But features and functionality are not the only thing that’s important to internet users—price is almost as important. In fact, more respondents said that price was an important factor in a smart watch than quality, style or even brand.
When it comes to how much they would be willing to spend on a smart watch, 45% of females said they would spend less than $100 on watches, while 30% of men said they would spend the same amount. More men are willing to spend bigger on a smart watch, though: 23% said they would spend more than $300, vs. just 11% of women.
According to eMarketer, usage of wearables, like smart watches, will grow by nearly two-thirds this year. But cost is still holding many consumers back from purchasing a device.
Research from Kentico, an ecommerce and online marketing platform, found that 69% of internet users worldwide said that cost was one of the top reasons for not purchasing a smart watch. And more than a third said that there were just not enough reasons to use it....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Research by eMarketer says nearly half of female consumers said they want to spend less than $100 on a smart watch.
Usage of wearables, like smart watches, will grow by nearly two-thirds this year, per an eMarketer forecast. Still, cost is holding many consumers back from purchasing a device, according to December 2015 research.
Kentico surveyed 1,000 internet users, ages 18 and older. More than two-thirds of internet users worldwide said that cost was one of the top reasons for not purchasing a smart watch.
Additionally, 38% of respondents said that another reason for not purchasing a smart watch was because there was not enough reasons to use it. This is likely because many smart watch capabilities, like sending and receiving emails or texts, as well as placing and receiving phone and video calls, can be done via a smartphone. In fact, 14% of internet users said they were dependent on their smartphone, and that was a reason for not purchasing a smart watch....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Still marketing challenges ahead for smart watches and wearables.
The Martian Voice Communicator tries hard make you think it’s not a smartwatch. The model I tested, a black faux diver with a non-working bezel and quartz movement, looks more like a drugstore Timex than a piece of precision electronics. However, hidden inside the normal-sized case is one of the better notification systems I’ve used.
The company has been making smartwatches since the dawn of the wearable revolution. Originally a solid competitor to Pebble, Martian has slowly moved into a position of power in the “I want a watch that looks like a watch” camp. By offering what are essentially slightly thicker quartz watches, they succeed consistently at this goal....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Is it time to take a look at a Martian Voice Communicator?
Pebble will not be following Apple down the 'fashion' route, according to founder and CEO Eric Migicovsky, with the company preferring to concentrate on making smartwatches that are useful and cost-effective.
Speaking to The Telegraph, following the launch of the Pebble smartwatch in the UK earlier this month, Migicovsky said that simplicity and affordability are two of the main reasons people buy Pebble watches....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Smart watch wars between Paul and Pebble are growing.
The smartwatch market is dominated by Samsung, followed by Sony and Pebble, according to a mid-May Strategy Analytics report, but that may change as soon as Apple’s rumored iWatch launches.
Obtained by Forbes, a new research note from Morgan Stanley’s Katy Huberty reveals that Apple’s ecosystem strength and consumer loyalty are going to drive an incredible amount of sales in the first year alone.
Citing data from AlphaWise, Huberty says that Apple’s brand loyalty continues to grow and that, thanks to its integrated ecosystem of devices and the “halo effect,” Apple may be able to sell more than 30 million iWatch units in the first 12 months, for $300 a pop. iWatch sales would bring in an extra $9 billion in revenue, and $0.49 EPS – that’s the “worst case” scenario, with the stock seen driving up to $110 as a result.
In the “bull case,” Huberty sees Apple selling 60 million smartwatches in the first year, with stock hitting $132 by the same time next year....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Speculation about sales projections for Apple's iWatch are running wild.
It appears that Microsoft is planning to launch a smartwatch platform later this year. Last month, we heard that Microsoft was planning a device that worked with multiple platforms, and now Tom’s Hardware has corroborated that report with a slew of new details: the Microsoft smartwatch is going to be a sleek, Fuelband-like device, packed with 11 sensors, according to an unidentified source.
The new report adds weight to the notion that Microsoft’s wearable wrist device will work across platforms including iOS and Android in addition to Windows Phone. This is interesting, as Android Wear, which was released last week, appears to work exclusively with Android by design.
While Apple’s smartwatch hasn’t been announced, Apple tends not to support other platforms, and it is unlikely (to put it mildly) that it would release an Android companion app. If Microsoft’s smartwatch is cross-platform and has comparable fitness features to its competitors, it would fill an interesting niche in the market.
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Interesting cross-platform smart watch from Microsoft.
The time has come for owners of the original Galaxy Gear to say goodbye to Android and welcome Tizen onto their smartwatch. Samsung has begun rolling out an update to the Galaxy Gear that will bring overTizen, the company’s in-house OS, to the smartwatch.
The update carries software version 2.2.0, and while the entire OS will be replaced, most users won’t notice any visual differences. However, quite a few improvements and new features are to be had – improved performance and battery life, features such as an standalone music player (you can store music on the watch itself), customizable shortcuts for tap input, voice commands in the camera, among others....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Caution when you update as your data may be wiped out.
A new report claims that Apple's long-rumored iWatch device has already gone into production, and will be released later this year.
The long-rumored wearable computer from Apple, affectionately known as the iWatch, has reportedly gone into production.
Reports of the highly anticipated device's production run cropped up in the Tuesday edition of Taiwan-based China Times.
Citing sources in Apple's supply chain in Asia, the site claims that part of the production includes advanced SiP (system-in-a-package) modules, which can contain a processor, DRAM and flash memory....
Wearable tech is future. Especially smartwatches are getting popular day by day. Todays smartwatches can be divided into two categories. Futuristic ones like the Pebble and Samsung Gear which are connecting with our smartphones, or conventionally styled watches from companies like Citizen and Casio that offer less functionality. The problem is why can’t they design a smartwatch as stylish as traditional watches? Hungary based designer Gábor Balogh thinks it is possible....
...Today also marks the first time we're seeing official US pricing for the Gear Fit (and that gorgeous curved OLED display): it'll cost $199 and also arrive in April. Samsung's Gear 2 and Gear 2 Neo smartwatches have been priced at $299 and $199 respectively. AT&T will discount both of those by $50 if you purchase them alongside the S5, though the deal criminally doesn't seem to include the Fit....
Google excited many folks by announcing Android Wear smartwatches with a focus on Google Now, but there are still many valid reasons to consider the Pebble and new Samsung Gear options.
...Square’s goal is to make payments quicker and easier for both business and consumers, so the company has an intense interest in wearable tech. When asked in a recent interview whether he thinks Google Glass is an interesting product, Dorsey answered that he doesn’t see much value in Google Glass right now, but he’s intrigued by devices that wrap around the wrist – like Apple’s rumored iWatch – because they feel more natural....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Rev up your Smart Watch as the market starts to expand with early adopters like Jack Dorsey.
The Times's Molly Wood explores why the makers of wearable devices are so focused on people's wrists and what the future may hold for fashionable tech. ...
What sounds like a simple idea was actually the foundational design challenge, since e-paper is rarely used this way. "E-paper is usually used for flat, unbending displays, but it is very important to wear a watch comfortably," Sugiue says. "The whole surface of the FES Watch’s strap is also made of e-paper, but the wearer can still open the buckle, put their hand through with ease and close the buckle, fitting the watch around their wrist comfortably. It is quite a natural thing for a watch, but this is not so easy to achieve for digital devices."
While Sony would not disclose specifically how it achieved the bendability, Sugiue says it was through careful study of the e-paper's characteristics and learning how to manipulate it.
The watch conforms to the classic shape of a conventional watch—a round face and band—but it's covered with an e-paper display, which has 24 different face patterns that wearers can engage at will by pressing a button on the watch's side. "It’s something like a brand-new canvas, and is able to change its own skin to show a number of different chraracteristics," Satoshi Yoshiizumi, Takt Project's principal, says.
"Therefore, it is like the 'material of watch' which has a silhouette of a watch, but stimulates your imagination and curiosity through trying various textures." Shaking the watch activates the display, which goes "dark" if there's no movement, conserving battery life....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
The FES started out as an experimenthere's the story of how Sony's under-the-radar wearables team brought it to market. Some ideas and creativity are just too good to share! Recommended reading! 9/10
Swatch Group Chief Executive Nick Hayek has signed a contract with credit card company Visa Inc.in connection with the Swiss firm’s new watch that enables wearers to make payments, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.
Swatch has already introduced the watch in China and aims to introduce a similar device in 2016 in Switzerland and the United States, Le Temps said.
In China Swatch has partnered with China UnionPay. Hayek confirmed he has signed a contract with Visa for elsewhere. That covers Switzerland and the United States, the paper said....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
It really was just a matter of time before Swatch joined the wearables industry.
There is no touchscreen or Apple logo. You’ve never heard of the designer. Its icons look straight out of 1992. And in fact, we found it in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalog—yes, that living fossil of technological innovation from a time when plug-in shoe-shiners were all the rage.
It’s the "No Charge Smart Watch." It uses Bluetooth to put email, call, and SMS alerts on your wrist. And whereas existing smartwatches like the Moto 360 can’t make it a day before plugging in (and the Apple Watch’s runtime is still undisclosed but likely similar), the No Charge Smart Watch runs for a year on a standard watch battery....
Samsung’s shown itself to be entirely unafraid when it comes to smartwatches. It’s willing to try any size, any spec, any combination of features in an attempt to figure out what consumers want in a wearable. Its latest try, the Gear S, is a combination of Samsung’s newest and best ideas — and a couple of ideas it’ll soon leave by the roadside as well.
The Gear S is not designed to replace your smartphone, I’m told. It’s designed to let you leave it at home, though, or in the other room. Its built-in connectivity means that even when it’s far away from your phone it can still send and receive messages, and get turn-by-turn directions. The Gear S runs Tizen — Samsung says the Gear Store has 1,000 apps in it — and can do almost everything without a phone. The Gear Manager app still requires your phone, and you’re not exactly going to want to send emails on the tiny QWERTY keys on the Gear S, but this device generally has no need for your smartphone....
In a new report, research firm ON World projects that wearable tech devices — ranging from smartwatches to smart glasses to all types of wearable sensors — will constitute a $50 billion industry within the next five years. Over the next five years, it expects 700 million devices to ship globally, and projects that 330 million smartwatches will have been shipped globally by 2018, up from fewer than 3 million in 2013.
ZHardware is expected to make up the majority of the area’s revenue in the next five years, though monitoring services, mobile apps, and other subscriptions will also grow. The firm also expects smartwatches, smart glasses, and wearable sensors to overtake health and fitness-focused devices, and make up two-thirds of revenue from wearable tech in 2018. ON World believes that the smartwatch will disrupt the current technology market, positing that “smartwatches will replace the application needs of many smart phone users.” /
The firm also surveyed 1,000 consumers and found that 55 percent preferred a wristwatch to other wearable tech, and 38 percent reported an interest in health applications of the technology..
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Research firm ON World expects 330 million smartwatches to be shipped worldwide by 2018.Let's hope they look heck of a lot better in design than most of today's smartwatches.
You probably won’t need a Windows Phone if you want Microsoft’s expected smart watch. Previously, the device was said to work with Android and iOS and now a new report suggests it will work with PCs, Macs and even the Xbox One.
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Microsoft looks like it is serious about leading in this wearable watch sector.
Ask any serious watch aficionado why they're hesitant to switch to a smartwatch, and their reasons will have nothing to do with functionality--but everything to do with how ugly the current crop of smartwatches are. The Modillian, a replacement strap buckle that adds Bluetooth, hopes to fix that by adding basic smartwatch capabilities to more stylish timepieces.
ABI Research reports that smartphone components are being used in smartwatches in lieu of optimized smartwatch components, even when claimed otherwise.
Teardowns of a number of devices found that nobody has an optimal wearable peripheral solution yet. The Samsung Galaxy Gear and Z-watch use application processors originally targeted for smartphone/tablets and the uWatch goes a step further by using a full blown GPRS SOC, MediaTek MT6260, but only uses the integrated BT. Other watches like the Sony series and Pebble use discrete solutions.
The end result is less than optimal battery life and unnecessary cost/size that get passed on to the consumer....
Jeff Domansky's insight:
In the rush to launch products, manufacturers are hurting consumers and themselves by claiming they use "new" components instead of recycled smartphone components.
Motorola design chief Jim Wicks and his team had spent a year and a half designing the device that would ultimately become the beautiful Moto 360 smartwatch, but every initial result was lacking. "Every time you do one," he tells me, "no matter how awesome you might think it is, if it’s square, everyone’s just kind of like ‘ehhh...’ And you sit there and you think about making it a little bit thinner, or a little bit bigger, a little bit heavier — you work for all those things and you still get that kind of feeling. And then finally we realized we’re not going to break through that ceiling, even with our peers, if we can’t get out of the ‘eh’ zone."
After two rounds of designs, prototypes, and tepid internal reactions, Motorola went back to the basics. Rather than reinvent wristwear or build a blocky rectangle like the Galaxy Gear or the Pebble Steel, Motorola decided to mimic what it hoped to replace: the elegant watches we’ve had on our wrists for decades. "We came to the realization that if we’re going to do this, we need to really embrace what this space is all about," he says. So Motorola turned the Moto 360 into a beautiful, circular stainless-steel wearable that looks more like a Timex than a Moto X. Wicks says it got the same reaction from all the industry experts he showed it to: "Yep, that’s a watch."...
Jeff Domansky's insight:
Love the approach: "Motorola’s goal, he says, was to make hardware that gets out of the way."
Google today announced that it plans to officially bring Android to smartwatches through its new project called Android Wear. It will enable developers to use features such as Google's Voice Search and health-tracking apps on wristwatches.
It's a free, open-source operating system, just like the smartphone and tablet version of Android.
According to a Google blog post, Android Wear will have many of the features found on existing smartwatches, including the ability to display updates from social media, message alerts, shopping notifications, and news....
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Research by eMarketer says nearly half of female consumers said they want to spend less than $100 on a smart watch.