Tech giants have pushed smart watches

Just like "The Queen of the Internet", the famous venture capital KPCB analyst Mary Miquel said, smart wearable devices are setting off a technological revolution. True, the smart wear market, represented by smart glasses and smart watches, has become a new battle for IT giants. Google, Sony, Apple, Samsung and Baidu have all poured into the market. In early September of this year, Sony demonstrated Smart Watch 2 at the German IFA. Samsung introduced the smart watch Galaxy Gear and called it "Samsung grabs its own smart watch Galaxy Gear before Apple and calls it "the technology of the next decade." Almost at the same time, Qualcomm is based in San Diego, USA. Then launched their own smart watch Toq.

The software giant does not show weakness. Microsoft is developing a touchable watch. Sources said that Microsoft originally planned to introduce a heart rate monitoring accessory, but then decided to focus on smart watches. Research firm Gart-ner predicts that by 2016, the market size of wearable smart electronics will reach $10 billion.

In fact, the IT giants are not only fighting for the equipment market, they are more concerned about how to create a new ecosystem behind the hardware. The integrated application of integrated video, camera, navigation, shopping, communication, and telemedicine is being secretly developed. Smart wear is knitting a new industrial chain, which leads to a new value-added service model. At home, Internet companies such as Baidu, Husk, Jingdong, etc. are also beginning to try. For example, Baidu United.com has launched a smart wearable device called “Handsong Ring”, a sports and health device that can record calories burned, walking distance, etc., and can communicate with Baidu Cloud. Combine and upload related data in real time. These applications combined with the "smart cloud" are new maps for technology leaders.

Second-screen war
As early as 2002, IBM and Citizen Watch co-developed a watch called "Watch Pad" with Bluetooth, calculator and other functions, but this market did not arise at that time. Sony is considered one of the pioneers of smart phones. In 2010, Sony Mobile (formerly Sony Ericsson) released Live View, which is considered the predecessor of smart wearable devices. In early 2013, the Sony smart watch MN2 entered the market, followed by its second-generation smart watch Smart Watch 2 also entered the people's attention.

According to Huang Guoqiang, president of Sony Mobile Greater China, the Sony smart watch is creating a second screen for the user. The first screen comes from a smart phone. Today, these smart wearables can generate new industrial chains such as telemedicine, creating a new business model for smart phone manufacturers.

However, smart watches are a market that still needs to be nurtured. Initially, one of the difficulties surrounding the design of Sony smart watches was the question of the standardization of screen size. Since the screen of the previous Bluetooth watch was very small, only a small line of words could be read, ie, only the telephone number could be prompted. After listening to the users and designers' suggestions, Sony began to adjust the screen size. Today, the Smart Watch 2 is 1.6 inches in size and uses LCD technology to increase the visual light, allowing people to watch the watch screen during the day. These small changes make the smart watch practical.

Research shows that 32% of consumers are very interested in smart wearable devices. They may like this scenario. When people put a smart phone on the table, they can use a smaller smart watch to answer the phone, take pictures, read SMS, email, social networking sites or Baidu content. But IT giants do not want smart watches to be loved by technology enthusiasts or fashionistas. They hope this is a necessity for everyone in the future.

“Our smart watch uses the An-droid platform. This completely open system means that when you download a sports application, your watch becomes a sports watch; when you use it for photography, it becomes A camera. So, smart watches play a different role for everyone." Huang Guoqiang said.

According to José Lopez, Sony's global sales director for mobile accessories, the second ecosystem created by smart watches should have more independent features. For example, the user needs to turn off when boarding the aircraft. You can synchronize the smart watch with the smart phone before shutting down. After shutting down, check the mail on the plane, listen to the FM radio, and listen to the MP3.

However, Sony Mobile also heard such a voice through market research, and smart watches still lack real killer applications. So, with the advent of the mobile Internet era, Sony began to rethink the true meaning of "connectivity," which means the need to find sustainable business models.

In the description of Huang Guoqiang, smart watches will become new devices for monitoring human health and connect with smart phones to generate a large amount of health information. “Smart wear can listen to every part of the body, every movement, and then generate a large amount of data for sensors and processors to collect and analyze, such as heart rate, blood sugar, calories, etc., to monitor our own, People's health."

According to Jose Lopez, the core of smart wearable technology is to embed wireless connectivity into sensor-equipped devices, which is also the core of the Internet of Things ecosystem. This wireless technology can not only transmit the user's personal data to the cloud for analysis and storage, but also can be synchronized to smartphones and tablets. This is the basis of telemedicine.

This is a typical application of smart cloud and IoT technology. In February 2012, Nike introduced the Nike+Fuel Band, a bracelet worn on the wrist to monitor individual activities and track various physical indicators during exercise. This magic bracelet can exercise calorie calculation and step function, compatible with smart phones. Along with its marketing strategy, Nike announced a new Nike Fuel mission that uses a wearable bracelet for a match.

The game is to track and monitor the progress of players in the game by monitoring the user's daily behavior and using the Nike Fuel bracelet. Players can choose a difficulty level, challenge the Nike Fuel to get a specific score and upgrade to a new level. Everyone can see the Nike player for each mission in the mission. The opinions provided by these athletes help the user complete this level of tasks smoothly, and the user can synchronize the task status to each Nike+ device.

Smart world

This is what Nike is good at: cross-border integration of health, sports, and entertainment. Chinese technology companies are also eager to replicate such concepts. Shanda’s flagship electronic shell launches the GEAK ring and GEAK Watch, and Tencent’s Yixun’s exclusive sale of Jawbone up in China. Shanda Online’s Shell Electronics is developing the Bambook Smart Watch.

Li Wanqiang, vice president of millet technology, said that in the future, the launch of smart shoes will be in the millet's plan. Putting on millet smart shoes and connecting them with the millet phone can not only measure the route, but also measure the heart rate during running, etc. Smart shoes will also be an extension of the product chain.

As people have seen, smart watches, smart glasses, smart shoes, and magic bracelets have transformed the smart wear market into a world of creative technology. However, although a large number of smart wearable devices are available, there are still some distances from the lives of mass users, especially the three major aspects of product hardware, application services, and user acceptance. There are still many key issues. This is still an urgent need to nurture. Market. Without the acceptance of the mass market, smart wearable devices are still just “toys” when people gradually lose their “freshness”.

Insiders pointed out that with the gradual maturity of the overall hardware technology of smart wearable devices, the industry's threshold is reduced, but battery-related technologies are still the most critical and weak links and urgently need to be broken. Since the product form of smart glasses and watches greatly limits the capacity of the battery, the battery miniaturization technology is still lacking; on the other hand, the smart wearable device must have the interactive capability of carrying a large amount of data information, and the power consumption is huge. “At this stage, smart wearable device application services are still in their infancy. They are mainly based on information exchange, human monitoring and exercise measurement, and information push services. At present, the lack of “killer” smart wearable devices makes it difficult to attract public users. Most of the buyers are mainly geeks and geeks, and smart wearable devices are mostly based on single-purpose application services, lacking the ability to integrate multiple types of integrated application services such as video, camera, navigation, and shopping, Huang Guoqiang pointed out.

Google Glass's example proves this. The current development of Google Glass focuses on the richness of software. But despite this, Google Glass still lacks a real killer app. It is like a low-key smart phone, so that people do not have to look down at the device when walking in the street, which seems to lack a more ambitious goal. Although there are many conveniences when people wear smart glasses when driving, it can help you pinpoint the position and tell you the current speed and driving direction. At the same time, when you have a cell phone call, you can listen to the phone through the matching controller on your wrist, and you can also replace the music tracks in the headphones, but these still sound cool. To this end, the Glass team recently added Evernote's voice notes feature to smart glasses and upgraded Google Now.

Sony also made an attempt in this regard. On the latest Smart Watch2, smart watches can take photos with a smartphone or tablet remotely. With the Presentation Pal application, Smart Watch2 can easily remotely control presentation materials, etc. These applications can increase the user's viscosity.

“There will certainly be a large number of wearable device manufacturers in the future, but only a few ecosystems can survive. The concept of smart wearable technology is not really a new technology concept, but with a good application and business model, it will gradually Something that was previously unthinkable was formed.” Huang Guoqiang said, “In the future, we will live in a smart world. The simple things that surround us will be accompanied by sensors, computing power and brakes (ie, movable objects). In the world, people have smart rooms and smart clothes. Smart wear is only part of smart life."

True, Smart Wear is not just about geeks. Just like the Gartner research team’s smart phone and tablet analyst Carolina Napoleone said, “building connections based on devices to send you the information you need today. There is a lot of room for growth in this model. This information may be a tweet, a Facebook notification, weather updates or traffic updates. I think people are ready to welcome it."