Not the wearables we’re waiting for – Dan Frommer

Wearables continue to attract headlines. Yet there’s little interest in the current crop of tiny devices outside of the geek bubble.

The hardware is often technically impressive. There's a lot of processing power packed into a tiny space. And in many cases plenty of sensors and other features.

Yet, most of the time the hardware is still clumsy. Often too clumsy to be practical. Early wearable software is still based on formats more suited to bigger screen devices like smartphones.

Not ready for prime time

And the supporting services aren’t ready either. Few of today's 'wearables' are practical without reporting back to a phone handset or a laptop.

Dam Frommer nails this nicely in an essay at Quartz. He says:

While it’s impressive how small today’s computers can get, Google and its partners have still failed to demonstrate truly compelling use cases—let alone “rich user experiences”—that will create a mass market for $200+ smartwatches.

In almost every example during Singleton’s presentation, simply accessing a smartphone—an activity Google says its one billion Android users already do an average of 125 times a day—seems like it would be a more capable and comfortable solution. (And there’s no either/or option here—today’s smartwatches must be paired to a phone in the vicinity to access the internet.)