I'm a Smartwatch skeptic. And, I'm not alone

Author: Imaya Kumar

The author is an employee of Convene and views expressed in this blog post are entirely his personal and do not represent the view of the organization.

Going by the buzz, in about 2 months from now, the world would have embraced yet another Apple device that will rise to become a necessity and life cannot be imagined without. Yes, that's the device I'm talking about, the Apple Watch.

I'm usually not a skeptic on Apple devices because almost all the time, at least since the launch of the iconic iPod, they have been able to predict customer expectations and live or even exceed to it every single time they launched a new product into the market. iPhone changed the world, iPad calmed the kids and gave parents some peace of mind and Apple TV has been a success in its own way.

However, pondering about Apple Watch, I cannot help myself from being a skeptic. And this time, I am skeptic about its very purpose of existence itself. May be it has to do with trying to identify it as a variant of a watch.

Watches and Me

I would easily be persuaded into wearing something on my wrist if it's not trying to be a direct alternate for a regular watch

I have never even been remotely interested in watches in my life. I wore very meager watches all my life until a few years ago, after which I just stopped wearing any. Simply, there was no appeal to wear one. I did not see a reason to wear a watch. I found it utterly useless. It served a single purpose, showing time which I couldn’t convince myself to keep wearing on the wrist all day long. However, I know friends who are totally crazy about watches and wouldn’t mind spending a bounty to buy luxury watches, which I think is perfectly fine.

 So, am I a watch hater? No. In fact I love good looking watches, and that's about it. I just don’t want them to be on the wrist all day long.

 I would easily be persuaded into wearing something on my wrist if it's not trying to be a direct alternate for a regular watch. Up until now, all the numerous Android watches (which if you haven't noticed, already are available in all shapes and sizes from Round to Rectangles) that have been shipping for more than a year now have all been a big failure when it comes to real world usage.

Watches Now

To make it clear, I am not asking for a tiny device such as a watch to do more things than a powerful smartphone does. I also understand why I'm wrong if I do so. To me, it has to aid the smartphone to make those otherwise difficult tasks become simpler and usable. So far, all the Android watches have been primarily focusing only on notifications & weird time faces and almost nothing else. The first version of Samsung smart watch even came with an absurd camera in it, which quickly vanished in the later models. This only says that none of the manufacturers have really been able to clearly think of a solid purpose or a use case for a device that you could wear on the wrist. They have just been trying out random things and blindly hoping that something will make it work.

I really don’t want to see my Facebook and Twitter notifications appear on my wrist. It's not just disturbing, but also a constant annoyance. Adding the paltry battery life these devices offer, owning one of these is more of a maintenance nightmare than anything else.

The only reasonable smart watch that I wouldn’t feel shy of buying is one of the newer Pebble watches. In particular, Pebble Steel is very impressive. It is a great looking watch, that does not compromise the "Watch" like look and feel if you are very particular about such things, along with activity tracking and notification alerts. The battery lasts for up to 7 days thanks to its e-ink display. And you know e-ink displays are only good enough for texts. So there is a big technology limitation that stops it from making it.

About the Name

I can't really trace back to who started categorizing these devices into the "Watch" world. Its not only misleading but also irrelevant to call these things as watches.

I really wish Apple came up with a unique and simple name for this. Unfortunately, they are stuck with "Watch" too.

Microsoft came up with "Microsoft Band" which I think is a great name of a device like that. And sadly, that's the only thing they got right on that. It is a ridiculously heavy, poorly designed and built device in every single aspect. You don’t want to buy it in its current form. May be they will get it right the 3rd time, just like they did it with the Surface.

I really wish Apple came up with a unique and simple name for this. Unfortunately, they are stuck with "Watch" too.

Purpose and Usage

There is no convincing reason in wearing a low power, crippled device like a smart watch that just causes redundancy. As mentioned earlier in this post, I want to see these devices doing more than displaying time and notification alerts

Whoever makes that happen, is going to win this segment big. Apparently, Apple Watch can be used for Apple Pay as well. Though the specifics of how this will work is still unclear, this could be one aspect to enthuse people towards it. Apple claimed that this device will also support Apple HealthKit that can track your heart rate, physical activity and more. But this is nothing unique at all. There are myriads of wearables already doing this perfectly well.

Oh yeah, you can send your heart rate to your friend who owns another Apple Watch too. When such are the features boasted prominently, you get to wonder if there any other real use case exists at all.

But knowing Apple for so long, we can expect more stuff coming our way. I got to see a video recently, that purportedly shows an Apple Watch app to control a Tesla Car. It's very cool. That's about it.

Will devices like Apple watch become the 'gateway' device for all the other gadgets that you own? Possibly could. But even my often malleable mind still fails to get me convinced on this.

All this could just be the beginning. Frankly, I hope it is so. I want to see a lot more than this. But for now, I will probably continue to remain skeptical and decide to Wait and 'Watch'.