Comment 1FX Re: Smartwatches...

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Wearable Computing: Boom or Bust?

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Smartwatches... (Score: 2, Interesting)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-08 02:13 (#1FJ)

...are just an extension of a watch, but better. If you wear a watch (like me) then you might think it's great. If you hate watches...well..um...why would you think you'd like a smartwatch?

I've got a Pebble. I bike to work, my phone safely secured in my bag. If my phone rings, my Pebble tells me if I need to take it, or if it can wait. While driving long distances I stream music on my phone, my Pebble can skip/pause/etc music, all far safer than fumbling with a touchscreen. At work I can discretely check notifications and politely excuse myself from a meeting if I need to take a call. I also work part time at a gym, if I'm coaching a class and want the music to turn down so I can speak, well, guess what, music control is on my wrist. Hell, I can even buy a drink at Starbucks or pay for lunch by scanning a barcode displayed on my watch. Welcome to the future, it's here, and it's fucking awesome.

Now sure, if you don't fit any of those use cases, then don't buy into it. The great part about all of this is you only pay for what you want. If a company wants to waste money developing something you won't use, well, why the fuck do you care?

Re: Smartwatches... (Score: 1)

by zafiro17@pipedot.org on 2014-05-08 09:50 (#1FP)

They've got to do some more innovating then. I like watches. I also surf. So give me a smart watch that somehow does something interesting with my smartphone and gives me a tide indicator (there are all sorts of tide watches for people like me, and there are tide apps too). But that doesn't exist. As far as I can tell, the Gear and other smart watches haven't found much to do other than show me the time, weather, and how many emails/twitter posts I've received. I don't need that. I'm not aware of smart watches having calculator functionality or other things. They're just not that useful.

On the other hand, my next potential gadget is the Jawbone, which looks like a neat health tracker. I'm interested in wearables, just haven't yet found any wearables worth wearing. There's potential here but the app developers are going to have to get beyond Twitter updates on your wrist - boring!

Re: Smartwatches... (Score: 1, Insightful)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-05-08 12:09 (#1FX)

Have you considered learning how to develop an app yourself? Like you said, there's a a lot that needs to be done, and if you've got an interest in a particular area, a bit of learning and you could make some money.

Moderation

Time Reason Points Voter
2014-05-08 12:41 Insightful +1 vanderhoth@pipedot.org

Junk Status

Marked as [Not Junk] by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2015-01-04 03:08