HTC has taken its first bold step into the wearables space, with the launch of the HTC Grip. The activity tracker is the first product to come out of the partnership HTC announced with Under Armour at CES in January. And importantly, the product looks like an Under Armour product thanks to its color scheme, and works directly with UA’s Record app, rather than having its own proprietary app.
I break things. It’s (usually) not intentional, but a surprising number of devices stop working for me. My connected scales have refused to tell me my weight recently (that should tell me something), my automated door lock froze to death and my smartphone mysteriously re-boots on a regular basis. And that’s before I do anything unusually dumb, such as dropping them, throwing them in water, or losing my shorts (with my phone in them). So when I was recently loaned an “ultra rugged” phone – the Sonim XP7 - I couldn’t help but devise an unusual range of tests to see how well it would survive in my world.
Once I year, I escape the real world and head down to a small Caribbean island called Bonaire. It’s a kind of an “off-the-grid” type of vacation where coffee shops claim to offer Wi-Fi, but happily don’t deliver on their promise… and no one notices. Do not go to Bonaire if you want to get some work done. In other words, it is paradise for a week or so.
A strange thing happened to me today: I received the latest and greatest in wearables in the mail and, after opening the box and rifling through the various bits and pieces, I realized that I was not going to use the product at all. That’s pretty unusual for me: I’m typically right up there at the front of the line, willing to try anything; at least for a short while, but not this product.
Baby it’s cold outside. No seriously, it’s 12 degrees and, unlike the song, I was just stuck outside, trying to get in. Unfortunately, my quasi-automated house did not want to cooperate. I say quasi-automated because I’m jumping into this home automation stuff slowly (indeed, less of a jump and more of an inch-by-excruciating-inch submersion).
The last year or so has seen the beginning of a subtle trend towards disconnecting from the always-on world that we live in. Some hipsters have embraced the not-so-smart flip phone, along with film-based cameras and other such curiosities from the technological past. We even got temporarily swept up in it a couple of years ago when I put my smartphone away for a week or so and dusted off my old Motorola Razr. It was an interesting experience, but hardly life-changing. What I learned most was the value of self-control: I didn’t HAVE to check my email as soon as it arrived. It could wait.
This holiday season will be the first major test for the smartwatch category. One year ago the category was immature, with only a small handful of devices in market; the majority of which were not from known brands (the exception being Samsung’s initial Gear watch). Awareness of the category was also fairly low, with only 36 percent of the U.S. market showing any awareness whatsoever.
Tuesday’s Apple event proved, once again, that the industry should never underestimate how successfully Apple can break the mold or flaunt conventional wisdom. Everyone knew two new iPhones were coming – and that they would be 4.7” and 5.5” and that they would look nice, and that they would fit neatly into the current buying, stocking, and usage trends for smartphones in the U.S. (as we discussed in our press release last week). But seeing a mock-up, or sketching something out as a model, or examining a pirated photograph is a poor substitute for seeing something in person. And it is impossible to express how slick both new iPhone models are until you see them in person and hold them in your hand.
As I sat with the rest of the world watching Apple's annual Fall product announcement, I could sense in those I connected with on Twitter a feeling of excitement as Tim Cook finished the first part of the program and led into his "one more thing". Apple certainly did not disappoint. If NPD Connected Intelligence's Eddie Hold asked Apple to amaze him and I've asked companies to push the smartwatch beyond what we've seen thus far, then we both got our wish. The Apple Watch fits what a smartwatch should be- a nicely designed fashion accessory and a piece of technology (that does more than relay phone notifications to your wrist).
I’m a believer in wearable tech. I love these devices (and wear them), but very few manage to deliver anything close to my hopes and dreams. The smartwatch segment in particular has dashed my hopes every time. The products still do not wow me. Why? Because the smartwatch doesn’t add any real value: it doesn’t do anything that my smartphone doesn’t already handle with ease. Rather, it’s just another gadget (and a rather bulky one at that) that I need to remember to charge at night.
