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

Wyze $20 Smart Watch

wyze.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 290 posts

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#81

Post by driverdan »

breck wrote: post #25

Apple was smart not to compete on the low-end for watches. Median income in the USA is $68,703. Why would someone spend 1/25 of 1 percent of their income on something that they wear 100% of the time? That makes no sense. I shell out $200-$300 each year for the latest FitBit (Apple Watch is promising, but that battery life :(. The sleep tracking is gold).

> Why would someone spend 1/25 of 1 percent of their income on something that they wear 100% of the time? That makes no sense.

If the product fulfills their needs why would they waste an extra $180 on a different product?

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#82

Post by schwartzworld »

breck wrote: post #25

Apple was smart not to compete on the low-end for watches. Median income in the USA is $68,703. Why would someone spend 1/25 of 1 percent of their income on something that they wear 100% of the time? That makes no sense. I shell out $200-$300 each year for the latest FitBit (Apple Watch is promising, but that battery life :(. The sleep tracking is gold).

> I shell out $200-$300 each year for the latest FitBit

Why would you update your Fitbit that often? Is it really that much of a difference from year to year?

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#83

Post by ghaff »

breck wrote: post #50
securingsincity wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much of that income is spent on healthcare, food, and housing? 40% americans can't afford an unexpected $400 bill [0] https://abcnews.go.com/US/10-americans-struggle-cover-400-em... .

$200 spent on a FitBit will save thousands on annual healthcare bills.

Someone using a FitBit as part of shifting to a healthier lifestyle may result in better health outcomes (and presumably lower costs) but there's no "will save thousands on annual healthcare bills" about it. Certainly just wearing a FitBit has zero effect on health if you don't do anything based on the collected data.

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#84

Post by robocat »

breck wrote: post #25

Apple was smart not to compete on the low-end for watches. Median income in the USA is $68,703. Why would someone spend 1/25 of 1 percent of their income on something that they wear 100% of the time? That makes no sense. I shell out $200-$300 each year for the latest FitBit (Apple Watch is promising, but that battery life :(. The sleep tracking is gold).

Here’s the income distribution per household from the last census:

https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/visualizat...

There are a lot of people that can’t spend $200 on a watch, but can spend $20.

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#85

Post by jerlam »

Smartwatches have fallen so far from their peak.

In 2015, Pebble had a watch that had:

- an app store, third party apps, third party watch faces, and a developer ecosystem

- always on screen that didn't require a button press or specific arm gesture, and worked in bright, normally lit conditions

- physical buttons instead of tiny buttons on a tiny screen barely larger than the finger pressing it

- week long battery life

Pebble was crushed by Fitbit, which didn't have any third party support, and by Apple, which had miserable battery life and relied on the connected phone to do most of its work.

Now Pebble is long gone, Fitbit bought the remnants of Pebble is being acquired by Google, Google itself doesn't seem to have any interest in WearOS, and Apple Watch almost has two-day battery life and app store has never lived up to expectations. We now have "smart watches" which basically combine basic phone notification API implementations, a package of often unreliable sensors, mostly-off touchscreens, and bundled "apps" which can only be used with the hugest social media sites.

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#86

Post by antasvara »

breck wrote: post #75
jcrawfordor wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here's one perspective: about five years ago I stopped buying expensive phones. Now I buy economy Motorolas, and I've never looked back. The performance is somewhat worse than a flagship phone, but I damage my phones pretty frequently and I'm so much less worried about it when the replacement cost is $200 rather than $900. Price has been a main barrier to my wearing a smart watch as my expectation is that something o…

It's a reasonable perspective, and one a lot of my friends share. I guess I look at value/cost. I drive a $2,000 car and use a $1,000 phone because I get a lot of value for the extra $500 in the phone, but wouldn't get more value out of having a nicer car. Like you, I also find it nice to worry less about the car because the replacement cost is low. But I view the value of smart watches in the $100,000+s if not $1M+s…

I think your last line is key to why a low price is a good idea. As someone who did a lot of research before buying my first smartwatch, I found it difficult to actually estimate how much benefit I would get from owning a smartwatch. What this essentially does is lower the barrier of entry. Now, a prospective buyer doesn't have to see much benefit to take a chance on buying the product.

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#87

Post by chabes »

patentatt wrote: post #24
hourislate wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Been a customer for a few years. They're upfront with everything. From what I know I'm not the product (so far). Everything I ever purchased was an excellent value and met 99% of my expectations. My only gripe is there is no desktop software to manage all the devices. You should give them a try, the cameras are awesome.

Honest question: what do you base that off of? I can’t think of a way to prove the negative, that I’m not the product, that overcomes the assumption that the hardware prices are so low that they will have great incentive to monetize in other ways.

I got the feeling that the price was too good to not be something else as well.

I might be mistaken, but it appears to me that they might have ways of monetizing user data.

From the privacy statement:

> We allow others to provide analytics services and serve advertisements for us across the web and in mobile applications. These entities may use cookies, web beacons, device identifiers and other technologies to collect information about your use of the Services and other websites and applications, including your IP address, web browser, mobile network information, pages viewed, time spent on pages or in apps, links clicked, and conversion information. This information may be used by Wyze and others to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, deliver advertising and content targeted to your interests on our Services and other websites and online services, and better understand your online activity.

Re: Wyze $20 Smart Watch

#88

Post by modeless »

jerlam wrote: post #85

Smartwatches have fallen so far from their peak. In 2015, Pebble had a watch that had: - an app store, third party apps, third party watch faces, and a developer ecosystem - always on screen that didn't require a button press or specific arm gesture, and worked in bright, normally lit conditions - physical buttons instead of tiny buttons on a tiny screen barely larger than the finger pressing it - week long battery l…

Don't forget: 7.5mm thick (for the round version). There is nothing on the market even close.

I wore mine until last month when the battery gave out. If I could buy one with a new battery (not a replaced one as it compromises the waterproofing) I'd choose it over any other option available today.

Post reply on HN