Maybe you meant “Smart watches ALONE”?

A few months ago, Business World argued that there are several factors why “soon a time will come when smartwatches will not just be an extension to the smartphone but will substitute them”.

Some of those factors, namely these:

• “Smaller & more portable”
• “Lesser screen times, fewer distractions”

are features with a great potential to both reduce pollution and concretely increase the quality of our lives.

But I fear this “replacement” won’t happen, not in ways that would make a difference at least, for a couple of reasons. On one hand (literally!) gadgets that are smaller are also less visible, that is less useful as status symbols. The other reason is this:

Sooner or later, smart watches will be surely marketed in tandem with smart glasses. It will just happen, because smart glasses will be much more than the easiest way to make smart watches much more usable and useful. Smart glasses will be this:

that is, they will also complete and enhance watches as fashion accessories, just like shoes are bought to match bags, ties to match jackets, and each item justifies buying the other.

In conclusion, “lesser screen times, fewer distractions” just thanks to smart watches is likely to remain wishful thinking. It is much more important and necessary to demand the one thing without which no glasses or watches could decently be called “smart”, that is: full interoperability between all watches and all glasses, regardless of who makes them.

Image sources:

• The glasses that the planet and your wallet need
• IBM folding smartwatch, 2019
• “Covetable”, matched watches and sunglasses by Ferragamo, 2015