Who’s who in the smartwatch market?
Smartwatches have been around for quite a while now, but these devices are mostly seen as a nice-to-have addition, rather than a must to have gadget. However, recently Apple presented its own product, the Apple Watch. How will this product impact the smartwatch market? Does Apple have another hit on their hands and will they manage to make the smartwatch mainstream?
First of all, smartwatches are mostly extensions of the smartphone, showing notifications, alarms, and apps. Playing music is also possible and they are also used for heath monitoring and fitness capabilities. A smartwatch is, to put it simply, interfaces with a phone, is a mp3 player and watch (and its main challenge seems to be the short battery life). Also, the app ecosystem for smartwatches is not very developed, but this could change very soon.
Up until the launch of Apple Watch, these were the main producers of smartwatches:
- Peeble – Their smartwatch is geared mostly towards productivity, it integrates music, alarms, apps and notifications. It is an extension for phone owners operating on iOs or Android.
- Samsung – Only during the last year, Samsung released six different smartphones. It most recent one, Gear S, integrates 3G and GPS that are independent from the smartphone.
- Sony – With an Android operating system and a GPS and good battery life, their latest version has gotten much better reviews than the first ones.
- Motorola – The newly launched Moto 360 from Motorola has a heart rate monitoring feature, is waterproof but has a small battery life and is marketed mostly on its appearance resembling a classic watch.
Here you can find a infographic for comparing main smartwatches: http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-09-09/apple-watch-compared-to-motorola-samsung-lg-smart-watches
The Apple Watch is highly customizable, with different face-styles and many band-types. It includes health functions such as tracking steps, heartbeats and monitoring the number of calories. It has included the new Apple Pay functionality. Also, it comes with a walkie talkie feature allowing users to talk to other Apple watch users and also to send the heartbeat to a friend who owns an Apple watch. Obviously, it only works with an iPhone
The offering on smartphone watches market is a lot more special now with the Apple Watch. So far, the smartwatches have not impressed many and are not game changing, but perhaps the new Apple Watch has the power to do that, just as they totally reinvented the game with the iPhone, iPod and iPad in their respective markets.
Photo credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/65265630@N03/10345406973/
