6/9/2023 0 Comments Adriana lee readwrite![]() “ why wouldn’t you want information close to your attention,” Eisenhardt asks. For instance, when downhill skiing, glasses make a lot more sense. Eisenhardt notes that while people might like smartwatches for everyday use, there will always be situations such where something like smart glass is more appropriate. Recon sells a line of smart glasses made specifically for sports. “People are used to watches, but for some applications it’s inconvenient,” says Dan Eisenhardt, CEO of Recon Instruments. A specialized market is just what companies creating other wearables like smart glass are banking on. Think more advanced counters for your bike, or devices made specifically for weight lifters. While customers might ultimately transition to smartwatches for their basic fitness tracker needs, a new specialized fitness market might emerge for products designed for specific types of workouts. If that happens, and it works really well, that puts a lot of pressure on FitBit, Jawbone - those guys that are making fitness devices.” “By all indications that’s going to be a very health- and fitness-focused device. “We’ll wait and see what Apple does,” says Arnold. After trying on some of the latest from LG and Motorola, ReadWrite’s Adriana Lee found that watch makers are at least making strides to change. Smartwatches are almost exclusively bulky in design. While NPD estimates that 58 percent of wearable fitness device buyers are women, most smartwatches aren’t designed with ladies’ wrists in mind. Arnold and other analysts expect the holiday season this year to be huge for smartwatches, once consumers become more comfortable with the category and more knowledgeable about its benefits. Much like smartphones, we’ll likely start to see inexpensive entry-level devices along with mid-level and premium devices. Over time, those numbers are expected to decline, especially when more players enter the marketplace. Smartwatch pricing fluctuates between $150 and $300, with the low-end represented by the first-generation Pebble and Gear pricing when paired with a smartphone purchase. “If we’re looking at levers that can take the smartwatch mainstream, we’re probably looking at Apple’s entrance into the market as that point,” he says.Īnother big barrier to entry right now is price. Samsung and Pebble account for 90 percent of smartwatch sales in the U.S. Related: Here Is Apple's Early 'iWatch' Patent Filing Sketch If and when Apple puts out a smartwatch, Arnold says that it should make Apple loyalists take notice of the category - a move that will help the category transition from the tech-savvy early adopter crowd into the general consumer market. “I think when that happens it changes the game.” “We all pretty much expect Apple to come out with the ‘iWatch’ as we’re all kind of calling it,” Arnold says. ![]() There’s one big player missing from the smartwatch game: Apple. Apps like Evernote and Runkeeper are available for smartwatches now - the challenge is showing people how they can be useful in wrist form. In order for smartwatches and wearables in general to reach that next level, mainstream consumers are going to need to be more aware of the applications available for the watches and, more importantly, how those applications are going to improve their lives. Applications like Google Now can be exceptionally powerful for those who know how to use them, but the general public still might not be aware they exist. “I feel like the applications that are making smartwatches interesting at this point are still kind of things that tech-savvy and early adopters know about,” he says.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |