March 28, 2019 at 08:59Tick-tock: the time of the smartwatch is gone, but now they are pretending to be bracelets
Let's talk about smart watches. I wrote several topics about smart watches on Habré ( once and twice ), then the market died a bit, and now it is in such an interesting position - thanks to the ability of fitness bracelets to pretend to be full-time watches - I want to talk again in the comments. What is the trick: in 2018, it became very clearly that users didn’t give up the functionality of smart watches, especially if this leads to a battery burn. Everything is clear with the Apple Watch - there is its own atmosphere and they are bought for many reasons, often not directly related to functionality. With the Samsung Galaxy, the situation is similar. But there and there are complaints about a weak battery.
And here it becomes especially interesting, because one of the important use cases is sleep monitoring and a smart alarm clock. And what kind of monitoring can we talk about if the clock needs to be charged every other day and is it most convenient to do it at night? And it turns out that the sales volumes of Xiaomi Amazfit Bip confirm this well that users will prefer to hammer smart watches on rarely used chips for the sake of long battery life.
It is interesting that large manufacturers began to catch this trend and now I have in my hands the Huawei Watch GT with a life of 10 days, on the example of which I propose to see what they will lure us in the near future.
Lyrical digression:
If you will, I will once again repeat from a post in 2016 what capabilities, in my humble opinion, are smart watches. If you focus on the baseline, they allow you to:
As you can see, fitness bracelets do just fine with everything except the first and last points. Moreover, I believe Xiaomi Amazfit Bip is the best fitness / price / quality bracelet and have been wearing it for over a year now. The bracelet, even if it pretends to be a smart watch, weighs little, lives on the battery for 3 weeks, is waterproof, vibrates distinctly and, in general, works purely from a functional point of view, sorry for the pun, like a watch. However, alas, he looks like Montana from childhood (those with 16 tunes). And I would sacrifice one week of life for a better display.
And here at the end of last year, Huawei launches an externally beautiful Watch Gt watch with an Amoled display and which should last 2 weeks on battery power. The axis, of course, is its own, because Android eats the battery as if into itself. At the same time, the basic functionality, judging by the description, is preserved.
So, the watch is on hand and now, after a month of working with it, let me tell you what, apparently, premium fitness bracelets with a brace for smart watches will look like. Why premium? Because these watches in retail are 12-15 thousand and this is the price for a high-quality display and an "adult" appearance.
So, before us is again a fitness bracelet, only now with a good screen. Really, with a very good screen. But in order to survive 2 weeks (in reality, with a constant measurement of the pulse, this is about 10 days), you have to save the charge in everything. Firstly, there is no Always on mode specific to an Amoled display. Secondly, it comes to the ridiculous: the watch vibrates from the incoming message, but the screen does not light up - the watch waits for you to raise / turn your wrist and only after that turn on the screen.
In general, the general feeling is that the watch’s functionality is still damp. Those. everything related to fitness - performed perfectly. It is clear that this direction was honed when working with Honor Band bracelets - by the way, I think they are nicer than the same Xiaomi Mi Band. However, as soon as you switch to the watch’s functionality, Sparta begins.
For example, a watch has very few dials. Only 11. Yes, each new firmware (they come out often - as many as three pieces arrived in a month) adds on the dial. But most of them are useless and useless, and the appearance with the indicators can not be adjusted. In addition, there is no access to third-party dials either, which is very sad.
Interestingly, an easy change of the dials was originally incorporated into the system - holding the finger on the main screen allows you to change them very quickly. But, again, there is nothing much to change.
But let's get back to the functionality of the fitness tracker. Over the past time, while smart watches have been stamping in place, manufacturers have honed their applications. And everything related to sports and monitoring of basic parameters is doing very well. It is curious that the “Huawei Health” application is responsible for the relationship with the watch, which again functions in conjunction with bracelets. Below is a video with switching on fitness modes and an illustration of the application. This is faster and more visual than taking photos of the interface.
Is such a device worth 12 thousand: an interesting question.
Pros : excellent display, good fitness functionality, long battery life.
Cons : few dials, lack of Always On mode, notifications are shown only when you turn the clock to yourself.
Conclusions : One gets the feeling that for Huawei, this watch is a trial ball. A sort of probing the market and user sentiment. If sales go, the firmware will be sawn, there will be new devices. Moreover, not only Huawei, because the smart watch market, although promising, has clearly stood up.
Judging by what I see, many are ready to buy a device on condition that they charge at least once a week and have beautiful / functional displays. And manufacturers are actively groping for options for both beautiful and long-lived devices. Well, the functionality of smart watches, with their own applications and other blackjack, remains on the sidelines.
And here it becomes especially interesting, because one of the important use cases is sleep monitoring and a smart alarm clock. And what kind of monitoring can we talk about if the clock needs to be charged every other day and is it most convenient to do it at night? And it turns out that the sales volumes of Xiaomi Amazfit Bip confirm this well that users will prefer to hammer smart watches on rarely used chips for the sake of long battery life.
It is interesting that large manufacturers began to catch this trend and now I have in my hands the Huawei Watch GT with a life of 10 days, on the example of which I propose to see what they will lure us in the near future.
Lyrical digression:
If you will, I will once again repeat from a post in 2016 what capabilities, in my humble opinion, are smart watches. If you focus on the baseline, they allow you to:
- Watch time on beautiful and easily replaceable dials. This, no matter what marketers and application designers say, remains the most important thing. A watch is a thing that pleases and status itself. Accordingly, attracting attention. Especially smart watches.
- Allow not to miss calls and be able to reset them with one button.
- Receive notifications from instant messengers, including two-factor authentication messages. In addition to jokes, the presence of a watch makes it convenient and almost not disturbing.
- Save battery power on your phone by turning it on less frequently.
- Work as a sleep tracker and wake up with a smart alarm clock
- Be a fitness tracker with the ability to export information to other applications.
- Control the player.
As you can see, fitness bracelets do just fine with everything except the first and last points. Moreover, I believe Xiaomi Amazfit Bip is the best fitness / price / quality bracelet and have been wearing it for over a year now. The bracelet, even if it pretends to be a smart watch, weighs little, lives on the battery for 3 weeks, is waterproof, vibrates distinctly and, in general, works purely from a functional point of view, sorry for the pun, like a watch. However, alas, he looks like Montana from childhood (those with 16 tunes). And I would sacrifice one week of life for a better display.
And here at the end of last year, Huawei launches an externally beautiful Watch Gt watch with an Amoled display and which should last 2 weeks on battery power. The axis, of course, is its own, because Android eats the battery as if into itself. At the same time, the basic functionality, judging by the description, is preserved.
So, the watch is on hand and now, after a month of working with it, let me tell you what, apparently, premium fitness bracelets with a brace for smart watches will look like. Why premium? Because these watches in retail are 12-15 thousand and this is the price for a high-quality display and an "adult" appearance.
So, before us is again a fitness bracelet, only now with a good screen. Really, with a very good screen. But in order to survive 2 weeks (in reality, with a constant measurement of the pulse, this is about 10 days), you have to save the charge in everything. Firstly, there is no Always on mode specific to an Amoled display. Secondly, it comes to the ridiculous: the watch vibrates from the incoming message, but the screen does not light up - the watch waits for you to raise / turn your wrist and only after that turn on the screen.
In general, the general feeling is that the watch’s functionality is still damp. Those. everything related to fitness - performed perfectly. It is clear that this direction was honed when working with Honor Band bracelets - by the way, I think they are nicer than the same Xiaomi Mi Band. However, as soon as you switch to the watch’s functionality, Sparta begins.
For example, a watch has very few dials. Only 11. Yes, each new firmware (they come out often - as many as three pieces arrived in a month) adds on the dial. But most of them are useless and useless, and the appearance with the indicators can not be adjusted. In addition, there is no access to third-party dials either, which is very sad.
Interestingly, an easy change of the dials was originally incorporated into the system - holding the finger on the main screen allows you to change them very quickly. But, again, there is nothing much to change.
But let's get back to the functionality of the fitness tracker. Over the past time, while smart watches have been stamping in place, manufacturers have honed their applications. And everything related to sports and monitoring of basic parameters is doing very well. It is curious that the “Huawei Health” application is responsible for the relationship with the watch, which again functions in conjunction with bracelets. Below is a video with switching on fitness modes and an illustration of the application. This is faster and more visual than taking photos of the interface.
Is such a device worth 12 thousand: an interesting question.
Pros : excellent display, good fitness functionality, long battery life.
Cons : few dials, lack of Always On mode, notifications are shown only when you turn the clock to yourself.
Conclusions : One gets the feeling that for Huawei, this watch is a trial ball. A sort of probing the market and user sentiment. If sales go, the firmware will be sawn, there will be new devices. Moreover, not only Huawei, because the smart watch market, although promising, has clearly stood up.
Judging by what I see, many are ready to buy a device on condition that they charge at least once a week and have beautiful / functional displays. And manufacturers are actively groping for options for both beautiful and long-lived devices. Well, the functionality of smart watches, with their own applications and other blackjack, remains on the sidelines.