First, let me say that I think the smart watch is a cool gadget. Kudos to the folks who have brought us this technology.
That said, the watch form factor is falling into obsolescence. With your car and your computer and your smartphone and your toaster etc all telling you the atomic time of day now, you no longer need to have a watch strapped to your wrist to do that basic job. So watches have to do something else.
That something else is APPs. But the problem is that you can only fit so much data on the screen, which severely limits the usefulness of the watch for running apps. I've known folks who got iWatch and Android watches who have essentially abandoned wearing them because they are big and clunky on the wrist, and therefore subject to damage, while being too small to be useful for most apps.
That leaves but one function: STATUS. You know, an exercise in vanity. And the newer generations are less obsessed with vanity-status than older generations. They are more likely to spend their disposable income on a tattoo, something that makes them more grungy, than on an expensive watch. I personally always found it a bit silly for someone in ordinary suburbia to spend thousands of dollars on a watch; a nice-looking Timex can be had for $50, and when it gets too battered you get another. But again, with your coffee machine and treadmill giving you precise time you don't even need that clunky thing on your wrist anymore.
So I'm guessing the form factor of the watch will be doing a slow fade into obscurity in this century.
6 Replies
13316 Views