The History of Smartwatches
Discuss About The Conference Pervasive Ubiquitous Computing?
The term technology can be defined as the collection of skills, techniques, processes and methods used for producing services, goods and for scientific investigation. Technology does not always refer to grand inventions but the simplest form of technology is the development of basic tools. While the invention of fire during the prehistoric age enhances the availability of food, the invention of wheels opened a new direction for mankind by making travelling a lot more easier. With the development of time, psychology innovations like the printing press, telephone an internet have made communication free from physical barriers and global scale. This report contains detailed discussion about the innovation of smart watch. A smartwatch can be defined as a wearable computer in the form of a wrist watch. The early models of smartwatch were able to perform basic activities like digital time telling, game playing, calculations and translations. However, with the enhancement of technology, smartwatches manufactured nowadays are equivalent to a smart phone and have mobile operating system, Bluetooth connectivity and are able to download mobile apps.
The first smartwatch was manufactured by Hamilton Watch Company in 1972 and was named Pulsar. It was the first all-electric digital watch was wrapped in 18 carat gold. In 1982, Seiko Company developed the first TV watch which had a little grainy TV display under the digital time display. In the year 1995, Seiko Company manufactured a message watch which had the capability to display caller ID along with displaying updates on a good range of subjects like stock prices, sports scores and weather forecasts. Steve Mann, popularly known as the father of computing, invented the first Linux-powered watch in 1998. The prototype of the mentioned watch was launched by IBM two years later (Jaye, 2015). It was a mention worthy invention in the world of smartwatch since it had the capability of communicating wirelessly with Personal Computers, mobile phones and various wireless devices. In 2002, US watch company teamed up with Intel to manufacture Fossil Palm pilot, a watch with 2MB internal memory and applications like memo pad, address book, calculator and to-do lists. With the advancement in technology, several companies like Microsoft, Garmin, Nike, Sony, Pebble, Motorola and Samsung has manufactured various kinds of smartwatches with emerging features. One of the most popular smartwatch brands in the recent years is Apple. In 2015, Apple launched its first iWatch (Schroeder, 2016).
Unlike Hamilton Watch Company, which is a watch design and manufacturing company of America, Seiko is Japanese holding Company which has subsidiaries that manufacture and sell watches. Other above mentioned companies like Garmin, Nike, Sony, Pebble, Motorola and Samsung chiefly manufactures electronic gadgets, smartwatch being one of them (Al-Nasser, 2014). The Hamilton watch Company invented the first digital watch in order to offer the consumers a highly unique product. Companies like Seiko got inspired by the new innovative watches and gradually smart watch gained popularity. With advancement in technology, companies like Apple, Samsung and Sony have incorporated a majority of the facilities of a Smartphone in their smart watches.
Features of Smartwatches
The first smartwatch was developed in America by Hamilton Watch Company in 1972. In 1998, Steve Mann invented the first computing smartwatch in Canada with the help of Linux operating system. The first smartwatch, Pulsar was created by Hamilton Company in order to gain enhance their market value with a unique new innovation. The first Pulsar was sold at 2100 dollars at that time. Thus it can be clearly understood that the price range of Pulsar watches was too high to be purchased by ordinary public domain. When Seiko Corporation acquired the Pulsar brand, they decreased the price range to 495 dollars. In spite of this decrement, smart watches were still a luxurious item. In spite of being a unique innovation, smart watches gained popularity in the past as a symbol of fashion and status. The smartwatch started to gain popularly in the public domain with the emergence of personal computers and mobile phone in the late 90s. When Steve Mann invented the first Linux smart watch which enables individuals to connect with PCs and cell phones, the mentioned smartwatch gained popularity among business personnel. However, smartwatches were not considered as a necessity by the consumers and moreover, due to its high cost, the middle-class consumers were not considering smartwatch as a must-have (Gossweiler III & Miller, 2013). With the enhancement in technology, the features of smartwatch increased. With the emergence of smartphones in the global marketing, various companies like Samsung and Apple, incorporated smartwatches a crucial accessory to be bought with smartphones. Besides that, in order to gain competitive advantages and attract ordinary consumer’s attention, the manufacturers of smartwatches focused chiefly on designing and communication. However, due to the presence of smartphones as an effective communication device, in the global market, smartwatch was unable to gain market value as an effective communication device in the global market.
Apple incorporated the concept of fitness in smartwatch and that has brought a revolutionary change in the market value of smartwatch, especially among consumers of developed countries like America, Europe and Australia (Balint & Alexandru, 2017). Considering the fact that fitness is a major issue in the developed countries, Apple smartwatches provides various facilities to track and monitor health issues with the help of its smartwatch. According to survey, 77 percent of American consumers buy smartwatches for their step counting features, 38 percent of the consumers buy it for heart rate monitoring and more than 36 percent of consumers buy smartwatches because of their sleep tracking features. Moreover, added benefits of swim proof design and GPS along with improved brighter display, CPU and GPU have enhanced the market value of modern smartwatches. Thus it can be said that, since the time when computers and cell phones gained popularity in the global market, smart watches become mainstream in the public domain.
When it comes to smartwatch, one of the chief reasons behind the invention of the first digital watch by the Hamilton watch company was to gain competitive advantage in the global market. However, the urge to invent a unique product which will be able to provide a lot of advantages apart from showing time was also there. Since the laptop computer was already invented at that point of time, investors are looking forward to build a much portable form of computer. That’s why Steve Mann created Linux computer watch. Considering the fact that the price range of smart watches was too high to be purchased by middle class consumers at that time, the target consumers of smartwatch were hobbyists, elite and higher middle class, people. While the chief inspiration of early days smartwatches was computer, smartwatches invented in modern era target fitness (Desrochers, 2013). Considering the fact that health and obesity related issues are increasing in developed countries like USA, EU and Australia, smartwatch manufacturers like Apple, Samsung, Motorola and others have incorporated various fitness measuring applications to maximize fitness among global consumers.
The Changing Role of Smartwatches
Smartwatches have imposed a highly positive impact on the society not only due to its health related features but also for the several technological benefits it offers to its consumers. In 2012, the Pebble smartwatch gained huge popularity due to on-wrist GPS display, remote control, run timer and software development kit (Vijayalakshmi et al., 2018). Consumers are able to order food items or download various applications with the help of the mentioned smartwatch. However, all these facilities are available on a cell phone as well. Considering the fact that majority of the functions of smartwatches are available when coupled with smart phones, it can be understood that global consumers are not highly depend on smartwatches till now. In spite of offering a huge number of the technological facilities, the chief use of smartwatch is still restricted to fitness. Majority of individuals buy smartwatch to keep their fitness on track. Another usage of smartwatches is that smartwatches are used as a style statement by a good number of consumers. Since the price range of smartwatches has gone down, in recent years, even middle class consumers are able to afford smartwatches (Zhang & Harrison, 2015). However, smartwatches need to be more affordable in order to enhance consumer loyalty.
One of the disadvantages of smartwatches is that this technology is highly dependent on smartphones. Smartwatches without smartphones can provide a very limited amount of facilities and hence are not able to gain popularity in the global market (Riddiford, Pond & O’brien, 2015). However, tech companies like Apple are taking initiatives to manufacture smartphone independent smartwatches. Google has taken initiatives to offer the next level smartwatch to the consumers. The company has teamed up with LG and the premium price of the watch is 349 dollars. Some of the unique benefit o the mentioned smartwatch is a stainless steel body, 1.2in P-OLED display with Gorilla Glass, new high dust and water protection technology along with various fitness trackers. Apple, on the other hand, is about to launch LTE chip in the next generation Apple watch 3.
In spite of all this initiative, it can be said that the future of smartwatch is not bright. Although smartwatch is a unique combination of fashion and technology, still now, this technology is highly dependent on smart phones (Hansen et al., 2015). The leather strap and metal bezel, which is a fashion statement nowadays may get absolute a few days later.
Conclusion
From the above discussion, it can be concluded that smartwatch is a mention worthy invention in the world of technology. Since the time it had been manufactured, it is considered to be a unique blend of fashion and technology. Not only this, smartwatches have imposed a highly positive impact on global fitness issues. This technology has enabled people to keep the track of their health issues and thereby reach their fitness goal. However, in order to gain competitive advantage, smartwatch should be made affordable so that a huge range of consumers can nail this incredible technology.
Reference List
Al-Nasser, K. (2014). U.S. Patent No. 8,725,842. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, 56-59
Balint, B., & Alexandru, M. (2017). SMART WATCH CONTROLLED BY MOBILE PHONE VIA BLUETOOTH. Review of the Air Force Academy, (1), 45.
Desrochers, J. (2013). Smartwatches: How They Could Impact the Largest Swiss Watch Company, Swatch Group. How They Could Impact the Largest Swiss Watch Company, Swatch Group, 15.
Gossweiler III, R. C., & Miller, J. B. (2013). U.S. Patent No. 8,467,270. Washington, DC: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, management
Jaye, R. (2015). Development of the Smartwatch (a Modern Wrist-Worn Timepiece) from 1972 through 2015, 12-18
Riddiford, M., Pond, A. N., & O’brien, L. J. (2015). U.S. Patent Application No. 29/470,164.
Schroeder, J. L. (2016). Technology, Gender and Fashion. Cardozo Arts & Ent. LJ, 34, economics.
Vijayalakshmi, K., Uma, S., Bhuvanya, R., & Suresh, A. (2018). A demand for wearable devices in health care. International Journal of Engineering & Technology, 7(1.7), 1-4.
Zhang, Y., & Harrison, C. (2015). Tomo: Wearable, low-cost electrical impedance tomography for hand gesture recognition. In Proceedings of the 28th Annual ACM Symposium on User Interface Software & Technology, 167-173.
Hansen, J. P., Biermann, F., Madsen, J. A., Jonassen, M., Lund, H., Agustin, J. S., & Sztuk, S. (2015). A gaze interactive textual smartwatch interface. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Joint Conference on Pervasive and Ubiquitous Computing and Proceedings of the 2015 ACM International Symposium on Wearable Computers (pp. 839-847)
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