When it comes to wearing anything on my self — wrist, face, feet — the aesthetics play an equally if not more important of a role in making my final decisions. I look for a perfect balance of form, function and quality of craftsmanship in my shoes, bags, optical frames and watches.
Watches in particular are more of an emotional and aesthetic choice. That is why I am underwhelmed by the growing number of smart watches which are coming to market. Yesterday, at Google I/O Google announced Android Wear, a variant of its Android OS targeting the devices like the newly announced watches. I checked them out and admittedly they are much better than some of the earlier efforts. The design elements of the Android Wear are also pretty good — except they don’t make me feel anything.
I like the concept but not the execution of the early attempts at smart watches. The problem with these early variants of smart watches is that to me they feel very like a variant of the smartphones. They are trying to cram too much functionality into such a small visual real estate, instead of nailing down a handful of key functions. From that perspective, I think WiThings’ new watch Activite. It is elegant and is focused on a handful of functions. More importantly, it looks like a watch, so it solves the mental hurdle we have towards trying watches with weird designs.
The New York Times fashion editor Vanessa Friedman was on the money in her assessment of the two newly announced Android Wear watches, the LG G and Samsung Gear Live:
neither does what the best design does, which is make you rethink all your old assumptions about the form (see: Chanel’s boucle jacket, which gave sartorial armor the ease of a cardigan; Armani’s deconstructed suit, which gave form to the idea of “soft power”; Prada’s black nylon backpack, which elevated the mundane, for example).
In fact, the watches do the opposite: they re-enforce all our old assumptions about the form, which is that you take your phone screen, make it small and stick it on your wrist. All I can think when I see them is: “Beam me up, Scotty!” And where’s the joy — or the desire — in that?
So while these smart watches may appeal to the kind of consumer who likes the latest in gear, they definitely have not bridged the fashion gap, and bridging the fashion gap is part of what makes the difference between a niche product and a must-have.
Yves Behar, currently one of the top designers in the world had once said, “Watches are a great way to think about how products should be designed to last” and he pointed out that things we wear “have to withstand constraints of life – water, dust, scratches” and that the wearable computing has to over come that challenge. When I think about future smart watches, I think about elegance and aesthetics of a fashion/stylish product that is married to notifications-oriented core functionality. It is a hard balance to achieve. Pebble is version 0.1 of the concept, but I think it would need someone like Swatch to turn it into a must-have product. And when it comes to Apple & its iWatch, the bar is even higher!
No thoughts of Google’s Moto 360? While this is still the very early days of Android Wear, it seems like Google is attempting to push the competitors in the right direction.
Google’s approach looks cumbersome. Withings activité nails it, no one needs yet another device to charge every single day next to a smartphone. Let’s see what apple, Microsoft, and Nokia have in store for us in this dpt.
overlapping magisteria
We carry phones. Because they add so much value. In the simplest, they help us make calls that are impossible without having a phone. Despite all the features, the watches have not come up with a single must-wear-all-the-time reason. I am ok glancing at my phone – its really not that much trouble compared to wearing a watch, keeping the damn thing in sync, remembering to carry it, charging it as needed, and then attending to this second screen when I don’t really want a phone to disturb me.
I/we have learned how to deal with one device, barely. We are not ready to deal with two. Its not the design, its the cognitive burden of dealing with 2.
We have ‘evolved’ to be phone users and carriers. We want our TVs and remotes to get into our phones.
I want my phone to control my car, my TV, my home and many other devices. I don’t need a remote for my phone, my phone is the remote to the world.
(May be I just haven’t seen the ‘one’ watch that will blow my mind. I hope it exists.)
The way everyone made mistakes regarding the target group for the iPad, they are making mistakes about the target group for the wearable watch.
In 2009, when the mobile operator asked us for a child tracking device which could be controlled from a dashboard, my product design team came up with the idea of the wearable watch, since most children would like a chance to wear a watch like their parents.
When I was a kid, I loved the Casio digital range of watches, like the remote control watch and the phone directory watch and the calculator watch..Today I swear by my analog Rado, but I see why children would be the ideal target group based on limited calling functionality and visual element.
I agree with @ahnyc that MOTO360 kinda feels something which would be a mass appeal device. I have the Pebble 1st version (not the Steel) & it looks not so good. But I had to try it and I am happy with its functionality so far. I am sure if the traditional watch companies jump in (like You have mentioned Swatch) that would be an interesting idea or maybe Google can collaborate just like they have done for Glass.