Smart watches are just an accessory to mobile phones and are unlikely to become popular

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NetEase Technology News, March 27, technology and media blog Monday Note published a commentary signed by Jean-Louis Gassée, saying that smart watches still have a long way to go to become mainstream products. Since the revenue generated by smart watches is not enough, they are destined to be just an extension of the ecosystem and will not become a groundbreaking product.

The following is the main content of the article:

Although Google, Motorola and Samsung are eager to enter the wearable market, Apple remains on the sidelines. In fact, Apple's approach is wise.

Smart watches and wristbands with sensors are not new products. You know, Microsoft launched the SPOT smart watch in 2004. However, the market is still blowing a wave of wearable devices. Since the tablet craze in January 2011 (at the 2011 CES in Las Vegas, exhibitors released 76 tablets), we have seen a new wave of popularity again.

News about wearable products continues to emerge. Samsung said it would transition its smartwatches from Android to Tizen; Google also released Android Wear, a new operating system for smartwatches; and Motorola, which will soon become a Lenovo brand, announced that the Moto 360 will be officially released in the summer of 2014.

Why the rush? Is Cook's description of wearables as "an important branch on the tree" a "smoke and mirrors" by Apple to mislead competitors?

Many questions are waiting to be answered.

The first question is: What is the mission of smartwatches?

Take mobile phones, for example. Carriers use mobile phones to increase their average revenue per user (ARPU); ordinary consumers regard mobile phones as small, portable and always connected personal computers. Does the

smartphone model apply to smartwatches? We can almost ignore the carriers because smartwatches are unlikely to contribute revenue to them.

For users, smartwatches can collect sensor data, connect to our smartphones, display notifications, respond to touch and voice commands, and even tell us the time. These are useful features of smartwatches, but as the novelty wears off, smartwatches need to do more than just track how many miles we've run, like tell us the weather and who's calling the smartphone in our pocket. In other words, we're willing to pay extra for smartphones because they have so many powerful features and apps. So will we be willing to spend a lot of money on smartwatches in the future?

And who will wear a watch when their smartphone can tell the time? Some young people don't wear watches at all, and some older people just see watches as decoration. How many people who like to wear watches will always wear the same model? Many of us own at least one watch and wear different watches for different occasions. I'm not nitpicking, this is a difficult problem that mobile device manufacturers and marketers need to overcome. The

next question is: How can manufacturers balance the computing power and battery life of smartwatches?

As the functions are improved, the screen and user interface are improved, smartwatches need more powerful computing power, which will consume more power. If the battery of a smartwatch runs out within a day, can we accept it? In order to extend the battery life of smart watches to 24 hours or more, will designers slow down the pace of improving smart watch functions, or make smart watches larger, like a miniature phone?

Battery life issues are the reason why Samsung transitioned to Tizen, and Google's Android Wear is also aware of this, but neither company has released more information about battery life.

The final question is: Will smart watches become a large-scale business?


Pebble CEO Eric Migicovsky previously said that the company has sold 400,000 smart watches since January 2013. At $150 per watch, Pebble has earned $60 million in revenue, which is worthy of Migicovsky's bullish outlook on wearable products.

But even if you multiply this number by 10, the revenue is still too small for Samsung, Motorola/Lenovo or Apple, which means that smart watches can only be ancillary products of smartphones, not a $10 billion business.

The above challenges may be the reason why Apple has not yet launched a smartwatch product. Smartwatches are destined to be just an extension of the ecosystem and will not become a groundbreaking product. (Siyuan)

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