I really don't see this as a serious concern. I think Apple has a strong market share and it will continue to increase barring some kind of big Apple screw up.
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Apple's Wearables Shipments Increasing, but Losing Market Share to Smaller Competitors
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I don't wear my AW to bed, I put it on the charger for convenience. Considering all that it does, it is amazing that it is as small as it is. I do not consider to have 'poor' battery life. I put it on at 6am and take it off at 10 or 11. Never had battery run done during use.
My HomePod connects all the time. Yours may not be receiving a strong enough signal, remember, wireless signals diminish with the square of the distance.
Maybe it's because I'm not trying to lose weight, but that really is pretty useless to me.
I totally get that the AW is really useful for some people, but it definitely isn't for everyone. If Apple gave it a two-day battery life and a new design I'd be more inclined to wear it every day.
Also it desperately needs Qi wireless charging, like come on, that should have happened 3 years ago!
I never take off my band, so that it also tracks my sleep quality and can wake me up in the morning silently.
Only allow WiFi connection is such a waste for Homepod's sound quality.
DUH. Obviously, you are dead. Or maybe undead, although that’s pretty rare… have you accepted a ring of power from someone sketchy, recently?
nope - because you're used to a phone being tethered to a daily charging cable. Not a watch.
Maybe I'm old school but I like a watch that sits quietly on the wrist needing minimal interaction. But I also like the health tracking benefits of wearing a modern device 24x7. Conflicted, I know.
I also dont like being able to go on a long weekend without needing yet another charging cable to keep track of. If they made the watch and iPhone compatible with the same charger, it might change things. Also seems like they could skip some of the "smart" features, focus on a purely health tracking device and get a 5 day battery life. Why not make that option Apple?
Really. I never saw that touted anywhere. My Series 2 has no trouble lasting 23+ hours on a full charge, but it doesn't reach full charge in sub-one hour charge times. So if I charge it during the day instead of overnight, I end up forgetting about it. My dream scenario would be a watch that could charge while I showered and lasted until that same time next day.
I have to assume newer models would be even better (with always-on disabled at least) so next year's model is sounding even more appealing.
I'd actually like the opposite. I keep all the health monitoring stuff disabled on mine. I use it for all the notifications, quick replies, easy timers, setting reminders (though that stopped working over a year ago), and recording outside walks/jogs (the time, pace, and course stuff, not heartbeats and whatever else the skinside sensor does).
The newest Mi Band 6 plus has an edge-to-edge screen (without notch🙃), support notifications, NFC tags, instants pay, smart home integration (MiHome), speech assistant, find your phones. 2 weeks battery life. only charges you 40 bucks.
It is a qualified competitor, as far as the trend is not to wear an AppleWatch *plus* a MiBand
It's a fair point, Im aware of the Mi Band 6, and actually considered it before going for a Watch SE, just because I trust Apple more in terms of key metrics and due to its integration.
They do overlap a bit, for a specific segment of the market, however, soon I discovered how much more the Watch does, and actually exchanged my initial non-cellular SE for the cellular model. Because it relays your phone's notifications, and has apps of its own, plus calls & messages, it opened the door to leave the phone at home for certain occasions. You can still be fully connected, something the Mi Band doesnt do.
Plus, I'll argue the Watch is something you wear as part of your outfit so to speak, it adds to your look, like a traditional Watch, an area where, subjectively of course, I think the Mi Band struggles, though the edge-to-edge screen and the value you get for $50 dls are really impressive.
I guess this is the same discussion as with the Smartphone market, should $75-$125 dls Android phones be counted along the iPhone and Galaxy S of the world.
I got a Series 5 and turned the "always on" part of the display off in favor of longer battery life.
The thing I’ve done with the Watch charger is to get a USB-C version, then I only bring one of my 20W USB-C bricks and can charge my iPhone (12 Pro Max), iPad Pro and my Watch. The watch takes the least amount of time, so it’s easy to charge it first thing in the morning, which is what I typically do even when I’m home. My 5 lasts me about 30 hours normally, but I don’t use the always-on feature, so that helps extend its usable time.
Smart features are the things that set the Watch apart from the competition - no way they’re going to give things up to get to a 5 day battery life. Chances are much greater that they’ll improve the efficiency of the chips used, the screen, battery, etc. in order to get to maybe 48 hour battery life. There just isn’t a great reason to push to more than that, given most people are accepting of charging their phones every night, so doing the same with a Watch isn’t a big ask.
If anything, I would love to see Apple create a hybrid mechanical (automatic) Watch that provides some battery charging ability to extend the usage time. But that’s just because I love my Seiko Automatic watch, specifically because of its ability to go for weeks at a time before needing to be ”charged” (spun or worn).
Almost as if on cue.
www.aboveavalon.com
Above Avalon: Apple Has a Decade-Long Lead in Wearables
Last week, Apple quietly unveiled one of the more remarkable pieces of technology that has been developed in the past few years. AssistiveTouch allows one to control an Apple Watch without actually touching the device. Instead, a series of hand and finger gestures can be used to control everything f
www.aboveavalon.com
yeah, I should probably try this. Or just charge it at night and skip sleep tracking. I’ve walked out of the house in the A.M. too many times w/o the watch because i forgot it on the charger.
Kinetic or solar charging would be cool. Doesnt seem to make that much of a difference on the Garmin w/ solar but an extra day would be worth it. Currently I can get ~36 hrs on my AW6 with AoD and lots of notifications / iPhone mirroring off. Not bad, but not enough for a camping weekend.
That’s pretty awesome. Both points are good use cases.
A sport band is not even remotely the same as an Apple Watch other than it has a band.
You always make the same nonsensical statement. With Apple having less than 30% market share and that includes a huge number of Air Pods, of course there is a smartwatch market.
It's a sentiment echoed by a number of analysts as well.
Google IO: Google’s Reality, Workspace and Smart Canvas, Wear + Tizen
Google’s IO seemed boring, but taken in totality, revealed Google’s ambition to create a new reality. Plus Smart Canvas and the partnership between Wear OS and Samsung’s Tizen.
stratechery.com
The smaller the device, the more integration matters, and nobody does it better than Apple.
My observation is that this stems from 2 issues.
1) Wearables are still being downplayed as nothing more than smartphone accessories, rather than the next paradigm in computing (smart speakers and folding phones have been given undue attention), and so many companies are still not taking them seriously.
2) Those who know that Apple is on to something simply can't respond in any meaningful manner (round smartwatches? Seriously?!?). They just don’t have an installed base of nearly a billion people on first-party smartphone hardware that can support new wearable devices out of the gate. Competitors just don’t know how to build products that people want to be seen wearing in public either. Last I heard, Samsung will stop making Tizen smartwatches and team up with Google and Fitbit, but as long as they continue to not understand the fundamental reason people buy and wear wearables (treating it as a cheap smartphone accessory), they are not going to be able to catch up to Apple.
This results in much of this so-called "competition" being little more than glorified step-trackers, yet they are something being placed on the same pedestal as the Apple Watch and treated like they are supposed to offer some sort of meaningful competition to Apple (they don't).
In addition, the Apple Watch is showing us that people are placing an increasing amount of value on utility on the wrist. The Swiss watch market is simply not unable to compete with Apple on that utility, and so I also continue to hold a pessimistic view on legacy watches.
My bet is there will continue to be less, not more, competition as time goes on. And all this is coming together to pave the way for utility on a new part of our bodies - our eyes. Apple is slowly but surely putting together a formidable wearables ecosystem which I don't see the rest of the market being able to respond in any meaningful way, because again, none of them play the integration game like Apple.