Recently there has been a lot of hype regarding smart watches, first Sony released the Smart Watch 2, follow by Qaulcom and Samsung to release their own version of Smart Watch. Also there's Pebble which is a kickstarter project that turns out to be reality. Furthermore, Apple is rumoured to release their iWatch next year as well. Generally, all these smart watches are having functions such as reading SMS, email, facebook or twitter update, pedometer and etc. Sounds familiar? Yes, these functions are basically what you are having in your smartphone now.
I tend to agree with a journalist who mentioned that every gadget/gear must have a clear and distinct usage of it. If not, it will just be a merely geek toys with no purpose. Smartphone exist for a purpose, and tablet exist for a purpose as well. You can live with a smartphone for general usage, and move to a tablet when you need more screen estate or more processing power (although smartphone nowadays are having advance chipset just like tablet). But smart watch? Something that's having smaller screen plus low end spec. Hmm.
After going through some readings, forums & articles, I must say that I really can't find a purpose for smart watch to exist, at least for now. Now they are having similar functions as smartphone, and they are being marketed as a "companion device" for your smartphone. Seriously, do I really need to carry two devices which are having the same functions? Some may argue that it is "convenient" that they can get something directly from the watch without the need to take out the phone. I'm not sure whether I should classify this as "lazy". Some may say their "phablet" is kept in the handbag and it is not convenient to take it out and put it back again and again. If that's the case, why don't you get a smaller phone in the first place?
When mind arrives here, all of a sudden I think I have found a purpose for Smart Watch to exist. Nowadays people tend to have a smartphone and a tablet. So people are going to have a smart watch plus smartphone plus tablet soon. Smart watch and smartphone are virtually identical in feature and functions, but not tablet. So my idea is simple: merge the Smart Watch and Smartphone together as one device, so in future people will only need to use a Smart Watch plus a tablet.
The future of Smart Watch is that it will turn into something great that it can replace the Smartphone's core function, mainly calling, sms, email etc. When the screen size of Smart Watch is limiting, turn to a tablet, be it 7" 8" or 10" as long as you are comfortable with it. Of course in order to achieve that, voice control needs to beef up as you can hardly type using your watch. But if this is really going to be the future, I guess someone will be able to crack the seamless integration and usage between Smart Watch plus Tablet.
Since people are "craving" for larger screen nowadays, I guess Smart Watch + Tablet can really be a good direction to go for. But as for now, I would rather spend my cash on a high-tech looking conventional dumb mechanical watch than a half-baked & yet not so smart plus redundant watch. Looking forward for my prediction to come true someday.
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