all irrelevant..
smart watches are irrelevant...
Pff, you're irrelevant
Story time:I've always had a thing for watches. Thin and light, digital, analog, GID, backlit, etc... The reality is, their sole purpose was to tell time. But this is the 21st century, the information age. A phone is no longer a phone, it's a mobile computer, it's a cloud device, it's connected.
The watch was always something that could be improved.
Nike has made some good digital watches in the past. I had internal compass, altimeter, speed. Even weather forecasting abilities. This was very useful when I was out camping, travelling, etc...
Then Nike found another niche. Let's let the user control their mobile device via their watch. And the Nike Amp+ was born. I loved this thing. I could get the time, I could have it sync with my workout schedules, I could control volume, track, play & pause, etc, all from my wrist. I would be working around the office, or working in the garage, with my ipod connected to my stereo, changing tracks via my watch. And it was awesome.
Flash forward.I saw that there were several companies getting into the smart watch space. For me it needed to meet a few criteria.
(1) good battery life
(2) Bluetooth connectivity, no more wireless adapters
(3) physical buttons, because I can feel the controls without having to look
(4) the thinner, the better.
(5) open development.
I picked up my black pebble as part of the Kickstarter campaign and I love it. The pebble really is an amazing device, and I really hope they keep raising capital to keep growing because their first product was great, but like the 1st gen ipod it can get much better.
Right now I can track my phone with my watch, I can activate my camera and take photos remotely, I can read all my text messages on my wrist without having to pull my phone out of my pocket, I can answer or decline calls from my wrist which is awesome when I have my headset in listening to music (I pick up the call and when it ends my music goes back to playing), I can change my music tracks and read what's playing, I can see stock prices, weather updates, load multiple watch faces, I can even get GPS directions on my wrist.
Also the integrated apps is a big plus. Run keeper for example will let me see my distance traveled and track times which helps me when running/training.
I was watching an interview of the CEO from pebble and he said it perfectly. The pebble is not about putting the entire phone on your wrist, it's about managing the flow of small, important bits of data, and putting it in a place that's convenient, your wrist.
Also, I get over a week of charge. I bought some cheap charging cables on eBay for 5 bucks, so I have 1 charging cable at the 3 places I'm usually at (work, home office, bed). I don't charge it often, but when I take it off in any of those spots I clip on the magnetic charging cable so it isn't bad.
Three words for any smart-watch manufacturer reading this:
"Wireless Induction Charging"