Thoughts brought by YunOS payment table: What is missing from the smartwatch market to mature?

Largely influenced by the launch of Apple Watch by Apple at the beginning of this year, the global smartwatch market experienced explosive growth in 2015. It is expected that the total shipment volume will reach 29 million by the end of the year, more than quadrupling the previous year.

Data source: iiMedia Research "2014-2015 China Smart Hardware Market Research Report"

The Chinese market, which has always been known for its imitation, has not fallen behind. Both Internet giants and small and medium-sized startups have launched their own products in the shortest possible time. The smart watch market has become bustling. A search for "smart watches" on JD.com shows 36,000 products, and Taobao shows more than 200,000 results. These products have similar functions and prices ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand yuan. It is difficult for consumers to find a product that really suits them.

Lack of product features and unclear market positioning were major problems in the early days of the smartwatch market. In this regard, Alibaba's Pay Watch can be said to be a positive example. From the name alone, it can be seen that this model is mainly aimed at the payment market.

Pay Watch has seized the smartwatch market with its offline QR code scanning payment function, which is one of the reasons why it was able to raise 15 million yuan in crowdfunding in less than two months.

In other aspects, how does Pay Watch perform? Let's start with the "surface article".

The simple black packaging box is four times larger than the iPhone 6 packaging. In today's resource-saving society, isn't this packaging a little too low-key for a small watch?

After opening it, you can see the Pay Watch logo and the slogan "Pay at your leisure without any restrictions". The "Y" in Pay is replaced by the RMB symbol, and the details fully demonstrate the foothold of payment.

The large box contains the main accessories such as the charging head, connecting cable, charging base and instructions. The charging head is rated at 5V/1A and uses magnetic charging. The base is made of plastic. The battery capacity is 300mAh and the charging time is about two hours. If used normally, it can be charged once a day.

I believe most of my friends are not familiar with this interface. Magnetic charging is currently more common in the wearable industry, and the interfaces are also varied. Consumers who have purchased such devices must keep specific charging accessories. These things are not as ubiquitous as Android and Apple charging cables, and it is difficult to find a usable replacement once lost.

The lack of unified industry standards in hardware design such as packaging and interfaces is one of the reasons that restrict the development of the smart watch field. Not only in Pay Watch, many similar products have the same problem.

It is difficult to simply judge the appearance design as good or bad, after all, the consumer market is also difficult to satisfy everyone. One thing worth affirming is that the square rounded dial of Pay Watch is still very different from Apple Watch, and that's enough.

The overall size of the dial is 54x41x11.5mm, with a clear black frame and high-transparency tempered glass. There is a physical button and a mic hole on the right side of the dial. The strap is made of cowhide and is replaceable. The buckle part adopts a "日"-shaped pin buckle design. In addition to the magnetic charging port, there are also a heart rate sensor and an infrared sensor on the back of the watch. There is no obvious discomfort when wearing it, but for girls, there is still room for reduction in weight and size.

Nowadays, apps have become a standard feature of smart devices. When using a product for the first time, users often need to use the supporting app to activate and configure the product. However, this approach was not helpful when dealing with Pay Watch.

The most direct question is, where is the app? After the watch is turned on, a QR code will be displayed, and a prompt will be asked to "Scan the QR code" to bind the watch. Under common thinking, after the QR code is recognized, the existing app on the phone should be opened or the app download interface should be jumped. The reality is like this:

After a lot of twists and turns, I finally found a matching app called Fiiwatch in the Android App Store. There is no such product on the App Store yet, so users in need can only download it through the Fiiwatch official website.

Normally, this kind of guiding text does not need to appear in the review article. The reason why it has to be mentioned here is that the product name and application name are not consistent, the guidance process for first-time use is not friendly enough, and there is no reflection of it in the instruction manual, which can easily cause unnecessary confusion to users who are using the product for the first time and inadvertently increase the learning cost.

In fact, this kind of problem is not the first time that it has occurred during the evaluation of smart watches. Trial hardware is often a first-generation product, lacking market feedback, and the iteration is not perfect. It is also common for the evaluation process to end with bugs or the evaluation report to float above the instructions. Concepts come first, and software and hardware products have not kept up. This is a common problem in the field of smart watches and even wearables. In the stage of the education market, poor experience can easily lead to the loss of potential users, thereby increasing the cost of market education.

After downloading the app, bind the watch and phone to perform other operations.

The watch is equipped with YunOS system, which has a simple interaction method. The operation on the dial can be achieved by sliding and clicking in four directions: up, down, left, and right. In addition to the hardware-related information, Pay Watch also supports mobile phone message push function, which is mainly used to remind users to prevent missing real-time messages.

The main menu includes eleven main functions: Alipay, Weather, Health, Sports, Calendar, Heart Rate, Recording, Settings, Alarm, Stopwatch, and Timer. The specific uses can be basically understood from the text.

It can be found that Pay Watch is still mainly functional applications. The lack of a browser and store means that it is impossible to access the Internet independently or add functions. In fact, due to its small size, there are very few applications developed specifically for smart watches, not to mention that YunOS is not yet a mainstream system in the mobile market.

Systems and applications are issues that must be addressed for the smartwatch market to mature. In addition, the accuracy of the collected health, sports and other data and the services behind them are also commonplace topics, which are also the key to seizing the entrance. The former is directly related to hardware configuration and technological development. In the same period of time, products of the same price usually do not differ much; as for the latter, Pay Watch, which is backed by Alibaba Cloud, may have certain advantages.

Finally, the main payment function of Pay Watch is revealed. After binding with Alipay Wallet, it can be used in any occasion that supports Alipay scan code payment, and the usage process is basically the same. It is worth mentioning that Pay Watch supports offline payment code calling, and scan code payment can be realized in an offline environment without network.

When it comes to payment, the user's biggest concern is probably security. In this regard, Pay Watch has multiple safeguards. First, the payment code displayed on the watch is updated every 15 seconds, and the old payment code will automatically become invalid after the update; using infrared light sensing technology, the watch will automatically lock if it detects that it is 1 cm away from the wrist, and you need to enter the password to use it again after it is off the wrist; finally, if the account funds are really stolen, the Alipay account security insurance can also pay 100% of the actual loss amount.

Overall, Pay Watch's grasp and implementation of payment expertise is accurate and sophisticated, and its existing problems are also a very real reflection of the current smartwatch market. At this stage, being able to find its own entry point in the chaotic market can be said to be a successful first step, but there is still a long way to go in the future.

Despite the significant growth, the smartwatch market is still in its infancy. The lack of unified standards for hardware and software, the immaturity of chips, systems, and application environments, and the lack of follow-up services have led to a large number of concept products, with inflated prices and very limited actual functions.

In fact, for consumers, before buying a smart watch, it is better to think about this question: Do you really need a watch? Even if this watch can replace your coin purse in some occasions.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.