I’m Ron Burgundy? And I’m Getting a Smartwatch??
It’s probably too early to even call it a “smartwatch”. I noticed Pebble calls theirs an E-Paper Watch…smart move.
Essentially a bluetooth connection with your phone, the current smartwatches seem to primarily just extend your phone’s functionality to your wrist. And we’re talking in the neighborhood of 5% of your phone’s functionality.
It’s not that bad though. Smartwatches extend the phone’s screen real estate along with the functionality, and as manufactures clamber for bigger screens – you’ve seen this, right? – any extra screen space is a gift.
So as Best Buy announces it’s now selling the Pebble in stores I’m again flirting with the idea.
Get a Smartwatch Now. Then Get Another When Apple, et al, Release More This Fall
It costs ~$150 depending on the model and while that’s not nothing, you could do a lot worse with that money. Yes, people still pay for dial up.
For now I’m picking Pebble – again it’s the simple decision. If you want to know why read Lifehacker’s writeup on What You Can Do With a Smartwatch.
It’s a simple decision really. So here’s why:
1. Watches are timeless (yep, went there again)
If you don’t want to wear a watch you can stop reading now. I want to wear a watch. When I lived abroad a few years back and didn’t have a phone for 6 months I rediscovered how much I enjoyed wearing one.
2. Being addicted to your phone sucks
Ever stopped in a busy airport, looked around, and noticed how many people are glued to their phones? I mean blindly walking into a fountain glued (you’ve seen the YouTube, right)? Like the human race moving that direction? Me neither.
Only question is whether smartwatches will increase or decrease our dependency on our phones. Here’s to hoping that they’ll allow us to filter out meaningless farmville notifications so that we’re only on our phones when we need to be.
3. Have you thought about where mobile is going?
Smartwatches, Glass, ever improving robotics, phablets. Mobile no longer means smartphones.
Last, but most importantly you should get a smartphone because you should be excited to think about where mobile is going.
Summary: Get a Smartwatch, You’ll Likely be Underwhelmed & That’s OK
I’m not expecting much. The reviews on Best Buy have been blah-ish and the bad reviews seem pretty authentic. Sounds like Pebble’s focus has been on hardware and the software has suffered as a result. If you’re on iOS 6 you’re in even worse shape (yay, that’s me).
But that’s just fine.
This is just a thought experiment, and a relatively inexpensive one at the end of the day (especially thanks to the awesome mobile budget all BlueFletch employees have to spend each year!).
And when Apple, Google(?), and the others inevitably come out with one later this year I’ll be ready to try theirs too…