Smartwatch growth has been weak and forecasts look grim through 2021

Cal Jeffrey

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Remember when wearables like the Apple Watch and Fitbit trackers were supposed to be the next big trend in tech? Even tech analysis company eMarketer was predicting 63.7 percent growth in 2015. When the numbers came out at the end of the year, the 24.7 percent adoption rate prompted the firm to adjust their optimism for the market.

This holiday season, eMarketer suspected that more affordable smart speakers would outsell wearable devices. Cindy Liu, an analyst with the firm, attributes the lackluster growth to the expense of wearables.

"Consumers have yet to find a reason to justify the cost of a smartwatch, which can sometimes cost as much as a smartphone. Instead, for this holiday season, we expect smart speakers to be the gift of choice for many tech enthusiasts, because of their lower price points."

The formerly optimistic forecasts of 2015 are not looking so good anymore and appear to be in decline. While growth will continue, it will be shallow for the next several years barring significant changes in marketing and intended use.

According to Liu, "the number of adult wearable users in the US will grow 11.9 percent in 2018. Wearable usage will continue to grow over the forecast period, but the rate will slow to single digits beginning in 2019."

She expects that any further growth in the market will be attributed to new adopters. Liu also points out that wearables are dominated by fitness tracking and believes that is part of what is keeping the devices from becoming "must-have items."

It is worth noting that men primarily dominated early adoption of wearables. As the fitness tracking capabilities became more emphasized, the demographic made a shift toward women. As it sits now, men seem to prefer multifunctional smartwatches while women tend to gravitate toward focused fitness trackers.

Unless there is another shift in functionality (Apple's shift to cellular might be an attempt) or dramatic price reductions, analysts will remain conservative when forecasting market penetration.

Graph courtesy eMarketer

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Lol, everyone is looking at red line and not understanding that use is actually growing. I will never wear one since I haven't worn a watch since my first smartphone.
 
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the health aspects are literally the only part that appeal to me and anyone I know and they arent polished and reliable enough yet - and its missing some critical privacy infrastructure.

A Fitbit and a smart watch are two different things, and I highly doubt privacy is a main concern with consumers.

If you took out the health crap, that space could be better used for stuff people actually care about, like performance and battery life.
 
the health aspects are literally the only part that appeal to me and anyone I know and they arent polished and reliable enough yet - and its missing some critical privacy infrastructure.

A Fitbit and a smart watch are two different things, and I highly doubt privacy is a main concern with consumers.

If you took out the health crap, that space could be better used for stuff people actually care about, like performance and battery life.
the "health crap" isnt limiting performance or battery life - literally only battery tech is. performance is almost already a nonissue.

if there is no health features in a smartwatch, what is it good for outside of notifications and telling time? that is, unless someone finds a way to feasibly make them a full phone replacement.

The reason smartwatch growth sucks is because no one wants to spend $300 on a glorified phone lockscreen for your wrist. Adding good health and fitness features is half the reason the market is still growing at all.
 
The smart watch makers keep missing the basic concept. People who wear watches wear them to a) tell the time/date, and b) as a stylish piece of jewelery that will last for many years with minimal maintenance. If you want to add smart features to a watch, it's got to accomplish a) and b) and add value by providing notifications and/or other features without diminishing the watch's primary jobs.

I wear a watch every day. I have 8 of them. 2 are smart watches (a Pebble Steel and a Moto 360 Sport), and I've given up on them. I do really like getting notifications, alarms, and weather at a glance without having to pull my phone out of my pocket. And I really found myself using the step counter on the Moto 360 almost every day.

The Moto 360 has better features, but the Pebble Steel is by far the better watch. On the Moto 360, the notifications actually interfere with the things ability to function as a watch. If it can't tell me the time because it really wants me to know I have 10 email notifications, it simply fails as a watch. The Pebble managed notifications much better without interfering with it's primary functionality, but it's black and white and kind of dated... I could go into great detail about their short comings, and maybe I would have liked the new versions of the Pebble better. Tough to say, Pebble is no more, and I've lost my appetite for smart watches.

Truthfully, neither of them lived up to my standards of the watch being a piece of jewelry. The Pebble Steel was close, but kind of boxy and the metal bracelet that came with it was trash. Over time, it became very difficult to get replacement bracelets when they repeatedly didn't live up to my expectations. And every one of them had nickle in the steel, which gives me a rash when I sweat. That happens to about 10% of the population, it's not just me. Watch companies like Seiko know this and nickle free steel. The Moto 360 Sport was of course more a sport bracelet type affair, but I got that model specifically to avoid nickle. Neither one of them wow'ed anyone.

That brings up the next problems for smart watches - maintenance and longevity. Charging the Moto 360 every day, often twice per day was ridiculous. The Pebble was better, I could get almost a week out of it (and still can, it's proven pretty durable and the battery is fine still). In regular watches, you replace the battery once every 3 to 5 years or so. But for both of them, they're out of date and no longer supported. The Pebble is 3 years old and the Moto 360 is 2. They are both vulnerable to Blueborne and they are not going to get patched. They will be vulnerable to whatever other Bluetooth vulnerabilities come out.

I don't mind spending $300+ on a good watch. I am not going to spend $300+ on a watch that will only last 2 years. That's insane. I want a watch that looks good, tells me the time and date at a glance, and will last long enough to justify the purchase price. As much as I like some of the smart watch features, none of the smart watches available live up to my expectations of a watch. If it's not a good enough watch and fails it's primary functions, the smart watch part doesn't even matter.
 
For what they are, they are severely overpriced. The function that they are needed for the most, should not be packaged in a smart watch to be price gauged. Everything else needs a larger screen and battery for which the watch does not have. Cut out the BS and sell the watch for a time piece with Bluetooth connected health sensors, you might have something.
 
No one cares about the health aspects that's why.
the health aspects are literally the only part that appeal to me and anyone I know and they arent polished and reliable enough yet - and its missing some critical privacy infrastructure.

Same here...& is also why Fitbit-style fitness trackers (rather than "smartwatches") are more appealing to me. Heck, the primary reason we're looking at replacing our WeGo Hybrid trackers is because the band on mine is worn out -- it's at the point where I've used superglue multiple times on it & have it wrapped in Scotch tape for backup -- with the secondary reason being that Apple isn't really supporting the WeGo app anymore (when my wife's phone did its little fritzup for the update to iOS 10 & I had to restore from a backup -- which luckily kept her photos, but unluckily didn't keep her music, thanks EVER so much, Apple, for that exciting time -- we had to dig up a website link that let her reinstall the app, since the App Store kept insisting it wasn't there anymore). But even though the FitBit Charge 2 seems to be one of the better matches in terms of its capability, I've held off a bit because the $150 USD price just seems a bit...high. I don't know, maybe we were spoiled because we picked these up on the cheap (older model, I guess) for maybe $50-60 apiece...but since I already have a smartphone, & I'm debating a $150 cost for a non-smartwatch fitness tracker, I just can't see myself spending for a "smart" watch that really doesn't provide much additional benefit.
 
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