Will the slow-moving smartwatch become a thing of the past?

At the end of 2016, Motorola announced that it would indefinitely postpone the launch of its Android Wear-based smartwatch Moto 360 due to insufficient market appeal. Once upon a time, this smartwatch overshadowed the Apple Watch due to its perfect appearance and good performance. Many people speculated that Motorola's statement was a disguised announcement of its withdrawal from the smartphone market.

Since then, the smartwatch market has been plagued by bad news. Pebble, the earliest smartwatch company, experienced a massive layoff last year and was acquired by Fitbit at a discount of more than ten times at the end of the year. In September 2016, LG and Huawei also announced that they would not launch a new generation of smartwatch products in 2016 due to insufficient market response.

Even the once beloved Apple Watch could not escape its fate. According to IDC data, Apple Watch sales plummeted 71% year-on-year in the third quarter of this year, from 3.9 million units in the third quarter of last year to 1.1 million units this year. In addition, in 2016, the release of Android Wear 2.0, a new smart platform created by Google for smart watches, was delayed, causing widespread concern in the industry. Could it be that the once glorious smart watch could not escape the fate of being a bygone product?

Four years later, smart watches are declining

In 2012, a smartwatch called Pebble was launched on the US crowdfunding website Kickstarter. It raised $1 million in less than an hour after it went online. In the end, it not only raised more than $10 million, but also received $15 million in financing. It not only set a record for Kickstarter crowdfunding at the time, but also made Kickstarter famous. Since then, Pebble has been making great strides. In the first half of 2014, Pebble and Samsung Electronics once monopolized the US smartwatch market, and the two dominated 96% of the US smartwatch market.

On September 9, 2014, Apple announced that it would launch its first smartwatch, Apple Watch, which was officially launched in April 2015. Backed by hundreds of millions of iPhone users and a huge number of Apple fans around the world, Apple Watch changed the entire smartwatch market once it was launched. The emergence of Apple Watch also brought a large number of followers into this field. Under the influence of Apple's strong brand, more and more users took the initiative to accept this new thing, and the smartwatch ushered in its first climax at that time.

The situation took a sharp turn for the worse in 2016, with IDC data showing that smartwatches fell by nearly 52% compared to the same period in 2015. From 2012 to 2016, smartwatches were initially launched as a future technology, sparking speculation in the industry that smartwatches on wrists might replace smartphones and become the main means of connecting humans to the Internet. However, four years later, things have changed. Pebble, a veteran, was sold at a low price, Motorola intends to terminate the development of Moto360, and the once-prosperous LG and Huawei have also confirmed that they will not launch smartwatches for the time being.

IDC's forecast for sales of smart wearable devices in the third quarter of 2016 shows that Apple Watch sales plummeted by 70% to only 1.1 million units due to the impact of cheap smart bracelets. This has attracted a counterattack from Apple, which has always been aloof. Cook said that the sales of this wearable device, Apple Watch, are quite good. However, Apple has not dared to disclose the sales figures of Apple Watch in its financial reports so far, and has only classified it as "other products" without disclosing specific data. Judging from the practice of IDC's forecast, it seems that there is not much difference.

When the quarterly sales of Apple Watch, the absolute leader in the industry, were only 1.1 million, such results cast a shadow on the entire smart watch market.

Decline is not just a matter of rigid demand

Once upon a time, people realized that compared with smart watches worn on the wrist, smartphones that need to be taken out from time to time in pockets are not advantageous. Many people believe that smart watches will replace smartphones in more and more scenarios in the future, and smartphones will gradually become low-frequency tools. However, the reality is going in another direction. Maybe it’s not that humans don’t need smart watches, but that the current smart watches don’t seem to be ready yet.

From the perspective of positioning, many functions of smart watches overlap with those of smartphones, such as communication, reminders, games, music, social networking, sports, payment, etc. These applications can all be solved on smartphones, and due to the limited screen size of smart watches, these common functions on smartphones are extremely troublesome to solve on smart watches. Although it seems cool to use smart watches to check information, make calls, and make mobile payments, what other advantages do they have over smartphones?

In addition, smart watches require a special system due to their special features, which means that many applications need to be redeveloped for smart watches. Except for wealthy companies such as BAT, many of our commonly used apps do not have versions adapted to smart watches, which makes smart watches feel like castrated mobile phones. The price of thousands of yuan and the short standby time problem that even Apple Watch has not solved make smart watches, which look very cool, not very popular with users.

In addition, smart bracelets provide more and more functions, making the position of smart watches, which are not price-competitive, increasingly awkward. As a wearable device, smart watches play a very obvious role in health and fitness scenarios. In addition to functions such as displaying time, reminders, and calls, these advantages make smart watches useful in daily life. As more and more smart bracelets are equipped with a screen, in addition to basic health applications, they also provide functions such as displaying time, reminders, and calls. In the case of not having a price advantage, smart bracelets have become the biggest competitor of smart watches.

What makes people more worried about the future of smart watches is that Apple Watch, once the leader among smart watches, has been favored for its complicated functions and futuristic user interface in its advertisements. However, since the second generation of its products, Apple has stopped emphasizing the fancy functions of Apple Watch and has instead highlighted its core selling points of sports and health. How can a price tag of several thousand yuan compete with a smart bracelet that can replace its core functions? It is obviously difficult to keep users paying for it based on sentiment.

According to IDC's second quarter report, global smart wristband sales in Q2 2016 increased by 48.7% year-on-year, and the Chinese smart wristband market grew by 92.1% year-on-year. Obviously, due to various factors, smart watches have entered their first low period.

How can smart watch manufacturers break through?

Pebble has been sold, Moto360 is going to stop development, LG and Huawei have also suspended their progress and are waiting for new changes in the market. Faced with the current situation, how can smart watch manufacturers break the deadlock?

First, technological innovation. On December 26, Apple recently obtained a patent called "woven screen", which details the method of weaving light-transmitting materials with traditional materials. It is predicted that this screen may appear on the future Apple Watch. In addition, such as Samsung's foldable screen, Huawei's graphene battery, and Microsoft's augmented reality (AR) technology, the implementation of these technological innovations and their application in smart watches will produce a qualitative leap, solve their pain points, and attract more users to choose to buy.

Secondly, the accompanying market. In recent years, children's watches that focus on safety have experienced an explosion. Li Zhihua, CEO of Magnet Technology, once claimed that the annual sales of children's watches will reach 50 million units in 2020. With the explosion of children's watches, elderly watches that focus on positioning, safe areas and emergency call functions to prevent the elderly from getting lost have also begun to emerge. As a wearable item, watches have become an extremely important wearable device in personal protection. Focusing on the accompanying market for special groups is also an important direction for future smart watch manufacturers to break through.

Finally, the transformation to a smart bracelet. It is well known that smart watches are more technologically advanced than smart bracelets, and there is a great overlap in functions between the two. Therefore, the transformation of smart watches into smart bracelets has inherent advantages. Since the trend of smart watches has not really arrived, the possibility of an explosion in the short term is small. It is not a bad idea to abandon many flashy functions and focus on smart bracelets, take over the bracelet market and wait for an opportunity to return to the smart watch market.

Smart watches are now at a crossroads of development. Facing an unoptimistic future, the choices they make will determine their ultimate development direction. The good news is that Google does not seem to have given up on the future of smart watches. According to the American technology news website TheVerge, the Android Wear 2 version, which has been delayed many times, will be launched in February this year. LG, which has been silent for a year, recently registered several new smart watch trademarks in the European market. These trademarks include Watch Style, Watch Pro, Watch Force and Watch Sole, which seems to indicate that LG is returning to the smart watch market.

As a wearable device star that was once popular, smart watches must have their value. The current brief darkness may just be the prelude to dawn.

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.