Jawbone ends: The smart wearable device market is sailing high but the wind is not yet coming?

In the past two years, as the smartphone market has become increasingly saturated, many technology companies have launched their own related projects under the banner that smart wearable devices are the future of technology. At the same time, many industries that originally had little to do with technology have also moved closer to the smart wearable market, such as sports equipment manufacturers, jewelry manufacturers, and medical device manufacturers. Of course, the hot market has naturally attracted many knowledgeable people to start businesses in this land, trying to create their own myths.

A broken flagpole - Jawbone

However, recently, there have been rumors that Jawbone's UP series, one of the pioneers of smart wearable devices, is also on the decline after Nike's Fuelband project. Jawbone is known as the king of smart bracelets and a pioneering brand in the industry. In early 2015, it was valued at a high price of 3 billion US dollars with a total financing amount of more than 800 million US dollars. Why did Jawbone's valuation, which raised another 165 million US dollars, be halved in just one year, leaving only half of last year's valuation, 1.5 billion US dollars?

According to company insiders, the predicament Jawbone encountered was entirely caused by poor internal management, poor communication between departments, and management being too slow to respond to market changes. While competitors continued to add new features to their products, Jawbone was still busy patching up outdated products. Moreover, various debugging was still not completed when the product was about to be released, which also created many difficulties for the promotion and sales plan of the new product. When employees tried to report this situation to management, they found that there was a lack of communication channels within the company.

Although Jawbone has publicly stated that it has no plans to completely withdraw from the market, various signs such as the shutdown of production lines and the dumping of products at low prices indicate that this company that bravely carries the banner of the new era may not be able to escape the fate of failure.

A slap in the face for Apple - Apple Watch

In fact, the decline of Jawbone cannot be entirely attributed to the company's internal reasons. Since the concept of smart wearable devices was proposed, there have been voices of doubt. At the beginning, Pebble, UP, Galaxy Gear, MOTO360, Fuelband and other products were launched, but they all had problems of one kind or another and failed to truly accomplish the task of popularizing the concept of smart wearable devices.

In 2013 and 2014, with Apple's series of acquisitions and poaching actions for smart wearable devices, the Apple Watch gradually surfaced. Almost all industry insiders and consumers believed that Apple would once again use its strong innovation and operational capabilities to create a new and vast consumer market.

However, the 2014 Apple product launch was almost a disaster. Although the Apple Watch was not unveiled until the launch event, unlike the poor confidentiality measures of the iPhone product line, everyone was still shocked by Apple's mediocre design. Apple's stock price plummeted from $103.08 to $96.14.

Apple Watch has been on sale for more than a year, but Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple who always likes to show off, has never mentioned its sales. In the financial report, Apple Watch is placed in the other column together with Apple TV and iPod. Coupled with various negative reports from various survey agencies and statistical companies, the dismal sales of Apple Watch are like a flea on a bald head - it is obvious. Facts have once again proved that Tim Cook is a big liar who talks nonsense. The claim that Apple Watch will become an important branch of the apple tree will also be written into Tim Cook's black history.

In the past few years, new smart wearable devices have emerged one after another. Some, such as MOTO360, are well received but not popular. Some, such as Xiaomi wristband, have sold tens of millions of units but made little profit. However, without exception, they have all been labeled as being new at first but boring later. Why is it so difficult to improve user satisfaction with smart wearable devices? Even Apple, which has always been known for its smooth user experience like Dove, has been criticized by consumers?

The smart wearable device market is still a long way from maturity

Faced with the dilemma of smart wearable devices showing signs of decline before they have even taken off, it seems that this is caused by the fact that the generally expected trend and explosion point have not come as expected. The current immature technology in all aspects has led to the inability of smart wearable devices to meet the requirements of consumers, and consumers have to constantly make trade-offs between various parameters. If you want a gorgeous screen and a variety of functions, you will face the problem of daily charging; if you want a long-lasting battery life, it means the lack of a monotonous display and functions such as a heart rate sensor.

In addition to battery life, smart wearable devices are also subject to many external factors. For example, the US FDA (Food and Drug Administration) regulates smart health devices. For example, the Apple Watch hardware integrates a pulse oximeter, but it has not been open to users because it has not passed the FDA's review. Bob Kocher, a former member of the US National Economic Council and former special assistant to the US President for health and medical policy, said that all the smart wearable startups he has seen have listed FDA regulation as one of the main risks.

Moreover, there is an irreconcilable contradiction between intelligence and technology and wearable products that are more fashion-oriented. Fashion products have many matching requirements, and the frequent replacement of smart wearable devices faces greater setup and usage costs. Smart watches are even less likely to form a strong competition with the traditional watch industry, after all, the watch industry has gone through a long period of technical and aesthetic accumulation.

Even though Apple is so powerful that it has poached many executives from fashion luxury brands such as Burberry, TAG Heuer, and Yves Saint Laurent, the Apple Watch only slightly affected the sales of mid-range Swiss watches in the first month of its release. After all, no one can imagine what it would be like to pass on an Apple Watch to your son 20 years later, as Patek Philippe's slogan says.

Crossing the river by feeling the stones, but not knowing what the scenery on the other side is like

In today's newly emerging smart wearable devices, facing the above problems is just a necessary process. It is no wonder that everyone can only cross the river by feeling the stones when no one has waded through it. However, after this year's exploration, the wearable device market has clearly found several indispensable stones on the road. For example, payment function and motion detection function will surely be a stable foothold whether in the current promotion stage or in the future popularization stage. Just like the Xiaomi bracelet priced at 79, with its extremely simple design, it has created a miracle of annual sales of tens of millions just by relying on the motion detection function.

However, even if smart wearable devices have a belated explosion point in the near future, it is difficult to assert that they will become a technological product that people will find hard to abandon in the future. Because even a star product like the iPad, the huge success when it was launched seems to be just yesterday, but now with the increase in the size of mobile phone screens, the status of the iPad is becoming more and more embarrassing. Although Apple still updates the iPad product line every year, it is difficult to reverse the decline in sales. Compared with the iPad, smart wearable devices not only failed to fire the first shot, even the chess player Jawbone failed to persist until the day when the industry was formed.

The failure of Apple Watch also shows that it is unrealistic to have too many functions in a smart wearable device at the current technological level. The success of wearable devices in a short period of time can only rely on excellent subtraction skills, clear target positioning, and precise strikes. Before the maturity of various technologies, we can refer to Nokia's product strategy in the Symbian era. Due to technical bottlenecks, it was impossible to provide a perfect product like iPhone 4, so it launched differentiated products for different needs.

Of course, unlike the strong rigid demand in the mobile phone market, smart wearable devices may not be able to escape the dilemma of being a niche for the time being. Although no one can deny that smart wearable devices are more in line with the development direction of science and technology, the direction does not represent success. The video phone Picturephone launched by AT&T in 1964, the digital camera Fotoman launched by Logitech in 1990, and the VR console Virtual Boy launched by Nintendo in 1995 all definitely represent the development trend of science and technology, but they all failed due to premature birth. So, does the decline of Jawbone also indicate that the era of smart wearable devices has not yet arrived?

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.