This is my personal opinion on how a smart wearable ecosystem should be. I already expressed some opinions in the past, but now that all big players have released their products I can tell they all got it wrong.Quite of a statement, I know, for someone that doesn't work in the industry, but I suspect that despite my comments Apple and all the others will sell very well and make huge profits.
And then adjust in a few iterations to get to what I am going to talk about in the next few paragraphs, or close enough.
It's not that I know better, nor I have a privileged source, I'm just acknowledging that history repeats itself. Just remember, as an example, that first iPhone didn't have Bluetooth nor SMS....
First, you cannot make a totally interoperable wearable. Maybe Pebble is an exception, but I figure out it will soon disappear.
We all know how important has become to live in an ecosystem, as both Apple and Google demonstrated over the years. Microsoft has learned the lesson the hard way. Despite all efforts there is little way to get a device from an ecosystem to work well into a different one. There are limitations, both in terms of application development and "standard interpretation". There is no such thing as "standard", we should know that by now.
So, back to the point, the ecosystem is a must. All devices must be part of it and exploit the best out of the framework to carry their functions with full integration with each other. That's how it should work.
That's why nobody got it right...yet.
The smartwatch war: Apple and Google won, because they created an ecosystem, not because they made a smartwatch (actually Google still have to make one, but that's not the point).
The Apple Watch is bound to the iPhone (which is good), borrows a lot from it, but retains some standalone functionalities, but mostly for "fitness" purposes. Still, we're talking consumer space here, therefore no dedicated sport level. Just generic, multi-purpose functions.
Let me ask a rhetorical question: what's a smartwatch used for? Judging from the recent implementations:
- Tell time
- Show notifications
- Monitor basic health parameters (heart rate, steps, sleep patterns)
- Interact with the phone, without the need to take it out
Sounds reasonable. Why cram sensors in both the phone AND the smartwatch then? Logic answer would be "because you can sell the phone alone". Reasonable, again.
Then why not put a SIM in the smartwatch and let it do everything? That might be reasonable as well, see previous answer.
The bottom line is: to allow customers a choice. Fact is, there is no choice. Despite all appearances, we don't have a choice, because both options are crippled from the start. We don't have the technology (yet) to miniaturize the components enough to put all the smartphone functions into a watch and it would not make much sense anyway, without a decent sized screen. We're talking about user interfaces here!
The point is that we don't need a watch or a phone, per se, being it smart or not.
We need a communication device, a recording device, a monitoring device. Better if they come separate, as it allows better flexibility.
In a not so distant future, we'll have a visual interface, like the Google Glass instead of a screen.
An input interface, such our voice (or thought maybe - more efficient and definitely quieter).
A monitoring interface on our wrist (or maybe somewhere else, but it doesn't matter).
A good capturing device for audio and video (at least, but other senses might be interesting).
All tied together in an ecosystem based on a common software, with a strong application base.
Meanwhile, here's what we need (and we can immediately achieve):
- A decent sized screen smartphone, with all computing power to support the ecosystem;
- an efficient smart device on our wrist (a smartwatch will do for the time being) with all the most specialized sensors and a lot of battery capacity, to acquire all the data needed and send it to the core device, and a decent input mechanism to do basic interactions with the core device to avoid taking it in and out all time (especially if it is bigger because of the screen);
- A 1" sensor with OIS optics (at least, because we deserve better image quality) and a stereo full band microphone (again, we deserve better audio), integrated in the above mentioned smartphone, mainly because we're already used to taking photo and video this way.
Some of these points have already been implemented by some vendor, but none in a single, streamlined, efficient and reasonably stylish solution.
As you might have noticed, I left out payment systems and other bells and whistles.
For a reason: as much as other features mentioned earlier, we're not there yet. The ecosystem is incomplete and needs time to reach critical mass. Apple managed to take the lead here, because of the less fragmented ecosystem, but it's not clear where the interface for that function should be.
In my opinion, it should go where all sensors are supposed to be (wrist) for ease of access, but again, we're assuming that we need all components to benefit from the ecosystem.
To me is a fair assumption, as much as having headphones bundled with a phone.
That's why for me it's an all-or-nothing deal: either you get the whole system or you accept that you won't have certain functions.
Companies that made us accept to have a phone without SMS in an age where that was the only reliable messaging system for mobiles shouldn't find much difficult to sell the whole package instead of a single device, don't you think?
