Rapidly evolution means time not right to buy a smartwatch

As technology is rapidly evolving it’s smarter to wait for a few years.

(FILES Apple Watches are seen on display during an Apple media event at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco, California in this March 9, 2015 file photo. Wearable technology devices are seeing a growth surge that is likely to continue over the next few years, helped by the soon-to-be-released Apple Watch, a market tracker said March 30, 2015. The International Data Corporation(IDC) said it expected some 45.7 million wearable tech gadgets to be shipped globally this year, up 133 percent from 2014. AFP PHOTO/JOSH EDELSON / FILES

The Apple Watch is coming and it’s likely to be many things: a bestseller by the standards of smartwatches, an evolution in the identity of Apple, and a watershed in the history of wearables. But it won’t be the future.

That’s not a knock against Apple, or any of the other makers of smartwatches, whose devices are encumbered by the same design and technological limitations. It does mean anyone who isn’t an early adopter might want to avoid wearables for a few more years.

That’s my conclusion after talking to many of the people who will be most responsible for the immediate future of smartwatches and other wearable devices.

If I had to boil it down to a single insight, it would be this: even among mobile devices, smartwatches are a category that will evolve at a breathtaking pace over the next two to five years.

“Right now there is tremendous innovation in (display technology for smartwatches),” said David Singleton, director of engineering for Android Wear, Google’s software for smartwatches.

“Next year’s technology will be a step change from last year’s. And, if you asked me which will ­dominate in five years, I couldn’t tell you.”

It isn’t just display technologies, of which there are at least a half dozen on various smartwatch models. The capabilities of processors on smartwatches also vary tremendously from one model to another, as do the types of sensors and radios they include.

All of these components have been repurposed from smartphones. In fact, modern smartwatches are all essentially answers to this question: “Which parts of a smartphone does it make sense to put on a person’s wrist?” Because miniaturisation of those components is proceeding apace, each model of smartwatch is a different argument about a smartwatch’s mission.

One way this debate will be resolved is that consumers will choose the watches with the features they need most. Another outcome, however, is that those features will become standardised as smartwatches absorb the capabilities of another device that people have already shown quite an affinity for: their smartphones.

“We definitely think we will see a trend of wearables becoming more stand-alone,” Mr Singleton said. That means, for example, smartwatches that can connect to cellular networks on their own.

Today’s smartwatches are companions to smartphones. The Apple Watch’s uses are limited without an iPhone in range of its Bluetooth radio, and the same is true of Android Wear smartwatches.

A handful of smartwatch designers are getting ahead of this trend. The Duo, a radical design from Neptune, a Montreal-based start-up, is a watch that aims to do everything a typical Android smartphone can do, and more. The Duo puts a smartphone-class microprocessor into something that’s really more of a smart bracelet than a smartwatch — extra batteries and other components are packed into a stiff wristband attached to the watch face.

After trying on a non-functional prototype I concluded that plenty of people might try the Duo if Neptune can deliver on its larger promise, which is making your smartwatch the centre of your computing life.

There are excellent reasons why Apple, Google and others aren’t yet pushing for smartwatches to be full-blown mobile computers like the Duo, and they’re not just technical. Video, social media and other activities popular on smartphones, which have grown in size and capability in recent years, “are experiences that can’t effectively be done on the wrist,” said Eric Migicovsky, chief executive of Pebble, an early entrant in the smartwatch field.

Even if smartwatches can overcome some of those interface limitations imposed by their size — through, for example, voice control — there still is the bewildering diversity of subsets of smartphone technologies that each contains. All of these technologies are workable and to some degree useful, but they as yet can’t all be present in the same device at once.

Which is why I think the average consumer is better off waiting before committing to a wearable. It is almost certain that smartwatches from Apple, Google, traditional watchmakers or upstarts will be so different in a few years’ time as to make current models look primitive by comparison.

Apple Watch launches in nine countries including Australia on April 24. Pre-orders begin April 10.