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Smart watches – is mass adoption a reality or just a dream? asks Gumtree's lead designer

By Melanie Webb |

September 2, 2014 | 4 min read

With the anticipation of the upcoming Apple iWatch reaching Downtown Abbey levels, I can’t help but ask myself if this will herald the mass adoption of smartwatches among consumers and developers.

We all know that consumer technology is a tricky proposition. It can take off as rapidly as the iPhone or it can limp into obscurity like the Microsoft Zune media players. Heck, even Google Glass took some time to win over developers, but it appears to have done so, resulting in customers waiting on tenterhooks. However, it is important not to forget the impact that the feedback from early adopters has on the final product.

As an early adopter myself, I couldn’t wait to tear into my LG G Android smart watch, running the first version of Android wear. This watch teased the dream of a connected device which would be seamless and user friendly, but also offer the freedom from looking at my phone every couple of minutes.

I was pleased when the buzzing of the watch indicated that I had a new Facebook friend request. This pleasure quickly simmered down to displeasure at being alerted whenever I received one of my hundred daily emails. I enquired how to set the email notifications for only my VIP contacts and was very disappointed to hear that this was impossible. My enthusiasm started to waiver and shortly after, the notification overload began to commence.

And here lies the problem with smartwatches – they are not meant to be independent devices which make our social and professional lives less complicated, they are companion devices which work with the plethora of devices we already have. Without your smartphone, smartwatches have little function other than telling the time, starting a timer or stopwatch.

This shortfall also disappointed me when I went for my first run with the watch; not only did I still need to awkwardly carry my phone, I also was wearing a bulky watch on my wrist.

The reality is that the smartwatch is just a small extension of your phone screen, and while it’s more convenient for consuming small bits of information on your wrist, I often want to perform more detailed tasks in response to these notifications. So I end up taking out my phone more often than before, resulting in an even more dependent relationship with my mobile phone.

This then begs the question – do I really need another device to manage my other devices? Might we have jumped the ‘digital shark’ with an iWatch? We are already starting to see a combination of different devices to ensure that we minimise device overload such as ‘phablets’ and the tablet/PC hybrids.

There is a lot of potential with smartwatches and if there is any company that can make it appealing, I’m sure it’s Apple. For now, I believe that mass adoption of smartwatches is still a dream.

To make it a reality, the device needs connectivity away from the smartphone, a slick and comfortable design, better battery life, and most importantly a smarter notification system which rapidly learns what the users cares about and what they don't.

We always see a spike in listings on our site of older devices on the launch day of a new model (four listings per minute post iPhone 5C/5s announcement) so I for one will be keeping an eye out to see the impact of the iWatch on sales of the Samsung Galaxy Gear and the Android LG G.

Melanie Yencken is lead designer at Gumtree.

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