While the smartwatches on the market today are really nice and revolutionary, the sales of these watches are still slowly building up. It really is expected that about 1.2 million smartwatches will ship this year, a paltry number compared to the estimated 1.5 billion smart phone users in the world. What could be the reason for this? Chances are that the current smartwatches do not have the critical components or features that will make them a runaway success.
Euromonitor’s head of consumer electronics, Loo Wee Teck, commented current smartwatches are just not that great a person proposition yet.
“Smartwatches try to replicate the smartphone experience on a minuscule wrist-sized screen, which means inferior usability or elsewhere seek to complement and extend the functionality of smartphone onto an inferior screen”
So what will make an ideal smartwatch?
I have condensed it right down to five components that need to be addressed before we can see this class of wearable electronics take off. These five components are design, functionality and reliability, apps, power consumption and battery life and lastly, durability. Why do I believe that these are important? Well let’s look at them one by one.
Design
The design of the smartwatch could be split into three separate parts, namely the watch body, the watch face and finally the wrist strap.
The first thing that people look at would likely function as watch body. Could it be too bulky, does it look cool and fashionable? The ideal body should be suitable for both casual and formal wear. For instance, the Pebble with its nice clean sporty look would blend well sports attire but might look a bit out of place when worn with a suit and tie. The newer contenders like the AGENT or Vachen however, could possibly be worn with normal casual attire or formal wear.
The watch bodies ought to be at a reasonable size aswell. The size of the dive computers made by Suunto certainly are a pretty decent size without being unwieldy. They could be worn like a normal wrist watch and most divers do that.
Most guys usually do not mind larger watches however, many ladies do. Should there be two watch sizes? Perhaps this would be a good solution, after all, we have had watch sizes for women and men all of this while. However, add mysmartwatch.se/foer-aeldre/ to the watch and it becomes one chunky thing on the wrist that appeals to no one. The difference in watch size could imply that more goodies could be crammed into it. A more substantial batter would be the most welcomed as well as perhaps some sensors as well?
Of course the watch body should match the watch face it really is displaying. The watch face, just like the body, will be able to match different dressing needs as well. This is easier because the watch face can be changed with the press of a button. So this is something that the watch makers or alternative party developers will need to observe. While the watch body might have an over-all design that fits most dressing needs, the watch face should match a specific theme. A formal classy watch face for more formal occasions to large sporty display for sporting needs, there should be enough watch faces to appeal to different users and their needs.
Pebble made this possible by releasing an SDK for alternative party developers to create their very own watch faces. This has lead to a huge library of watch faces for the Pebble. Vachen took a different approach. They develop their own watch faces but promise over 100 watch faces available upon the launch of the Vachen watch.
Last but not least, the watch strap. Just like the two other areas mentioned, the watch strap ought to be able fit most dressing situations and there are two possible ways to do that. The first way will be like the design fundamentals of the watch body in a way that the watch strap would look good whether it’s worn with casual or more formal wear. A good example of this design method would be the watch straps of the Agent watch. It features an accent-stitched watch strap that looks chic enough for normal wear however the stitching adds that extra bit of class that means it is blend with formal wear aswell.
A second option would be for the strap to be easily replaceable. While the Pebble and Agent use standard 22mm watch straps that are easily changed with a small screw driver, this might be a bit too troublesome for a few, especially if you change straps often or are in a rush. The Sony SmartWatch and Motorola MotoActv offer an interesting alternative. The watch body contains a spring-loaded clip that is used to clip onto the watch strap, enabling really quick changes. The only downside of this method is that the clip adds quite a bit of thickness to the body.