Never had the consumer been inundated with so many gadgets than today. They had become so compelling and so affordable that people change phones like they change their socks.
Just look at your power strip and see how many device chargers you have plugged in there.
Tablets, phones, cameras, range extenders, personal hotspots, GoPros, activity trackers, Bluetooth this and that, GPSes, and other devices that have little screens in them that you can wear.
While the GPS had become a norm in our daily lives when it got incorporated in cell phones, wearable gadgets like the Apple Watch, Microsoft’s Band, Google’s Glass, and other wearable technologies are doomed to fail until they find a solution on how to: 1) Power them for a very long time before recharging them 2) How to recharge them really, really fast and, 3) The battery should be end-user replaceable.
Wearable gadgets have the same dilemma as pure electric car makers. Who wants to drive an electric car across America and wait for an hour or two each time when recharging their vehicles? As if waiting for that car ahead of you in a Costco gas station is not long enough.
And, what happens to the car when the battery drains out and could no longer hold a charge? Unless they make pure electric cars very, very cheap, but, you don’t want to throw away that car when the batteries drain out — like the way you dispose of a tablet or phone with a non-end-user replaceable battery.
Early adopters of pure electric cars either have a lot of money (AKA: status symbol) or just like to take advantage of the Federal and State incentives like rebates and access to carpool lanes.
So, the issues plaguing wearables – most specially, watches – today is that end-users don’t like to charge these gizmos each and every night or day after using them.
Our power strip is too full already of those power bricks — don’t give us another one just for a freaking watch.
In the same way that it makes more sense to buy a hybrid than a pure electric car, buying that wearable gadget makes more sense if the next time you’ll recharge it would be after a month or more.
Until then, I’ll stick with the Rolex Oyster Perpetual.