Another interesting bit of history was the Seiko Message Watch, which had time-sync and one-watch messaging over an FM radio sideband: https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/tribute-to-the-seiko-messagewa... Back before cell phones were ubiquitous that was pretty novel. I remember being struck by how cool it was to step off the plane in Taipei and see it update to local time while I watched. Getting pages about server downtim…
Microsoft also tried to build a smart watch in 2004 with the SPOT watch. It’s remarkable how a concept can stick around for decades waiting on an implementation that’s good enough to be viable. Instead of trying to think of new things it’s perhaps better to go read tech magazines of prior decades finding failed ideas and trying to breathe new life into them.
Re: Seiko UC-2000 (1984) – the dawn of wearable computers
#11Smartphones are a great example: I had Richochet wireless on a Handspring Prism almost a decade before the iPhone, including a web browser. The concepts were there but it needed generations of hardware and software improvements to make it viable as a mainstream product.