Do you have the time?
Left to right: Fitbit Force, Pebble, Galaxy Gear
Credit: CNet
New technologies require a new way of thinking. Human beings have to feel their way towards that new way of thinking.
Some examples:
• Edison, when attempting to sell the newly developed telephone, was told by one businessman, that if he wanted to communicate with someone, he would either visit in person, or send a boy with a note.
• An equally far sighted mayor of a small town which had just acquired a telephone, amidst the fanfare which accompanied this great step forward, made a speech in which he noted that he could foresee a day when every town would have a telephone!
Something similar happened with the automobile. Early designs look quaint today. To the engineers who conceived them, they were good design. What should a vehicle for people to drive on public roads look like? Like every other vehicle people drove. That is, a carriage which a horse might pull. So a very early automobile was, literally, a horseless carriage. And it was steered, not with the steering wheel that seems obvious to us, but with a tiller, or handle bars which might have come from a bicycle, which was obvious to the engineers of 1900.
We've recently worked through some of this with mobile (cell) phones. Much of what a mobile should look like, be & do is settled, but some of the details are still being worked out. Some of this is driven by the tension between competing aims, e.g., the desire for a larger screen, battery life & the ability to fit the phone into a pocket.
Something similar appears to be happening with the "smartwatch" at the moment. Mechanical watches occasionally included "smart features", such as alarms or phases of the Moon. Freed from the limitations of mechanical technology, miniaturized computer technology makes a plethora of options available.
Existing smartwatches include a range of different options from the many available. Do you want SMS on you watch? Email? Hands free telephone? Colour? Backlight? How big is too big? How long must the battery last?
If one day battery life is too short, scratch the Samsung Gear & Apple Watch.
Just want fitness tracking? Try Fitbit. Want the time too? Have a look at Fitbit Force (smallest device at the top of this item).
If colour isn't important & battery life of a week or more is a must, try Pebble.
Or, if 6 months of battery life is a must & SMS notifications (rather than the text itself) is OK, maybe Cuckoo will suit – see below.
Perhaps the very concept of a smartwatch will one day seem to be as short sighted as a tiller for steering an automobile. Maybe the place for such a display/interface is somewhere/something else. Google Glass, or something which is now only a gleam in some engineer's eye, may yet be the answer.
http://reviews.cnet.com/8301-34900_7-57607111/pebble-gear-..-fitbit-force-making-the-case-for-semi-smart-watch-over-smartwatch/
... Or maybe the Sony SmartWatch 2
Credit: Sony/cloudfront.net
http://www.gizmag.com/sony-smartwatch-2-review/29367/
Pebble
E-paper display, 1 week or more battery life.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/597507018/pebble-e-paper-watch-for-iphone-and-android?ref=live
Cuckoo
Limited display, 6 months battery.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cuckoo/cookootm-the-watch-for-the-connected-generation / Fitbit Force Flex Pebble Samsung Galaxy Gear Sony smart watch Kickstarter crowd funding source sourced sourcing wrist firmware update SMS text email color TXT /
