Microsoft SPOT and the Beginning of Smartwatches
Just like when Apple’s iPhone released in 2007, the Apple Watch dominates a still relatively unpopulated market. Their strongest competitor today is Fitbit, but being branded as a fitness tracker more than a smartwatch it sometimes seems like Apple is alone at the top. While the touchscreen display and wireless technology are impressive, the idea to bring more information to your wrist was already thought of. Over 11 years before the first Apple Watch, Microsoft developed a technology known as Smart Personal Objects Technology, also known as Microsoft SPOT. Microsoft created this technology to serve its users content like the weather, stock prices, and the news. People could view this content on multiple devices like their coffee maker for some reason and watches.
Watches were the star of the show, with many popular brands like Tissot and Fossil working with Microsoft to create what could arguably be called one of the first smartwatches ever. Since it was developed in 2003 prior to the explosion of technologies like bluetooth and wifi, Microsoft had to utilize interesting technology in order to make these devices work. In lieu of even something more readily available like cellular technology, Microsoft opted for FM transmitters, a technology they called DirectBand. The service wasn’t free either, with a yearly cost of $60. Was the service worth five dollars a month though?
Judging by the short lifespan of SPOT, it appears it wasn’t. Even though you could even get more personalized updates, like email and messenger notifications over the service, it seems like that wasn’t enough to pull in consumers in the early 2000s. By 2008, Microsoft discontinued SPOT, instead opting to continue their work on other ambitious ventures like Zune, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone (which became Windows Phone 8.1), and Windows Mobile 10 (which replaced Windows Phone 8.1). If marketing came up with this naming convention, Microsoft needs to lay off its entire marketing division. On the opposite end of the spectrum though, is their R&D team, they definitely need a raise.
Bill Mitchell and his team at Microsoft created something truly ahead of its time. One close comparison that takes this to the extreme would be looking into Nintendo’s Virtual Boy. This head-mounted display was released about 20 years prior to Oculus becoming a company, but with the technology available in the mid-90s, the final product was pretty disappointing. I believe this is the case for the SPOT as well. The idea was great, but if the current technologies in the ecosystem around it aren’t able to support the device, it’s most likely doomed to fail. Microsoft is used to releasing commercial failures and is able to shrug them off and move on. It only takes one project, like the Xbox, to make all their failures like SPOT, Zune, and Windows phone worth it. Perhaps there were things Microsoft could’ve done differently to make SPOT watches more successful.
With its release in 2004, Microsoft’s SPOT lineup wasn’t competing with other one way technologies like pagers, since those were killed by cell phones. If SPOT was released just a decade prior, they would’ve been a very enticing competitor to the pager because of the watches' portability and ability to view messages rather than receive a phone number to call back. Other than just releasing the devices earlier, Microsoft had another option that may have been able to make the devices a hit, two-way communication. Before the 2010s, cellphone plans regularly consisted of caveats like “free nights and weekends” with some companies competing for users business by allowing free calls earlier than others. This was the same time when text messages cost money, and sending them could quickly run up a substantial tab by the end of the month. If Microsoft could have implemented two-way communication rather than one-way, especially for the $60 per year price, they may have been able to tap into a much larger market. Comparing this to some cell phone plans of the time where texts could cost anywhere from 10 to 20 cents, even with light use of 1000 messages sent or received in a month, Microsoft’s SPOT could have saved users $2340 per year.
Even without the ability to send messages, it’s a little surprising how poorly SPOT did. Maybe it could’ve been a lack of advertising, people unwilling to transition to things like MSN Messenger and Direct, or that people really just didn’t care to have more advanced tech on their wrists yet. Wearables weren’t really a thing yet, and even today in 2020, you don’t see many wearables outside of watches and maybe the occasional glasses. This might just be the struggle of making these devices unobtrusive, and that seems impossible (for now) especially with clunky products like google glass, but this wasn’t Microsoft’s problem either. The watches that were released don’t appear to be clunky, and aside from the monochrome screen, seem to look much more modern than comparable technologies of the time.
One watch specifically, The Abacus by Fossil, can be had for as little as $50 now on eBay, but it’s nothing more than a normal watch now without the MSN Direct service. While browsing the watches on eBay, I actually found the link to activate the service and decided to follow it to see what type of “sorry this product is obsolete” message I would receive, and the link itself is actually completely dead. Fear not, the Internet Wayback Machine is here to save us. First, the activation page. It seems as though it’s a relatively straight forward process, with users entering the code displayed on their watch on Microsoft’s activation website, signing into MSN, and paying the fee and they’re ready to go. Going to the main site, direct.microsoft.com, allows a visitor to see what channels are available and check the coverage map to see if the service is available in their area, but nothing lasts forever.
Visiting this site anytime after January 1st, 2012 would present you with a page informing you that this service is no longer supported. It also informs you that your watch’s offline features will still work, but everything else is gone for good, making your watch a reminder of what used to be. Alas, nothing in life is guaranteed, and the MSN Direct service is a testament to that.
