Editor’s Note: RCR Wireless News has made many questionable decisions over the years. One of which is agreeing to let a long-time industry observer provide commentary on what is chapping his hide across the wireless industry. His name is Hunter Gates. We call him the Mobile Martyr. We also attempt to make this column suitable for most to read, but despite our best efforts, it still received a “PG-13” rating. You have been warned.
I’ve been watching the wearables market with quite some interest recently and it amuses me. Firstly, how the hell did we come up with the term “wearable?” Seriously; I’ve been wearing stuff since I first got out of a diaper — or even earlier — and I plan to keep wearing stuff long after I resort to wearing a diaper again. So yeah, let’s just say I was an early adopter of “wearables” … most of us are unless we spend our lives in a commune.
I’ve even worn technology before. No, not the super geeky and creepy glasses, but rather I spent a period in the 90s wearing a beeper. How cool was that shit, huh? People could send me cryptic messages on a tiny screen and it would vibrate on my hip. Who knew that 25 years later we’d be talking about wearables that could also send messages to a tiny screen, but that, thanks to a new name, we would consider to be “new” and “state of the art” innovation? Ah, the power of marketing, helping us to believe once again in the same idea … and the complete failure of marketing to come up with a better damn name. Oh yeah, and it wasn’t really that cool. Wearing a pager — or a phone on the belt was “Pure Nerd.” I admit it.
So do we really think that the smart watch is any different? Cast your mind back once again: did you know anyone who wore a calculator watch? Did they get picked on at school for being a “Sad-Ass Nerd of the First Degree?” Of course they did. They were not cool … not even within their own tiny circle of pals.
But there is a place for this new wearable tech stuff. The activity band gadgets serve a purpose. Yes, on the one hand you could argue that we are now paying $100-plus for a $2 pedometer. But on the other hand if they do inspire us to step more and exercise more then $100 is a bargain. After all, what’s the average gym membership these days? Fifty bucks a month or more? When looked at that way, the little old activity thing looks pretty reasonable. But there’s a catch … and a big one. These things have to work. Yeah, sounds obvious right?
In the past few months I’ve played with several different bands and all of them have failed me at some point. The Fitbit was lost, thanks to the silly strap design (whose bright idea was it to redesign the watch strap that has worked well for so many years?); and the Polar Loop couldn’t handle time zone changes, so it lost my data every time I hopped on a plane. Thanks. Even the Jawbone UP24, which is probably the best activity tracker out there, choked once, taking me from 15,000 steps to 700 steps in the blink of an eye. That one wasn’t hardware based, or even local to the app. Looking online at the blogs, a whole bunch of people were quite upset at the loss of their “steps” that day.
So yes, the activity band is promising if we can just get the software to work all the time (cue hysterical laughter from programmers). So that leads us to the watch. Clearly the watches were a “Stupid Failure” until the most recent launch that you may have noticed. A nicely designed smartwatch from Apple will make all the difference. It doesn’t really do anything extra, but the logo and shininess of it will help drive sales. Is it overrated? Of course. Will it sell? Like hot cakes. But the big question … will people still wear it a month later? I doubt it, because at the end of the day we’re still searching for a good reason to actually wear these things.
There are two main justifications I hear from the early adopters: it vibrates to tell me that my phone is ringing; and that it tells me the time so I don’t need to reach for my phone.
Ho ho, yes, the killer app for the new smart watches is that they tell the time. How smart is that?
