OK then, just putting it out there …. What with all the news on both the LG and Samsung Watchphones (you should be able to get the Orange one this week for about £500), I was just wondering, does anyone actually want one?
The device is a puzzler for me, because although I can see the somewhat sentimental idea of emulating TV Series such as Knight Rider (Michael could call KITT on his watch), in actuality I don’t think the device will be hugely practical.
For instance, are LG and Samsung hoping that people will defect from their normal mobile device? No chance. So is it a second device (with less functionality than the primary device)? Erm, no.
In which case is then just a gimmick for rich geeks to flash to people? Maybe. But that’s hardly an addressable market segment is it! I can also understand the idea of a PoC (proof of concept) for future crossover devices, but other than that, I think the watchphone is somewhat of an oddity.
Personally, I gave up wearing up a watch when I started using a mobile device, because of the on-board clock – now that many mobile devices use network time sync to keep their time accurate, they are in fact better than many watches that are out there – so for me the whole concept is a retrograde step.
But hey ho, I’m sure it will do some sort of ‘niche volumes’ in the outlets where it is carried. But if I wanted a relatively uncommon device that had a nice hardware ID, I’d be looking to spend the same money on eBay (or similar), looking for one of the Nokia 8xxx series devices.
You can read about the LG device here, and the Samsung device here.