn't know anything about my PC. It only talks to my phone. It also talks wifi and its kinda weird if I'm in the bathroom at work and its connected via wifi all the way back to my desk charging phone. There are linux PAM modules that can sniff BT or so I've heard and if you could fool the watch into thinking the PC is a stereo speaker maybe, maybe...
2) Possible. Mostly it keeps trying to connect until it gives up after an hour or something and gives me an annoying disconnected icon.
3) So the output of #2. The problem is as per #1 it will be a, well, poop alarm, because my giant near tablet sized phone sits on the charger at work and the watch stays on my wrist. I'll probably only make this mistake a couple times before being known as the "help, my poop is being stolen" guy. I suppose the only way it could possibly be worse is if it automatically connected my watch microphone to my phone speaker "so you can yell at the thief" and instead all they hear is flushing and other noises.
4) Darn good idea. Of course I already have a wireless key for my car and I've been thinking about buying one for home for convenience.
5) eh wat? And then I'll reply with supersonic lead or ?
6) Believe it or not I've done a lot of this with misterhouse and some perl scripts and some insteon sensors and controllers. It is incredibly handy when you're carrying laundry baskets. Its not a bad idea. Sooner or later someone will make a BT sniffer with relay contacts and I already own insteon I/O modules so this would be about 20 minutes of struggle with misterhouse. One problem is you'd have to do some kind of signal strength calibration or it'll go off in adjacent rooms but not in the corners or who knows. Basement door open = turn on light is like the simplest most awesome thing ever, don't even need IR sensors. OR a watch.
7) It kinda sorta does that already, its in 1% illumination mode 24x7 and when I hold my wrist to look at it, it goes 100%. And its bright enough in the sun, for me anyway. Its not advanced enough that I could do a ridiculous breakdancing move and it could blast some 80s rap automatically. I'm not sure I want it to do that. I can control my audio playback and sometimes its easier to flip the watch and tap pause than dig the phone out of my pocket.
7a) Someday someone is gonna embed full accelerometers and stuff in a set of rings and we'll be able to send sign language to our phones. Not there yet. It can sense my arm wiggling and apparently strange boxing like shakings can signal to the thing but its so annoying it aint happening.
It does hook up to if as in "if then then that" or whatever its called exactly, kind of like "Scratch programming for adults" which might make it possible to implement some of your ideas. The problem is it doesn't expose much to IF other than like battery level.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:36AM
They work really well for GPS directions on a motorcycle as well, although the most use I get out of mine is a a quick way to control volume, track, etc on my headphones at work. A few other things are quick access to 2-factor auth codes, bar codes for various cards, quick replies to texts, quick voice searches or countdown timers, etc. I have an original Moto360 and use for for quite a lot of things. Even just the notifications are great as it helps resist the temptation of looking at other stuff while you have the phone out.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @11:40PM
Well, when $500 is about the bill to have a nice Rolex serviced (every 2 to 5 years) smart watches start to make sense.
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:18PM
for Porn. The real Reason.
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:34PM
The killer app would recognize the motions, and properly set your calendar to "in a meeting" and redirect the mother-in-law's calls automatically.
The hidden mode redirects the calls to the wife.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:48AM
A strange cross between Omegle and a peephole simulator. I don't usually drink this much, will be interesting to read this in the morning. Seems like a good idea at this blood alcohol level.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:49AM
Not bad. Still seems like a good idea at this caffeine level.
(Score: 2) by LoRdTAW on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:11PM
It was giving us lefties motion sickness.
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:53PM
I wear a match. Analogue, date, day, self, winding.
I have a "smart" phone.
Everything the smart watch can do, my phone can do, usually better.
I don't want to wear two watches.
I don't think I am the target market.
I have seen many people who are wearing there watches, and fitbits, as some form of self-delusional attempt to "get fit" or "lose weight" These are the people paying $500 or $1200 - the more you pay, the better it must be, right?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1) by gauauu on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:30PM
I wear a match. Analogue, date, day, self, winding. I have a "smart" phone. Everything the smart watch can do, my phone can do, usually better. I don't want to wear two watches. I don't think I am the target market. I have seen many people who are wearing there watches, and fitbits, as some form of self-delusional attempt to "get fit" or "lose weight" These are the people paying $500 or $1200 - the more you pay, the better it must be, right?
You're right, you're not the target market. I like having:
These might not be important to you (maybe your phone is always sitting out, or you don't care about those things), but I find them useful, and will happily pay the $100 for a mid-level smartwatch to do them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @10:56PM
I vote the 2nd. Many people did want them, but they now have them and new models dont offer anything worth 'upgrading' for.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 26 2016, @11:40PM
it always read 4:20.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:34AM
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
- t
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Scruffy Beard 2 on Wednesday October 26 2016, @11:55PM
My former roomate only really liked the appearance of the Samsung smartwatch. The reason she passed it up? I requires a Samsung phone to work.
All of the IoT things try to force you into the manufacturer's data silo.
I suspect that is why they are not too popular.
(Score: 2) by Absolutely.Geek on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:04AM
I have a Pebble Time.
The notifications are good; just have to allow only the useful stuff.
Battery lasts a week.
Great when working in a noisy environment; I can look at an incoming call, decide if it is important enough to stop what I am doing and either send them to voice mail or walk to a quiet area to take the call.
The music control is useful; the step counter is fairly inaccurate but good enough to see when I have had a particularly lazy day. The sleep tracker is a joke; I have a young son, I am up and down in the night, which the sleep tracker just glosses over.
Don't trust the police or the government - Shihad: My mind's sedate.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Hairyfeet on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:15AM
Nah it was a fad, just like tablets. Remember when everybody was talking "tablet this" and "death of the PC, hail tablets" that? Now you can't give the things away as people found them too limiting compared to their laptops and smartphones. Its the same thing here, you need a smartphone to connect to this thing and if I already have to carry my phone what do I need this for?
The only ones I've seen here are those that think it'll be some weight loss "quick fix" and just like all the exercise crap they are now headed towards my local Craigslist. They are too limited, battery life sucks, gotta carry a smartphone to get any real use out of it, and everybody knows they'll be out of date and worthless in a year or two so you don't even have the value of long life like you do with a good old fashioned watch. You buy a $500 traditional time piece and you can pass it down in 20 years, the software on these things will be obsolete in 2...it just isn't a good buy for the vast majority out there.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2) by PartTimeZombie on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:19AM
Nah it was a fad, just like tablets. Remember when everybody was talking "tablet this" and "death of the PC, hail tablets" that...
I'm not sure I agree with this, the reason I haven't bought another tablet is because the cheap Samsung one I bought three years ago still works fine. When it dies I will definitely be replacing it however.
You buy a $500 traditional time piece and you can pass it down in 20 years, the software on these things will be obsolete in 2...it just isn't a good buy for the vast majority out there.
This is a very good point. I really like the look of the Samsung Gear S2, but they cost $650 of my local dollars, and there's no way I can justify that.
I went to my local Samsung website just now to check that they were still asking that much and sure enough, (even though they're not selling many by the looks of things).
(Score: 1) by Francis on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:59AM
For me the issues with the smart watches are primarily the cost and the battery life. If they didn't cost as much and had much better battery life I'd consider getting on.
It would be kind of nice to have caller ID from the phone pop up on my watch and to have the bus schedule without having to take my phone out. But, in all honesty, I struggle to think of things where a smart watch is the answer rather than a smart phone.
(Score: 3, Touché) by VLM on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:53AM
Nah it was a fad, just like tablets.
Well let me tell you about the olden times back when phones were flip and made by motorola and lasted a week on charge and were smaller than a pack of cards, and my first tablet was a 7 inch nexus in '12
Now my nexus is functionally dead and instead of a pocket sized phone I have a 6 inch phablet roughly the dimensions of the first portable cell phone radio shack sold in the mid 80s. Of course its a little lighter, but...
So I'd say small phones were the fad and we're going back to carrying around Bell 500 sets.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:44PM
Tablets have found some niche use as media devices. My kids use them to watch shows on the road. Others for reading on the subway or during slow times in the office.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 2) by Hairyfeet on Friday October 28 2016, @03:54AM
Well I didn't say nobody found a use for 'em, I said the days of everybody wanting a tablet are as dead as disco. Its the same as netbooks, they still make netbooks, hell you can buy Win 10 netbooks for like $200 and they still sell, its just the "ZOMFG you HAVE to have one of these!" is over, too many found that the limited power and small keyboards? just wasn't for them and its the same with tablets and smartwatches.
I'm sure there will be a few that buy 'em but enough to support a billion dollar industry? Don't think so.
ACs are never seen so don't bother. Always ready to show SJWs for the racists they are.
(Score: 2, Interesting) by trimtab on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:16AM
I have an original Pebble and now a Pebble Time that is quite handy for:
- filtering notifications
- controlling audio playing on the smartphone over Bluetooth or audio out. Particularly, while driving.
- opening smart locks
- Being a FitBit:
+ step tracking
+ sleep tracking
all while showing a variety of watch-faces (some that I've designed with a free app) that are "always on" and only needing to be re-charged about once a week. It's also waterproof to 30M. So it's even useful when swimming.
On Amazon, the original black and white E-ink Pebble is $55 while the Color LCD Pebble Time is $80. So you get a much more flexible programmable devices for less than a Fitbit.
You can also spend more for metal Pebbles, but I'd wait for the Pebble Time 2 with the built-in heart monitor, larger battery and larger display sometime in early 2017 if that's what you want.
For what is basically a tool to proxy phone notifications and reply to them without having to pull the phone out of pocket the purchase is definitely worth it.
Given my experience with Pebble, I can't figure out how an Apple or Google Wear watch is worth 3x to 24x the price.
(Score: 2) by rob_on_earth on Tuesday November 01 2016, @10:26AM
more or less exactly what I was going to say.
Love my Pebble Time even though I thought I would never wear any kind of watch ever again.
The fact that I can write my own apps for it as well as watch faces is great.
People can not get over the fact it connects to my Android and has call and text notifications yet the battery lasts a week (almost to the hour).
Talking of battery, when low the Pebble alerts you at 20% then 10% and finally goes "dumb" where only the time is displayed. Meaning I have never looked at it and found it dead.
(Score: 2) by iamjacksusername on Thursday October 27 2016, @12:25AM
Does anybody know of a fitbit type tracker that just lets you pull the raw data or uses a local-only application. I.e., I have enough data about mylife scattered about the cloud. I'd prefer Google, Apple or whomever not selling my health information to anybody who asks as well. I have not been able to find much.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @01:26AM
I'm not even sure who the smart watches are for?
I'm sure it probably doesn't even last half as long as an electronic much less a traditional wrist watch
If I wanted to check messages, I can just take out my phone.
smart watches was doomed form the start. I never met anyone who said
"If only there was a way for me to stay connected without bringing out my phone"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @02:43AM
I'm well aware I don't represent the mainstream smartwatch market. I don't even represent the typical Soylentil smartwatch user. But I thought this could be a useful place to post my experience in case anyone else could benefit.
For reference, my phone is a Note 3 -- big, clunky (with the triple-capacity battery), and powerful. My ideal watch would take over stuff that would normally be done on a "normal-sized" phone (e.g. quick messaging/email reading and replies), so I only have to pull the Note out when I want the extra screen space, the pen input, or the processing power. In case it's not obvious, that means I disagree with the apparent majority view that a smart watch should just display a notification, then I'll pull my phone out to do the actual work. Thus, any smart watch not capable of running 3rd-party apps is uninteresting to me, and as a practical matter, this means I want a full-Android watch, as the other OS options either have no 3rd party apps, or a severely limited ecosystem.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Roger Murdock on Thursday October 27 2016, @04:04AM
to me...
Is a battery that lasts months, not hours or days. I'd love a watch that notifies me of incoming text messages, I don't need to read them, just see who their from. Being able to silence or reject an incoming call would be nice too. I don't need to be able to answer a call because I'd have to pull the phone out anyway so I may as well do that on the phone. If I want to send a message, browse the internet, take a photo, make a call, or anything more advanced I'd just use the phone.
(Score: 2) by migz on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:22AM
This. (Battery)
I don't know why withings don't get more press, their battery life is orders of magnitude better then the others.
(Score: 1) by guizzy on Thursday October 27 2016, @11:18PM
Until tech companies realize this, they will keep failing. Pebble had it right, from the start.
People THINK they want a fancy watch with a bright vibrant color screen that can do everything from play games to show maps.
These features are mostly unused after couple of months. Then the person start forgetting to charge the watch more often, and then finally it sits in a drawer.
There's a convenience cost to having YET ANOTHER device to manage the battery of (after our laptops, phones, tablets, portable consoles, e-readers, game controllers...) The convenience offered by a smartwatch would have to be close to a phone or laptop, to be worth the same "charge this everyday". And the real, actual utility of these devices (mostly as a way to avoid dragging out the phone at every notification), is not worth that much. Maybe more a weekly charge, which is what Pebble offers.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @04:48AM
One large electronics / whiteware retailer in New Zealand has redone 30% of their floor for smartwatches of all make and hue. Dumping unsellable product commences, once again. We can enjoy 3-6 years ago camera models at brand new pricing. If they can't sell something in Outer Burajistan because its outdated or out of fashion, then New Zealand will get a flood of stock at full price or a premium.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by jmorris on Thursday October 27 2016, @05:24AM
So in a generation that has mostly stopped wearing watches, because they have a phone with the time on the lock screen, they tried to get them to buy $500 - $1200 (apple) watches that are mostly just an accessory to the phone they still have to have near them. The Reality Distortion Field got a few million people to rush and buy the iWatch but since then not so much. Since then every mention of smart watches have bemoaned the poor battery life, lack of functionality and lack of a compelling reason to own one. They are actually shocked that sales have plummeted.
Yes folks, they are shocked that people aren't buying more this year than last year. Sleep soundly in the certain knowledge that our civilization is safely in the hands of Top People.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 27 2016, @07:19AM
Early adopters are ok with 'kinda works' (crap battery life).
The next segment is not usually cool with 'kinda works'.
Watches at this point are jewelry accessories or very practical. Either they are showing off you have an 6 figure salary or you just want the time in a convenient spot.
For the jewelry people this sort of watch makes sense it is a nice quick way to say 'i have money'. For the practical people this sort of thing is so retarded they are wondering the sanity of the people who designed them.
I used to make a decent salary. I fall squarely in the practical side.