Google Nears Smartwatch Launch • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Nears Smartwatch Launch

#31

Post by aryastark » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 7:21 PM UTC

I don't see it happening, outside of tech circles that love tech toys for the sake of tech toys.

The wristwatch market is a luxury market, one that abhors mass production. They want mechanical over quartz. They want handcrafted, custom, exclusive watches from far off lands. It's part jewelry and part status symbol. A mass produced Google wrist computer from China is none of these things.

There are generally three types of people that wear wristwatches in 2013: kids, dorks, and people with money. And I'm not so sure about kids today.

Google may be a bunch of smart people doing smart things. But they are profoundly out of touch with consumers and what it takes to connect, on an emotional level, products with consumers. Google Glass went as far as alienating tech people. People that were on Google's side were stepping back and saying "you know, Google might be losing their mind a little."

Re: Google Nears Smartwatch Launch

#32

Post by thrillgore » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 7:34 PM UTC

ccozan wrote: post #13

lmg643 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm in the same camp. exercise + music is the best use case i know for a smart watch. if you could merge the garmin forerunner 610/620 (or equivalent running program), and a bluetooth music player, that would be nirvana for me. https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/prod122785.html#specsTab i like the running apps for iphone but i hate wearing it during a run or workout. just extra weight i don't need.

Yes, the nice thing about the MOTOACTV is that it runs independently, you can sync it when you are at home, or near your Android phone. The music player is surprisingly good and the headset is OK too. Another nice one: if you decide to take the phone with you, it functions as a wireless headset! And the best of all: is fully hackable!! Some reference : http://blog.martinh.net/2013/05/hacking-google-smartwatch.ht...

We actually use an Android app on a rooted ACTV, strapped to a hexacopter to map out Wifi hotspots. It works in limited tests, but for obvious reasons we would never take it out into the real world.

It's a really good, cheap, embedded platform. I wouldn't be surprised (despite the so called firewall) that Motorola engineers are working with the WIMM Labs folks on the Nexus Watch.

Re: Google Nears Smartwatch Launch

#33

Post by snogglethorpe » Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 11:38 PM UTC

VLM wrote: post #27

YeahKIA wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Glance is the feature I love a lot on my Nokia as well. The glance screen allows me to look at things like time on my phone without even turning it on.

I had a feature kind of like that on a flip phone about a decade ago, a really small second screen you could look at without flipping open the phone, to see who's calling or the current time, and battery level. All you need do is standardize android phones to have a secondary screen on the other side that never turns off or needs to be unlocked, eink or whatever. Then transition that small screen to also display on y…

That's great idea! Standardizing on an interface that can be implemented by standard phones as well means there'd probably be much better and more widespread support.

I suppose they could even support the "small secondary screen" interface on phones without a physical secondary screen, by simply displaying its contents inside the lock screen.

I used to have a foldable phone with a small secondary screen like that as well; it really was nice, and would be even better if it didn't need a button-press to activate (e-ink or whatever), as turning on the screen is always about 80% of the effort when I just want to see the time... [they can't make the button too easy to press after all, to avoid accidental activations...]

Re: Google Nears Smartwatch Launch

#34

Post by bpicolo » Wed, Oct 30, 2013, 3:16 PM UTC

zackmorris wrote: post #17

My ideal smartwatch would recharge itself from my body heat/movement, be waterproof, have a cell phone/wifi, and best of all be pay-as-you-go. 90% of the time I'd be on wifi so it would be free anyway like T-Mobile. GPS and bluetooth would be nice but not critical. But just being able to never worry about forgetting it, or having to charge the dang thing, and be able to contact anyone anytime would be very sci fi. An…

You want a wifi receiver and processor powered by a small amount of heat and movement? Don't really see that happening.