Lately, smartwatches are everywhere. While they have been around a while, they’ve always been somewhat of a niche product, never gaining widespread acceptance. All that changed one sunny morning in 2012 when Pebble announced that it had raised $15 million on crowdfunding website Kickstarter.com.

1. 96 GlobeAsia May 2013
Technology
ately, smartwatches
are everywhere. While
they have been around
a while, they’ve always
been somewhat of a niche
product, never gaining widespread
acceptance. All that changed one
sunny morning in 2012 when Pebble
announced that it had raised $15
million on crowdfunding website
Kickstarter.com.
The bell-bottoms of the digital
age, it appears that smartwatches are
suddenly hot again. The wisdom of the
crowd has penetrated corporate halls
all over the world and some big names
have taken an interest. Reports suggest
Apple, Google and Samsung all have
smartwatches in the pipeline.
Certainly, the definition of a
smartwatch is in flux somewhat.
Some smartwatches are nothing
less than miniaturized cellphones.
Other watches essentially tether
to smartphones and transfer data
back and forth via Bluetooth. While
the approach has varied somewhat
depending on the manufacturer, many
companies have tried and failed at
smartwatches in the past.
Samsung for example has already
released two smartwatches, one in 1999
and another more polished one in 2009
(which was inexplicably released only
in France). LG, for its part, released a
similar offering, the GD910, in 2009 to
tepid response. Starting in 2002, even
Fossil got into the game, producing
several smartwatches, some based
on Microsoft’s now-defunct SPOT
technology, and others based on
technology developed by Palm.
Most recently, Fossil and even Sony
have been testing the market with
Bluetooth-enabled watches. Sony’s
new iteration of Liveview, the Liveview
2, was popular but also failed to gain
widespread adoption. With all these
failures, the question is why now? What
will be different this time around?
The market has evolved
Several factors have aligned that
indicate the time is right for
suhadi
Smartwatches are back!
And this time it’s going
to be different

2. May 2013 GlobeAsia 97
By Jason Fernandes
smartwatches to finally enter the
mainstream. The fact is that the
market has matured. The existence and
widespread use of smartphones has
interestingly changed the rules, paving
the way for smartwatches.
Where there may have been a
certain resistance earlier to be constantly
connected even during leisure time,
smartphones have made this acceptable
and even expected. The proliferation of
smartphones has even solved technical
issues with smartwatches.
While previously these watches
would need to fit all the technology
they required in an extremely small
footprint, today they can tether
themselves to a phone, essentially
behaving as a dumb terminal where the
phone does the bulk of the processing
and the watch merely displays the
information. This would not be
possible without smartphones and the
benefit of the widely used Android
and iOS platforms allowing for greater,
almost universal compatibility.
The technology has matured
One of the biggest issues that the
smartwatches of old had to deal
with was the lack of decent battery
technology. While the previous
generation had to be charged almost
every day, present technology allows
watches to last several days without
charging. The implementation of an
E-paper display and its low power
consumption in the Pebble for example,
allows the watch to run for almost a
week without requiring a recharge.
Newer generation smartwatches
also have the benefit of low-power
Bluetooth 4.0, which allows the watch to
communicate with a smartphone with
very little impact on the latter’s battery.
The fact that recent flagship phones
have much greater battery capacity than
their predecessors is also a factor that
bodes well for the smartwatch.
Display technology is getting
better
Advances in display technology have
led to some interesting possibilities.
A few years ago Philips demonstrated
a rollable e-ink display at CES. Not
to be outdone, the next year Sony
also unveiled a 2.5-inch screen with a
flexible display at the same conference.
Even LG has joined the fray,
developing e-paper displays that are
lighter, thinner and more flexible. Most
recently Plastic Logic announced that
it is developing what it hopes will be a
1mm-thick color e-paper display and
indicated that some “big names” are
interested in the technology.
These display advancements, in the
hands of a capable designer, could well
result in some very beautiful products.
There have also been quite a few
advancements in gesture-controlled
technology such as the Leap motion
controller and, should this technology
be integrated into a watch, it would
solve many sticky issues like navigating
through a complex menu system
without having to be extremely precise
using a tiny touchscreen.
Gesture control, if widely adopted
in smartwatches, would also eliminate
physical buttons, which have by this
point run their course and deserve the
old yeller treatment.
The devices are better designed
No matter how high-tech the watch,
ultimately a watch is essentially an
accessory and nobody is going to wear
an ugly watch. Just glancing through the
failed smartwatches so far it’s easy to see
why they never got anywhere. They’re
just plain ugly. The Samsung SPH-WP10
is such an eyesore that it’s a wonder how
it ever got beyond the concept stage. The
watch, released in 1999, looks literally
like somebody took an old Nokia style
cellphone and put a strap on it. Nobody
wants to wear the 2012 equivalent of a
Casio calculator watch.
The newer attempts at smartwatch-
es are much more visually pleasing.
Save for the rubber watch band, the
Pebble watch is a marvel of simplistic
design. The watch sports a beautiful
curved face with a bright sunlight-
readable e-ink display that allows for
customizable watch faces. Even the
Sony Ericsson MBW 200, while tech-
nologically dated, would be completely
at home in a boardroom or some other
formal occasion.
Some very big players are
interested
The fact that Apple is working on a
watch is also a factor that cannot be
ignored. Under the tutelage of Johnny
Ive, Apple has always excelled at
product design. Apple has a massive
budget and access to the latest display
technologies. It stands to reason that
Apple would raise the bar in this
category. Any smartwatch released by
Apple would likely also feature Siri
integration, allowing for some very
interesting Dick Tracy-like features.
Google, never one to be left behind,
is also rumored to be working on
its own smartwatch. According to a
recent article in the Financial Times,
Google has assigned its Android team
to work on the Google Smartwatch
project, indicating that the watch will
be deeply integrated with the Android
operating system, possibly extending
and enhancing its functionality.
Given the massive penetration
The existence and
widespread use of
smartphones has paved
the way for smartwatches.

3. 98 GlobeAsia May 2013
Technology
of Android in the global market,
a watch such as the one Google is
contemplating would likely have a
significant impact on the market.
Samsung has also confirmed that
it is working on a new smartwatch
that would almost certainly be
designed for deep integration with its
current line of Galaxy phones. In an
interview with Bloomberg, executive
vice president of Samsung’s mobile
division Lee Young Hee recently
said that the company is “preparing
products for the future, and the watch
is definitely one of them.”
Of course, as mentioned above,
Samsung previously entered the
smartwatch business but the company
has only recently gained the kind of
clout in the mobile devices industry
that forces people to take it seriously.
According to the latest information
available from IDC’s mobile tracker,
Samsung has the largest market
share for smartphones globally. If it
was to make a smartwatch now that
complements their suite of devices, they
could reasonably expect massive sales.
That Apple, Samsung and Google
are taking this seriously is a strong
indication that things will be different
this time around. The projected
revenues in the smartwatch market
are just staggering. According to ABI
Research, smartwatches and other
wearable computing devices will soon
“explode in popularity.”
The same report, published this
year, predicts that the market will
grow to 485 million device shipments
annually by 2018. With these
numbers, it’s no wonder that the big
guns are taking this very seriously,
and it would behoove analysts to sit
up and take notice.
Smartwatches don’t need to
replace the cellphone
Many industry watchers make the
mistake of questioning whether a
smartwatch, with its tiny screen, could
actually replace a cellphone. The
premise is flawed however, because
smartwatches really don’t need to be
a replacement. A smartwatch and
a cellphone could do very well as
complementary devices.
It was only recently that the
cellphone evolved from something
people merely used to make phone
calls into something that people use to
surf the web, take and upload pictures
and watch movies. It stands to reason
therefore that there is a market for an
intermediate device that provides the
basic functionality of text messages and
emails, without one having to pull out
one’s cellphone at every opportunity.
The oversized cellphone or so-called
“phablet” phenomenon is an example
of this usage demographic. The main
reason people buy phablets is not for
the email or text message functionality.
The phablet’s value proposition is that it
enables people to browse the web and
watch videos on a big display, something
that wasn’t even expected from a
cellphone until recently.
One of the biggest criticisms of
these phablets is that they’re not easy
to hold in one’s hand and look a little
silly when held up to one’s ear. The
smartwatch would be a cure for this
because it could (through the use of a
headset) enable people to keep their
phablets or tablets in their briefcases
while continuing to have access to their
most commonly used features, namely
calling, texts and email, with the flick
of their wrist.
This would likely cause a paradigm
shift, pushing customers into the
phablet market and encouraging bigger
phones, since they would no longer
need to be held in one hand or held up
awkwardly to one’s ear.
At the end of the day, watches
are almost by definition ornamental.
It seems ludicrous that people are
debating whether smartwatches
will take off or not. The fact that
smartwatches also provide a host of
other features besides telling the time
ensures that it’s almost a given that they
will become popular, if only they quit
looking so ugly.
As a result of improved technology,
the next generation of smartwatches
will be more like regular watches –
visually-pleasing objects of desire
worn as accessories. In a few years it
will be almost inconceivable that any
major watch manufacturer will release
a watch that isn’t ‘smart’ or connected
in some way. This is simply the natural
evolution of the timepiece.
Soon, the chronograph will come
to be thought of as a quaint relic of
yesteryear, the way we look at pocket
watches today. It is fitting that the
future will finally be heralded by a
timepiece. Yogi Berra put it best: The
future ain’t what it used to be.
Jason Fernandes is a tech commentator
and the founder of SmartKlock.
In a few years, it will be almost inconceivable that
any major watch manufacturer will release a watch
that isn’t ‘smart’ or connected in some way.