Everyone seems to be talking about this as the year of the wearable. I don’t think so. Even if Apple does introduce a watch, and Google widely releases Glass, will they really go mainstream and sell hundreds of millions of units? I don’t think so. At least not for a few years. IMHO there needs to be a few major breakthroughs:
- Apps. Yeah we always need a killer app. I don’t think sending little messages and alerts is enough. The killer app could be a great music player…maybe one that’s completely voice controlled? Glass has the potential to augment my knowledge without my asking and that could be really cool, basically look and learn!
- Power. Why hasn’t battery power advanced beyond lithium? I’m hoping for energy harvesting breakthroughs that will allow devices to last and be tiny…to fulfill number 3.
- Invisibility. I stopped wearing a watch when I began carrying a smart phone. I never wear my wedding ring. I need something pretty comfortable and compelling to dangle electronics off of my body. What I really want is something invisible or near invisible. Moto has a tattoo patent for electronics, right? Then there’s the micro-electronic pills…when will we have seamless attachments to augment our abilities?
- Untethered. It would be really cool if I could travel around town without having to carry my phone to use a wearable. It kind of does defeat the purpose. It isn’t that hard to pull my phone out. If I could go a few miles that would be nice…20 would be even better. A completely untethered self-contained unit would be nice, but unlikely to be invisible!
I’ll be leading a Wearables panel at the Mobile Voice show with an AWESOME group of people representing thought leaders from Google, Pebble, Intel, Xowi, and reQall. Here’s the press release
on it.