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Smartwatch sales are tanking

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Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#111

Post by throwa18 »

scottmf wrote: post #79

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…

Didn't the Apple Watch launch a quarter later this year compared to its initial launch?

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#112

Post by Florin_Andrei »

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…

> I can also turn my wrist and see the time instantly.

My Moto360 turns on instantly when I flip the wrist.

> I can't just wake up in the middle of the night an instantly know what the time is.

The Moto360 charging on its cradle shows the time pretty much like an ordinary stationary clock. It glows softly in the dark and shows you the time. It's a lot more visible that way compared to an old wristwatch.

> Let me know when battery life is within a couple of orders of magnitude of real watches

That is a legitimate complaint.

However, showing time is much less important nowadays, I think. Pretty much anything that uses electricity can show you the time. In my kitchen, there's something like 3 time displays visible at once. My wife's car has two (one is the old car clock, the other is from the new radio I've installed a while ago).

The reason why I wear a smartwatch is to avoid having to pull out the phone every time I get a notification. That, IMO, is the killer app of the smartwatch. I get the notification sound, just flip the wrist; decide whether it needs attention, and act accordingly or ignore. Done. Super-useful.

I agree that as timepieces alone the smartwatches are a regression.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#113

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#114

Post by Fiahil »

Of course sales are tanking, these things are bloody useless.

I have the first generation of motorola 360, I wear it every day and charge it every night. The hardware is fine (for a first gen) and I like its style. But, I unpaired it from my phone a long time ago, because I ran into too many issues. First the connection was sucking my phone's battery to a point it wasn't funny anymore, then updating an app on my phone would crash the watch's OS, and again randomly causing the thing to become uncomfortably hot. Finally the overhaul quality of the ecosystem went down with each updates (notifications delayed, vibrations missed, glitches...)

The features I don't miss:

- Fitness & heart rate (that thing was a joke)

- Music (I have a phone for that, thank you)

- Note taking (just no. I'm not ever again talking to my watch in public)

- Text responding (what is wrong with you?)

The features I do miss a little bit:

- GPS guidance with vibrations when biking (two for left, three for right, - that was genius)

- getting my phone's notifications (when it was working)

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#115

Post by coldtea »

ben_jones wrote: post #78
coldtea wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

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

In order to know what time it is:

  (1) at bed at night && 

  (2) if you haven't kept it charged &&

  (3) if you don't charge it by the bedstand
One could see oneself suffering this huge inconvenience when sleeping if they value the other things their smartwatch does when it's charged and their are not at bed at night...

Besides, no reason to buy a smartwatch for its timekeeping, you could just as well buy a $10 Casio watch and be done with it. Or one of those alarm-clock/radio bedstand thingies.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#116

Post by tedunangst »

ben_jones wrote: post #78
coldtea wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Do people wear dumb watches to bed just so they know what time it is when they wake up in the middle of the night? I take my watch off to sleep.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#117

Post by steveddt »

ant512 wrote: post #107
dmfwinder wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I have a mechanical Rolex watch with an automatic winder. I can keep it on my wrist 24/7, even at night. It glows in the dark. I can instantly see the time when I look at the watch. There is no smartwatch in the world that matches these features. And it does all this without me ever having to "charge" it. Yes, I do have to adjust the time once a week because it runs about 1 second fast per day. But…

Does your Rolex show you your email?

It does not. For that I have my iPhone. Which your "smartwatch" needs too.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#118

Post by greglindahl »

jmcdiesel wrote: post #71
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 th…

I didn't think I would like charging a watch every day, but I have the watch charger next to my phone charger, and I charge my phone every night, so... it works for me.

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#119

Post by snarkyturtle »

pcunite wrote: post #6

When I'm not wearing my mechanical Seiko, I wear a Garmin GPS for running. Always-on is big for me. Are there any that have that feature these days?

I feel like the newer Garmins are a good middle-ground for smartwatches. Always-on, 1+ week battery life, phone/email/calender notifications. And you get GPS built-in with a step tracker. I'd recommend the forerunner 230 which has a 5 week battery life: https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/into-sports/running/forerunn...

Re: Smartwatch sales are tanking

#120

Post by gumby »

I'm really shocked by how much I appreciate my Apple watch. I bought it figuring I'd try it for 13 days and return it. Instead, I forgot to put it on in the morning of the fifth day and turned around on the way to work to get it -- it made that much difference. My GF, likewise, finds hers indispensable.

But it does pretty much everything I need right now so I don't see a point in upgrading. The analysts are hoping for an upgrade market.

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