Coming smartwatch war with Apple kicks off in Barcelona
The maker of an upcoming smartwatch has put all the brains of the device on a replaceable module that can be upgraded, so customers won’t have to worry about an expensive timepiece becoming obsolete.
Some hope Apple (AAPL) will go that route with its upcoming solid gold watch, expected to cost thousands of dollars, but it was Guess that showed off the first hardware-upgradable smartwatch at the Mobile World Congress this week.
“When there’s a new feature set that people want, we can just pop out the module and replace it with a new one,” says Stanley Kinsey, president of Martian Watches, which will supply the brains for the new Guess Connect line.
Up and down the lengthy aisles of the Mobile World Congress, smartwatches, fitness bands and other wearables were everywhere in sight as companies tried to grab some attention before Apple’s big watch-hyping event on March 9. Attendees could try on products from Sony (SNE), LG Electronics (066570.KS), Huawei, Pebble and more.
One gadget maker, at least, decided it might be better to wait and see what Apple would come up with before introducing any new watches. Samsung offered a peak at its new Galaxy S6 smartphone in Barcelona, but has decided to take a "pause" on its smartwatch efforts for now.
Indeed, Apple is expected to dominate the nascent market when its watch goes on sale next month. Analysts expect Apple could sell two to four times as many smartwatches in 2015 as the entire market shipped last year.
Gadget makers shipped 4.6 million smartwatches and wearable bands worldwide last year, including 720,000 watches running Google’s (GOOGL) Android Wear and one million of Xiaomi’s low-priced Mi fitness bands, according to Canalys. Wall Street analyst forecasts are clustered around sales of 10 million to 20 million Apple watches this year.
Apple sparks the global smartwatch market
Apple’s expected domination could still help spur some Android watch sales, as well, since it will only be compatible with iPhones. Android runs on over half of U.S. smartphones and more than 80% worldwide.
“It will create more awareness and demand for smartwatches in general, which will actually help competitors, especially the ones targeting Android phones,” says Jan Dawson, chief analyst at Jackdaw Research. But, as with smartphones, it could take competitors a couple of years “to really match the performance and functionality,” he says.
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Apple CEO Tim Cook has been hyping the upcoming watch in a series of interviews recently. "This will be just like the iPhone: people wanted it and bought for a particular reason, perhaps for browsing, but then found out that they loved it for all sorts of other reasons,” he told The Telegraph newspaper last week. Apple's watch will include a host of functions including mobile payments and health monitoring that competitors may find difficult to match.
Most – but not all – of the smartwatches showcased in Barcelona ran on Android Wear software, giving them access to a growing supply of Android watch apps and compatibility with hundreds of millions of Android phones.
Huawei’s watch, which was developed by Ben Norton, a watch designer who has worked for Fossil and Armani, has a striking circular design and traditional-looking faces and drew considerable attention among Android-compatible devices. Unlike a round-faced watch Motorola unveiled last year, which had a rectangular blank spot at the bottom, Huawei’s design offers a truly circular display all the way around.
“It didn’t feel like a techy gadget on your wrist,” says Tejas Mehta, an analyst for Parks Associates, who was in Barcelona checking out smartwatches. “It had more of the feel of a classic timepiece.”
But Android Wear’s focus on extending many of the functions of a phone to a user’s wrist and frequent notification alerts hasn’t exactly taken the market by storm. So some manufacturers were willing to go their own way on software.
“Smartwatch design, just like smartphone design, is all about making the right trade-offs,” says Ian Fogg, head of mobile research at IHS. Proprietary software can be compatible with both iPhones and Android phones, opening a larger potential market, and allow for longer battery life or other desirable features, according to Fogg.
For example, Guess’s new line-up, powered Martian Watch’s operating system, offers a classic watch face with only a narrow digital display. That gives it battery life of up to five days versus one day or less for most smartwatches. Compatible with both Android and Apple phones, it’s also the only software other than Apple’s that allows the user to interact with Siri via voice commands.
LG’s new Urbane model uses Android software. But the Korean company also showed a model dubbed Urbane LTE that could connect to mobile phone networks on its own and was running a version of WebOS, the software originally developed for the Palm smartphone. It can display a tiny dialing pad for making calls and an array of other apps that have a unique appearance.
“Using WebOS gives them much better control over the user experience,” says Parks Associates’ Mehta. The cost of not using Android is fewer apps, but that may be less important on a watch than it is on a smartphone.
With Apple again using an integrated hardware and software approach to create a top-notch user experience, LG’s WebOS strategy may just be the one that can keep up.
