# The future of smartwatches?



## gangrel

Garmin Introduces "Luxe" $1500 Fitness Smartwatch in Steel or Titanium | Watches By SJX

This, to me, makes more sense. Rather than trying to adapt the regular watch for connectivity...a task for which it is completely unsuited...package the smart watch in something that looks like a watch.

The major issue that strikes me, is the sticker price.


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## Tomatoes11

Plenty of smart watches look like real watches. It's just that the Apple Watch is the only smart watch people know about unfortunately.

I think the ideal smart watch would be a combination of an Astron and Gear S2. Something solar but with smart watch functions. 

The technology is probably already there but the only hurdle is the plateauing of battery tech. Once they find a battery cell that can power smart watch functions and can remain running with small amounts of sun they should have no problem replacing standard Quartz watches.


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## BarracksSi

If "looks like a real watch" means having a round display to cut off half of my message viewing area and old-school springbars, I'd rather have something that looks different.


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## Morrisdog

51mm x 16mm .. Yikes!! 
I have a Garmin watch which is quite useful for my morning walk / run . It's also a basic golf
App which is all I really need. 
Only problem with it is that it looks pretty ugly.
I think they are onto the right tract with trying to make their watches a bit better looking but that is way too big. 


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


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## Paulo 8135

Tomatoes11 said:


> Plenty of smart watches look like real watches. It's just that the Apple Watch is the only smart watch people know about unfortunately.
> 
> I think the ideal smart watch would be a combination of an Astron and Gear S2. Something solar but with smart watch functions.
> 
> The technology is probably already there but the only hurdle is the plateauing of battery tech. Once they find a battery cell that can power smart watch functions and can remain running with small amounts of sun they should have no problem replacing standard Quartz watches.


good point. it may even make sense to use a combination of solar/kinetic technology.


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## BarracksSi

paulopiper said:


> good point. it may even make sense to use a combination of solar/kinetic technology.


Solar has a lot better chance of fitting into the cramped space inside a smartwatch than a kinetic charging mechanism.

Here's a pic of Seiko's kinetic movement. The oscillating mass has to have enough mass to generate energy, and I don't think it can be made much smaller without losing its ability to power a charging circuit.

You can be sure all the smartwatch manufacturers are trying to make solar and kinetic happen, though.


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## BigDuke

With high priced smartwatches like this, I can't see a real market for them. Who wants to buy a smartwatch with planned obsolescence of 18 - 24 months. That's why the mechanical watch is going to be around for a long time. Just my 2 cents.


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## Paulo 8135

BigDuke said:


> With high priced smartwatches like this, I can't see a real market for them. Who wants to buy a smartwatch with planned obsolescence of 18 - 24 months.


At this price, agreed. At a coupe hundred, not agreed.


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## ddsspp

I think there will be more and more luxury versions of smartwatches, lot of buyers including me want a watch that is both smart and doesn't look like 5$ piece of molded PVC.


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## no-time

By future, if we take look at say, 6-10 years into the future.

Until they make a breakthrough with the battery the future smartwatches won't change much, but once it does then there will be lots of innovation.

Imagine a watch with lots of sensors including multiple cameras, so it can sense if you are at work, home, holiday or doing a sports... etc AND sense other devices/people around you. Opening Apps will be a thing of the past, the device will sense your environment and open the app or info' accordingly showing relevant info all the time. In fact rather then apps it could just pull down relevant info from the cloud (cloud is a fancy marketing for the internet), a little like what Tesla is doing with Auto-drive.

...not that everyone wants to wear such as device, maybe criminals could be forced to wear one to stop them from harming. Politicians would need to wear one.


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## albertcaymuss

BigDuke said:


> With high priced smartwatches like this, I can't see a real market for them. Who wants to buy a smartwatch with planned obsolescence of 18 - 24 months. That's why the mechanical watch is going to be around for a long time. Just my 2 cents.


Agree, but remember two words: Moore's Law.

Al


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## Art Campbell

albertcaymuss said:


> Agree, but remember two words: Moore's Law.
> 
> Al


I believe Moore's Law is slowing. There may be another breakthrough, but I think it will be a while. In the meantime, we need a breakthrough in battery technology - that's the real holdup for wearables.


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## Lokifish

Solar is very doable on analog smart movements. On anything beyond maybe E-Ink (or hybrid transflective), it would only marginally extend battery life.


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## BarracksSi

Lokifish said:


> Solar is very doable on analog smart movements. On anything beyond maybe E-Ink (or hybrid transflective), it would only marginally extend battery life.


Solar runs Citizen's Proximity, but being analog, it can't change how it presents information -- so it can never tell you _who_ is calling, or what street name you'll need to turn on, etc.


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## Lokifish

Very true, but E-Ink, transflective, or hybrid transflective tech (image #5) can. Even high density dox matrix would work. Problem is the masses want AMOLED ,always on, super colorful displays in a thin watch with over a week of battery life. Anything reasonable is often ignored or considered garbage.


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## BarracksSi

Low-res, thick -- nope, transflective and E-ink aren't good enough.


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## Lokifish

BarracksSi said:


> Low-res, thick -- nope, transflective and E-ink aren't good enough.


In your opinion, what technical aspects make transflective unacceptable?


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## BarracksSi

Lokifish said:


> In your opinion, what technical aspects make transflective unacceptable?


Bulky (requires several more layers than is possible with AMOLED), coarse DPI, narrow viewing angle,...

The bulk alone should be enough to disqualify it now that AMOLED is commonplace.


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## Lokifish

Yes. a decent transflective adds about 1.5mm to the thickness. If the dpi matches, the difference is near indistinguishable without very close examination. You got me on the viewing angle, but those angles are still beyond typical watch viewing angles anyway.

Something to think about. A 30x30mm LiPo increases about 1mm in thickness for every 60-80mah increase in capacity. A transflective, when implemented correctly, uses about 400% less energy when compared to AMOLED due to it not requiring display generated light to be visible in most conditions. If what was shown in the linked image is applied, that percentage increases significantly due to how it's designed. Both transflective applications translate in to either longer battery life using the same battery capacity and always on display, or smaller battery and device size but with same battery life.

So it's more a question of pretty displays vs functionality and efficiency. Me personally, I'll take better battery life with readability in all conditions over pretty blacks and super saturated colors every time.


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## BarracksSi

Looking forward to your smartwatch, then.


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## adnjoo

Hopefully thinner and lighter, and bendy & curved screens.

The Apple watch series 2 is gonna shrink alot in thickness.. Reminds me I have to sell before the next release when the depreciation will tank the value even more..


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## yannerd

I can't help but feel like the smart watch market hasn't really taken off the way the makers had hoped. Asus and Motorola have pulled out and Android Wear 2.0 was delayed for quite a few months. I look around my office and I see maybe 2 people with actual smart watches (not counting Fitbits and other activity monitors), the rest just have regular watches or don't wear them at all.

I was an early adopter of the Android Wear platform but I don't wear my watch anymore. It's cumbersome to charge daily, there's constant connectivity problems on Bluetooth, and they still don't look like very stylish watches IMO. The biggest peeve of mine was the connectivity, I don't want to have to restart my watch because it can't connect to the phone after a night of charging. This is all while I'm trying to get out the door to go somewhere.


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## Killerstraps

BarracksSi said:


> Solar has a lot better chance of fitting into the cramped space inside a smartwatch than a kinetic charging mechanism.
> 
> Here's a pic of Seiko's kinetic movement. The oscillating mass has to have enough mass to generate energy, and I don't think it can be made much smaller without losing its ability to power a charging circuit.
> 
> You can be sure all the smartwatch manufacturers are trying to make solar and kinetic happen, though.


There is a Kickstarter now that is exactly this. Name brand: SEQEUNT

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1608034664/sequent-the-worlds-first-kinetic-self-charging-sma

Really intriguing to me. Having to charge a smart watch constantly is a real drag. The functions are great but it's useless unless fully charged everyday.

Killerstraps


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## BarracksSi

Killerstraps said:


> There is a Kickstarter now that is exactly this. Name brand: SEQEUNT
> 
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1608034664/sequent-the-worlds-first-kinetic-self-charging-sma
> 
> Really intriguing to me. Having to charge a smart watch constantly is a real drag. The functions are great but it's useless unless fully charged everyday.
> 
> Killerstraps


That'd be cool when it works.

Change it from analog to a digital OLED-type display to make it functional enough for frequent use.


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## Killerstraps

BarracksSi said:


> That'd be cool when it works.
> 
> Change it from analog to a digital OLED-type display to make it functional enough for frequent use.


Did you watch the video? Pretty cool. I'd keep the analog and add some areas of additional info, LEDs or something an hap-tics, so you'd know what type of notifications you see getting. Anyways...

Killerstraps


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## BarracksSi

Killerstraps said:


> Did you watch the video? Pretty cool. I'd keep the analog and add some areas of additional info, LEDs or something an hap-tics, so you'd know what type of notifications you see getting. Anyways...


Watched the video, yes.

Haptics are fantastic and, IMO, make a smartwatch far more useful than a phone for simply grabbing your attention in a low-key way. I've been in meetings where a smartphone buzz can be heard from twenty feet away, but when my AW taps my wrist, it's also dead silent.

I won't buy an analog smartwatch because it can't display anything besides what the hands are labeled. It can't show the name of who's calling or texting, it can't display the hockey score, it can't let me screen my emails -- all the things that a smartwatch-type gadget is powerful enough to do.

Again, I'd love for a smartwatch to be self-charging; and although I said that solar seems most likely, kinetic would be better to use day-to-day, especially during winter months when I'm wearing long sleeves all the time.

But leaving out a display means that it's dismissing a lot of capability in a last gasp effort to hang onto the past.


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## yankeexpress

The future of watches is two-fold

- Smartwatches

- Vintage, re-issues and homages.


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## Lokifish

Killerstraps said:


> There is a Kickstarter now that is exactly this. Name brand: SEQEUNT
> 
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1608034664/sequent-the-worlds-first-kinetic-self-charging-sma
> 
> Really intriguing to me. Having to charge a smart watch constantly is a real drag. The functions are great but it's useless unless fully charged everyday.
> 
> Killerstraps


Infinite and *without a battery* (which loosely includes MT290 capacitive cells)? I'm gonna call BS unless they show some hard data. Here's why;

Baseline Hybrid Smartwatch Movement
Swiss Connect MMT Cal. 282 (think Frederique Constant FC-282)
BTLE Analog Quartz hybrid w/ vibration (no HR sensor or GPS)
Current Consumption (average)- 16uA
Current Consumption (maximum)- 2-3mA
Battery- CR3032
Voltage- 3V
Capacity- 500 mAh
Rechargable- No
Battery life (max)- 48 months

The closest non-Swiss movement of this type are far worse in terms of capacity vs battery life (9 months on a 210mAh battery).

In comparison, A Seiko kinetic requires something like a 22km marathon to fully charge a 1.5v 5mAh capacitive cell from 0% to get 6 months of battery life. And the Seiko uses nowhere near the amount of power the FC-282 does to run. Now toss in an HR sensor and GPS on top of the Cal. 282 power requirements and you can see where I'm going.

Anybody want to run the numbers themselves? Here's data sheets from the company that makes the kinetic generators for ETA.

EDIT
Done reading that "fine print". Their "infinite" is activity tracking, 10 notifications a day, with no HR or GPS use. This what what they consider "normal" smartwatch use. I fit into what commonly considered the very light usage group (activity tracking, time, very few calls/texts/emails only) and I'm already beyond their "normal user" perimeters. So I'm guessing that a desk job, average use smartwatch person may be lucky to get a week or two out it based on their "extreme" chart.


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## gangrel

And as noted, as a smart watch it's severely limited in what it tells you directly. Wouldn't have interested me at all. 

Actually, the curious aspect is to see if they can pull off fulfillment in a reasonably timely manner, because their order volume is *hugely* greater than they ever dreamed, gauging the difference between their minimum goal, and the actual amount pledged. Logistics becomes a much greater problem; orders for 2500 will need longer lead times than orders for 250. If suppliers have to split their fulfillments into chunks, in order to also satisfy other customers, then the whole assembly process may well get stretched out a great deal.


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## aks12r

I wore automatic watches for decades and then I got a garmin fenix 3, 3 years ago, and I haven't looked back. It fulfils my need to tinker with gadgets and is actually very useful for me and provides a ton of information and metrics.
it has not been perfect though - the unit is still quite thick at 17mm and I would prefer a higher def resolution on the screen (the newer models are 240x240)
battery life was as advertised 5-6 weeks between charges when just as a watch, approx. 2 weeks when using the gps sporadically and apps for workouts and approx. 14 hours with ultratrac 1sec sample rate gps so charging was never a daily chore.

I would love a fenix design watch at about 10mm thickness with solar ability.

last week casio released a rangeman gshock model with full gps facilities and solar assisted power generation its a chunky unit at 20mm tall but hopefully its the starting point for other manufacturers to start releasing their own designs for solar powered smartwatches.


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## Paulo 8135

It'll get really interesting once they figure out an effective way of doing solar/kinetic.


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## kramer5150

I really don't see it going anywhere significantly different until battery, screen, data processing and radio send-receive technology collectively take some major steps forward in terms of electrical efficiency. Most peoples biggest complaint is that they need to be re-charged every other night (if youre lucky). So overall its kind of stuck in a more of the same thing rut.

As long as batteries die out in~20-24 months, these will be nothing more than disposable $$$ niche gadgets. Ticwear and misfit are on the right track at least, by keeping costs down. These watches will be some of the more popular ones this year at these prices.

Fitness tracking I think is where the high volumes are at. Efficient LCD based screens, water resistance, wide range of prices, styles and features and for sure they appeal to the fitness enthusiast crowds. Unlike other smart watch types, fitness targeted models have managed to break through to the mass-consumer market, I think largely because they can endure longer between battery charges.

One segment I am watching closely is the "underground / open source" market... Brands like Kingwear, LEMFO, Zeblaze, Microwear and No.1. These watches are basically Android smart phones scaled way down to fit in a watch case. They have custom launchers to better suit them for small screen displays and batteries. Since they use open source Android OS, they can be rooted and custom flashed to a MUCH higher degree than android wear or Tizen.


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## Paulo 8135

kramer5150 said:


> I really don't see it going anywhere significantly different until battery, screen, data processing and radio send-receive technology collectively take some major steps forward in terms of electrical efficiency. Most peoples biggest complaint is that they need to be re-charged every other night (if youre lucky). So overall its kind of stuck in a more of the same thing rut.
> 
> As long as batteries die out in~20-24 months, these will be nothing more than disposable $$$ niche gadgets. Ticwear and misfit are on the right track at least, by keeping costs down. These watches will be some of the more popular ones this year at these prices.
> 
> Fitness tracking I think is where the high volumes are at. Efficient LCD based screens, water resistance, wide range of prices, styles and features and for sure they appeal to the fitness enthusiast crowds. Unlike other smart watch types, fitness targeted models have managed to break through to the mass-consumer market, I think largely because they can endure longer between battery charges.
> 
> One segment I am watching closely is the "underground / open source" market... Brands like Kingwear, LEMFO, Zeblaze, Microwear and No.1. These watches are basically Android smart phones scaled way down to fit in a watch case. They have custom launchers to better suit them for small screen displays and batteries. Since they use open source Android OS, they can be rooted and custom flashed to a MUCH higher degree than android wear or Tizen.


Did you read the thread? There are already solar Casio smartwatches widely available which don't run out of battery.


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## kramer5150

Are they full featured smartwatches though?... with touch screens and full user interaction in that regard? My understanding is that they are more of a notification device type. The casios that are full featured are the WSD-F10/20, but they're not solar powered.


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## Paulo 8135

kramer5150 said:


> Are they full featured smartwatches though?... with touch screens and full user interaction in that regard? My understanding is that they are more of a notification device type. The casios that are full featured are the WSD-F10/20, but they're not solar powered.


ok, i get where you're coming from.


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## Paulo 8135

there is one that will control music on your phone.


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## Paulo 8135

Also, we really need colour e-ink screens. Look at the Pebble Time Steel. e-ink helps so much with battery efficiency..


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## kramer5150

Paulo 8135 said:


> Also, we really need colour e-ink screens. Look at the Pebble Time Steel. e-ink helps so much with battery efficiency..


Yeah I totally agree on that. Unfortunately Pebble and (Vector too) e-ink design rights were bought out by fitbit. I am not sure if fitbit is going to continue to release designs that feature this kind of screen display. I am not sure if the fitbit buy-out also includes sole rights to e-ink... but I dont think it does. Hopefully other manufacturers can pick up where pebble and vector left off.

There are also transflective LCD displays (Garmin, Sony, Xiaomi) that are also way more efficient than IPS and OLED. I am looking at the Xaiomi Amazfit or Garmin epix to use along side my moto360. They are both more of a GPS sports tracker... with some smart features.


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## Paulo 8135

kramer5150 said:


> Yeah I totally agree on that. Unfortunately Pebble and (Vector too) e-ink design rights were bought out by fitbit. I am not sure if fitbit is going to continue to release designs that feature this kind of screen display. I am not sure if the fitbit buy-out also includes sole rights to e-ink... but I dont think it does. Hopefully other manufacturers can pick up where pebble and vector left off.
> 
> There are also transflective LCD displays (Garmin, Sony, Xiaomi) that are also way more efficient than IPS and OLED. I am looking at the Xaiomi Amazfit or Garmin epix to use along side my moto360. They are both more of a GPS sports tracker... with some smart features.


Interesting. Colour e-ink should eventually also make its way into smartphones as an alternative option.


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## aks12r

kramer5150 said:


> Are they full featured smartwatches though?... with touch screens and full user interaction in that regard? My understanding is that they are more of a notification device type. The casios that are full featured are the WSD-F10/20, but they're not solar powered.


there are several types of "smart" watch. Any of these can be powered sufficiently by solar to not need recharging. My understanding is that the big issue has been with GPS smart watches which use significantly more power than smart watch applications and cannot be sustained by solar charging alone.

As an example I am wearing the garmin f3. From my own tests just using the watch mode and training apps for workouts / music controls / notifications / Bluetooth / Wifi / alarms / widgets / back light / altimeter, barometer, compass function etc I will easily get 2 weeks use before recharging. 
On watch mode alone, it's supposed to give 5-6 weeks use before re-charging. So a built in solar panel would almost certainly be enough to charge it up during that time for most people and activities. 
(there is no touch screen and display is 218x218 pixels)

When you stick GPS in the mix for a few hours and use the watch in a similar way as before that recharge time drops to 1-4 days (depending on GPS sample rate) which cannot be handled by solar alone.

The Casio I mentioned earlier seems to be a hybrid and is marketed as solar *assisted* charging so you can use GPS for longer and charging times are further apart. Essential if you're out in the field for extended periods. It is the first of it's kind and I am hoping will lead to other manufacturers releasing improved versions from R&D over the next few years.

My perfect watch would be a garmin fenix with solar / solar assisted charging and less than 12mm in height - this is a few years away I suspect but I live in hope


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## enkay

I don't see smart watches catching on in their current form. We have phones that do everything better than a watch can do. 

I see old folks using smart watches more than the younger crowd.


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## BarracksSi

biggziff said:


> interesting


Thank you for your recent contributions to this forum.

What are you selling?


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## Tonystix

We may as well get used to them, because as with other technologies, they will only get better(smarter) and cheaper.


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## Snape315

kramer5150 said:


> Are they full featured smartwatches though?... with touch screens and full user interaction in that regard? My understanding is that they are more of a notification device type. The casios that are full featured are the WSD-F10/20, but they're not solar powered.


If Casio ever adds their Tough Solar Charging system to the WSD line then I'll seriously consider buying one. Currently the WSD goes into a low power mode when the battery drops too far that operates a monochrome screen with limited functionality. If they could use the Solar power to run that feature, you would almost never have to worry about the watch totally dying.


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