What Is The Job Of A Smart Watch?

As technology gets smaller and more powerful, it finds its way into everyday objects. Computers are now at a stage where they not only fit into your pocket, but you can wear them. Currently, there is a mad scramble to figure out what form computers will evolve into after the smartphone. Many companies large and small are placing their bets on the smart watch.

Wearables, of course, come in many shapes and sizes. Over the past six months, as I’ve been scouring the country looking for new products to launch at the next DEMO in November, 2014 (tickets here), I’ve seen startups working on all manner of Wearables from rings and glasses to bracelets and bras. (Wearables will be a big theme at DEMO, with several sessions and a hackathon in partnership with Wearable World devoted to the topic). For a variety of reasons, as far as Wearables are concerned, 2014 is turning into the year of the smart watch — as opposed to Google Glass, which is taking a hiatus.

The Apple Watch (photo via Engadget)

The technology is finally ready in terms of chips, sensors, and software. Everyone from Apple and Samsung to Motorola and even Microsoft is introducing a smart watch this year. Smaller players are also getting into the mix. The Pebble Watch helped put smart watches on everyone’s radar a couple years ago thanks to its $10 million Kickstarter campaign. Last week musical artist will.i.am just announced his PULS “cuff” (don’t call it a watch), and there are several stealth startups out there working on their own smart watch concepts.

Yet most of the smart watches I’ve seen fall short of introducing a new computing paradigm. The reason they fall short is because they try to cram too much into these devices. Most of these first-generation smart watches literally look like smartphones shrunk to fit on your wrist. They are communication devices and health/fitness monitors and nascent app platforms. Some of them even let you make phone calls. Why?

I don’t need to make calls from my watch Dick-Tracy-style. There is a phone in my pocket for that. And any app that requires more than a few taps of input is also probably a bad idea. Voice input is an option over tiny keyboards, but if we actually liked to talk to computers, we’d all be using Siri.

The designers of these smart watches seem to approach their task by asking themselves which smartphone features can they fit into a watch. Instead, they should be asking themselves: What is the job a smart watch should do, and how can it do it better than a smartphone?

Let me take an initial stab at answering this question. And if you have a better answer, please add it as a comment.

The Moto 360 disappears back to a sleek watch face when in standby mode.

1. Be An Object Of Envy. A watch is as much a fashion accessory as it is a utilitarian instrument. It is a statement about who you are. So it needs to look great, not like a clunky digital brick. The sleeker and smaller, the better. It should be an item of envy. One of the advantages of a smart watch is that the screen can change to any watch face that fits your style. Most of the big players entering this market offer a decent selection of faces. (The Moto 360, for instance, captures the classic watch aesthetic with its round screen, while the Apple Watch offers a multitude of customizable faces). But the devices themselves are a bit thickset. They should be unobtrusive and elegant. Just like with phone apps, buttons can appear and disappear based on what you are doing. All excess cruft should be eliminated so that you can concentrate on the task at hand.
2. Help Me Manage My Time. If I just want to know what time it is, any watch will do (or my phone clock, for that matter). A smart watch should help me manage my time with apps that are tied to my calendar, and know where I am and where I need to be. Notifications should pop up for my next meeting, along with a map showing me how to get there. And if I’m running late, it should help alert the people I will be meeting.
3. Be A Smart Alert Center. Watches are designed to be glanced at, not stared at for long periods. It’s all about alerts and keeping the day on track. The notifications metaphor borrowed from the smartphone is the right place to start, but the messages that make it to your smart watch need to be pared down to only the most essential and time-sensitive. Text messages, high-priority emails, and even Twitter replies and DMs might make sense, as well as other alerts you’ve set for news or stocks or you home security system. It should also show me contextual alerts based on my location or other cues similar to what Google Now or Foursquare attempt to do today. (“Hungry for lunch? It’s 12:30 PM. There’s a great panini shop nearby that your friend Frank goes to all the time.”) But context is key. If my wrist buzzed every time I got a notification from a random app like I do today on my iPhone, I would want to strangle someone.
4. Track My Body and Environment. Wearables started out as sensors packed into digital pedometers like the early Fitbit, then evolved into fitness-tracking bracelets like the Fitbit Flex, Nike FuelBand, and Jawbone UP. The new smart watches can track not only movement, but heart rate and other physical attributes. Wouldn’t it be great if they could also track your environment and alert you if pollution levels hit a certain threshold? “Now might be a good time to go for a run, smog levels are low.” Simply tracking this data because the sensors make it possible is not enough. There must be a feedback loop that drives you to action.
5. Don’t Drain The Battery. There is a tendency to try to push as many smartphone features into smart watches as possible. But that tendency should be resisted. Restraint should be the overriding design principle when it comes to smart watches. The most important counterweight to overloading these Wearables with too many features is battery life. Most smart watches today won’t even last a day without recharging. Bigger screens mean bigger batteries (just like with phones), but bigger batteries can also get hot and uncomfortable. Restraint is a beautiful thing. If your watch was constantly overheating, would you keep wearing it? A better design approach is to keep all battery-hogging apps and features off the smart watch in the first place. There is nothing quite as useless as a dead screen on your wrist.

I admit that these are very subjective answers. Wearables are more subjective in their appeal than other computing devices because they are more personal and operate closer to the skin. But asking what job a smart watch should do is definitely the right question — one that device makers need to keep asking themselves until they find the right answer.

(Top background image via CNET/ Sarah Tew)