Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Smartwatch sales are tanking

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 181 posts

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#71

Post by jmcdiesel »

choward wrote: post #42

The biggest issue for me with the "smartwatch" is that they don't have feature parody with dumb watches. I've had many watches in the past and the battery lasts for years. I can also turn my wrist and see the time instantly. Who would have thought? What I get now is some piece of crap that needs to be charged every night. So I basically have no features while I'm sleeping. I can't just wake up in the middle of the ni…

The question is does this opinion comes from experience, or from assumption?

Having an Apple Watch now for about 6 months, I can say I love it, and none of those things (and I shared the same skepticism before buying one) have proven to be issues.

I don't tend to look at my watch when I sleep - so that one's easy, and when you charge the watch its in a mode that gives off a low-light time (nightstand mode, i think they call it). On top of that, it takes about an hour to charge, so often I end up charging it during my night time regiment, and by the time I go to bed, i COULD wear it (if i need to make sure I'm up early for something, i wear it so i get the vibration)

If you want a traditional watch, then get a traditional watch - comparing it to a traditional watch and holding to the same standards is not a position of common sense...

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#72

Post by samastur »

carsongross wrote: post #5

Seems like they will stay a niche until they can replace phones entirely, and perhaps even past then. A lot of people just don't like having something strapped to their wrist and/or want a large screen. As a watch guy (and most watch people are guys) the first smart watch I've been excited about is the upcoming gear S3: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s3/ Because it looks like a real watch and has the rotat…

I am another watch guy, but I disagree that the main problem is that people don't like wearing them (although there certainly is no shortage of such people). Last year there were 1.2 BILLION watches sold (http://www.statisticbrain.com/wrist-watch-industry-statistic...). On whole smart watches sold as well as Swiss did even though they are on average significantly cheaper.

I don't know why they are not selling, but clearly combination of their advantages and disadvantages is not compelling enough compared to alternatives.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#73

Post by carldotac »

I bought one of the first generation Android Wear devices for $50 a few months after they debut. There was some convenience to the simple verbal commands for timers and the instant answers made for a neat party trick, but the speech-to-text wasn't good enough for moderately complex messaging (I once said I would be there in "a bit over 15 minutes" and got the fraction bit/15 minutes) and it was heavy and uncomfortable. I've also become less and less comfortable with being so intimate with Google.

I do see value added in the notification mirroring, however. There are many situations where it's useful to see updates without taking out and unlocking your phone: at a meeting, with your hands full, walking around in a crowd. I hadn't worn my watch for the better chunk of a year until two weeks ago when I needed instant Twitter notifications during business hours should a convention I attend start selling its badges. Now that I have those badges, it's back into the drawer until needed again. My calculator watch is more comfortable and I have metal watches that look nicer. Unless I have a defined need for notifications on my wrist, I currently am better off with a conventional watch.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#74

Post by annerajb »

Mahn wrote: post #45
carsongross wrote: post #5

Seems like they will stay a niche until they can replace phones entirely, and perhaps even past then. A lot of people just don't like having something strapped to their wrist and/or want a large screen. As a watch guy (and most watch people are guys) the first smart watch I've been excited about is the upcoming gear S3: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s3/ Because it looks like a real watch and has the rotat…

> until they can replace phones entirely I.e. never? I mean, I can picture making phone calls or dictating SMS by voice with a smart watch, but people are not going to be browsing the web or taking pictures with a tiny wrist device when they already have a 5-6" inches display device on their pockets, and almost no one would ditch the latter for the former if they had to choose. I think it's likely that smart watches…

Unless people resort to another device like mounted glasses for web viewing and picture taking. Or a ipad for bookreading, web browsing and picture taking.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#75

Post by coldtea »

choward wrote: post #42

The biggest issue for me with the "smartwatch" is that they don't have feature parody with dumb watches. I've had many watches in the past and the battery lasts for years. I can also turn my wrist and see the time instantly. Who would have thought? What I get now is some piece of crap that needs to be charged every night. So I basically have no features while I'm sleeping. I can't just wake up in the middle of the ni…

>The biggest issue for me with the "smartwatch" is that they don't have feature parody with dumb watches. I've had many watches in the past and the battery lasts for years. I can also turn my wrist and see the time instantly. Who would have thought?

The same happens with e.g. paper vs computer. With paper the "battery" lasts forever. But you tradeoff some things to get other stuff.

>What I get now is some piece of crap that needs to be charged every night. So I basically have no features while I'm sleeping. I can't just wake up in the middle of the night an instantly know what the time is.

Well, you probably have your phone next to you, your alarm clock next to the bed, and several other clocks nearby in the bedroom.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#76

Post by steaminghacker »

gtrubetskoy wrote: post #26

If I ever do get a smartwatch, it would be because it's a sensor. I think the health/medical/biohacking potential there is huge. The only thing is - must it really be on my wrist, and do I really need to look at it or touch/push buttons on it?

im thinking biosensors evenually have to go subcutaneous with the watch/band being the reader.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#77

Post by coldtea »

Mahn wrote: post #45
carsongross wrote: post #5

Seems like they will stay a niche until they can replace phones entirely, and perhaps even past then. A lot of people just don't like having something strapped to their wrist and/or want a large screen. As a watch guy (and most watch people are guys) the first smart watch I've been excited about is the upcoming gear S3: http://www.samsung.com/global/galaxy/gear-s3/ Because it looks like a real watch and has the rotat…

> until they can replace phones entirely I.e. never? I mean, I can picture making phone calls or dictating SMS by voice with a smart watch, but people are not going to be browsing the web or taking pictures with a tiny wrist device when they already have a 5-6" inches display device on their pockets, and almost no one would ditch the latter for the former if they had to choose. I think it's likely that smart watches…

>I.e. never? I mean, I can picture making phone calls or dictating SMS by voice with a smart watch, but people are not going to be browsing the web or taking pictures with a tiny wrist device when they already have a 5-6" inches display device on their pockets, and almost no one would ditch the latter for the former if they had to choose.

People might also not have 5-6" devices in their pockets, but special glasses with HUDs or smart contact lenses...

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#78

Post by ben_jones »

coldtea wrote: post #75
choward wrote: post #42

The biggest issue for me with the "smartwatch" is that they don't have feature parody with dumb watches. I've had many watches in the past and the battery lasts for years. I can also turn my wrist and see the time instantly. Who would have thought? What I get now is some piece of crap that needs to be charged every night. So I basically have no features while I'm sleeping. I can't just wake up in the middle of the ni…

> The biggest issue for me with the "smartwatch" is that they don't have feature parody with dumb watches. I've had many watches in the past and the battery lasts for years. I can also turn my wrist and see the time instantly. Who would have thought? The same happens with e.g. paper vs computer. With paper the "battery" lasts forever. But you tradeoff some things to get other stuff. > What I get now is some piece of…

"Well, you probably have your phone next to you, your alarm clock next to the bed, and several other clocks nearby in the bedroom."

So I should supplement my smart watch with other devices in order to know what time it is? Makes $ense.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#79

Post by scottmf »

Misleading title. You can't compare sales from the Apple Watch's initial release with the months leading up to a new model.

If you take Apple out of the picture sales stay pretty steady. Samsung grows a little, Garmin grows a lot. Far from "tanking".

Smartwatches will continue to sell steadily (to early adopters and developers) until the tech catches up.

The new Apple Watch is already a huge improvement over the last model, but mainly in software. WatchOS was terrible until 3.0 and it still isn't there. It tries to do too much because Apple doesn't quite seem sure what it's supposed to do.

For telling the time, displaying notifications, fitness tracking, and a couple of other things it's great. Why then is the homescreen a complete mess of icons for half-features? Why (until WatchOS 3.0) could it take upwards of ten seconds to open an app?

I imagine Apple would never release the iPad today without first-party weather/stocks/calculator apps.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#80

Post by marcosdumay »

newswriter9 wrote: post #12

I don't get it. Decades of science fiction depicting Heads-up-Display glasses and wrist-strapped laptops, with people wishing and wishing we lived in such a world. Now here we are and society isn't going in for it. Bluetooth head sets, smartwatches, Google Glass, none of it is sticking. Even though smart phones are becoming cumbersome due to size and inability to use hands-free or even one-handed well. Are we ever go…

> Are we ever going to see a cyberpunk future?

You mean, crypto wars and threats of civilization impacting DDoS don't count?

Post reply on HN