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Comment by Mahn | Hacker News Reader

> until they can replace phones entirely

I.e. never? I mean, I can picture making phone calls or dictating SMS by voice with a smart watch, but people are not going to be browsing the web or taking pictures with a tiny wrist device when they already have a 5-6" inches display device on their pockets, and almost no one would ditch the latter for the former if they had to choose.

I think it's likely that smart watches will continue to be niche devices for the foreseeable future, at very least until someone figures out a killer feature that sets them apart from smartphones.

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FWIW, I said the same thing about smartphones when they came out - who'd want to browse the web on a tiny 4" screen when you've got a 13" laptop? And indeed, I do very little web-browsing on my smartphone; it's generally just used to answer quick questions when I absolutely need information (or, well, when I want to win an argument over dinner :-P).

What made smartphones useful was people discovered new uses that you just couldn't use a computer for. You can't do turn-by-turn navigation with your laptop in the car. It's nearly useless if you're standing at a street corner in an unfamiliar city and want to know where the closest coffeeshop with wifi is. You can't use it to take a picture of the cute little ducks crossing the road and send it to your wife. It does you no good when you want to hail a car to take you home.

People haven't yet discovered similar uses for a smartwatch. It's highly likely that they exist, though. What the watch gives you is hands-free information: you can receive quick, 1-5 second notifications even if you're carrying something or immersed (sometimes literally) in physical activity. I've already found this useful for getting notifications that my founders' group has changed where we're meeting while I'm driving there, or that my wife has already gone to the grocery store, or for checking off items on my shopping list while carrying shopping bags. There are probably other bigger uses waiting to be discovered.

> What the watch gives you is hands-free information

But your phone can also give you that, through earphones or headsets. Smartwatches must find new uses that a phone cannot also do as well, which is a much harder bar to clear.

For example:

> notifications [...] while I'm driving there

Phones can do that already, and will do more and more as CarPlay etc become mainstream.

> checking off items on my shopping list while carrying shopping bags

Siri can probably do that already (I use Trello for my shopping lists and it works fine as it is, tbh).

The one use where smartwatches will likely be unbeatable, forever and ever, is fitness/health: carrying around a phone in those circumstances is simply more annoying than carrying a watch. Once they get cheap enough, they might replace smartcards and badges for access control. If smartglasses become mainstream, they could augment each other (your glasses display and record, your watch stores and computes) and actually replace phones altogether; but alone, I don't see them going anywhere.

Bluetooth earbuds & headsets have all the downsides of smartwatches: they cost roughly the same (for headsets; earbuds are a lot cheaper), they make you look as dorky or more, they're IMHO less comfortable, and they're another accessory that can fall out and get lost. And they seem to have similar adoption numbers. The main difference is audio vs. visual: headsets are better for some uses (notably taking calls) but worse for others (interacting or reading quick notifications).

>I.e. never? I mean, I can picture making phone calls or dictating SMS by voice with a smart watch, but people are not going to be browsing the web or taking pictures with a tiny wrist device when they already have a 5-6" inches display device on their pockets, and almost no one would ditch the latter for the former if they had to choose.

People might also not have 5-6" devices in their pockets, but special glasses with HUDs or smart contact lenses...

If we're assuming the existence of non-sucky smart glasses or contact lenses [1], why exactly would anyone use a smart watch?

[1] Smart contact lenses are such a crock. Seriously, guys, how do you think you're going to power these things?

Bulk. It makes sense to keep glasses as light and small as possible, whereas a watch can be relatively bulky without being socially unacceptable. So you could have just enough electronics for glasses to display information and record, then have the watch store or compute the resulting data.

It could basically split smartphone features into two gadgets that are easier to carry around. For that, though, we still need quite a few leaps in miniaturization.

>If we're assuming the existence of non-sucky smart glasses or contact lenses [1], why exactly would anyone use a smart watch?

For the same reasons we use smartwatches with our phones today. It's more plausible they'd fit a great cpu, cellular phone, gps, etc on a watch size, than they'd fit it in a decent glass frame.

So the watch could handle most things, plus there are interactions that can't be done with glasses (like measuring one's heart rate, or similar).

Heartrate, okay, sure. But all the rest of it, let me suggest that smart glasses + smartphone makes a lot more sense than smart glasses + smartwatch.

Unless people resort to another device like mounted glasses for web viewing and picture taking. Or a ipad for bookreading, web browsing and picture taking.

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