I’ll Never Buy a Smartwatch and Neither Will You


In this edition of The Baer Facts, I talk with Kyle Lacy of ExactTarget about the new Samsung Galaxy Gear, a smartwatch that hopes to popularize a new consumer device category in the way the iPad did a few years ago.

Wrist Factors

I’m not a fan of this technology, as it is the answer to a question that nobody is really asking.

Evidently, a big feature of the Galaxy Gear watch (and the recent Pebble watch that was spawned on Kickstarter, and does similar stuff) is that you can answer your phone from your watch. Well guess what? I can do the same thing with a bluetooth earpiece, or with several brands of less conspicuous headphones. Also, I don’t really get that many phone calls these days, as most people know that it’s easier/faster to email me.

And….are we REALLY so lazy as a society….are we really SO #FirstWorldProblems that we cannot possibly spend the energy to reach into our pocket to grab a slim device to answer a call? Between Google Glass and this smartwatch, are we actually TRYING to make our own phalanges obsolete? What do we have against fingers, anyway?

Things Are Not What They Appear To Be

My other issue is the larger societal trend (also a total #FirstWorldProblem of the wealthy and bored) of making things do other things. Why do glasses also have to be a computer? Why does a watch also have to be a phone? Why does the molecular gastronomy movement require that we make food look and taste like other types of food, just for the sake of art?

The day I’m so lazy I can’t answer my own phone, and need a watch to check email or answer calls, is the day that I personally have jumped the technology shark.

I’m all for the march of progress, but the smartwatch is running in place.

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