Timex bowed the Timex IQ+ line of activity tracking watches that operate on standard watch batteries and feature traditional watch faces. The $149 watches sync to Android and iOS apps via Bluetooth and track activity including steps, miles and calories, said a Monday announcement. They also measure sleep patterns including deep and light sleep, time awake, sleep efficiency percentage and average length of sleep, said the company. The watches include Timex’s Indiglo electroluminescent night-light functionality and are water resistant to 50 meters, it said. The watches are sold at Timex’s e-commerce site and Best Buy.
The smartwatch category was hurt by a dearth of new product introductions in first-half 2016, but smartwatch sales during the holiday season will be “robust,” said a Parks Associates report. Apple Watch users are more engaged with their smartwatches, with some 45 percent of them reporting they make or receive phone calls on a weekly basis vs. 23 percent of other smartwatch owners, said the study. Apple Watch owners are more engaged overall with their devices than other smartwatch owners -- 31 percent vs. 19 percent -- saying they search by voice for information at least once a week, said the research firm. Apple owned 39 percent smartwatch market share in April, a year after launch, and that share is expected to grow following the recent release of Series 2, said Parks. Other findings: 10 percent of U.S. broadband households own a smartwatch; half of Apple Watch owners check the weather on weekly basis vs. 29 percent of other smartwatch owners; 56 percent of Apple Watch users reply to notifications with their watches vs. 29 percent of non-Apple users. Consumers currently use smartwatches primarily for fitness tracking and notifications, but use cases such as mobile payments, smart home and security and vehicle access are emerging, said analyst Chris Tweedt.
Smartwatch sales in Western Europe will pass 8.8 million units this year, growing to 41 million by 2021, said Parks Associates in a Tuesday news release. As the connected home market continues to grow, “consumers will seek out products that interact with their home,” including smartwatches, said President Stuart Sikes. “Currently, consumers are buying individual devices and testing them rather than purchasing entire systems.” A discussion topic at Parks’ upcoming Connections Europe conference Nov. 2-3 in Amsterdam will be emerging monetization strategies designed to increase the appeal of connected products and move consumers into larger product and cloud service ecosystems, Parks said.
The Apple Watch entered the restaurant business, said a Tuesday report in food industry news site Eater, saying New York City restaurateur Danny Meyer will equip managers in his Union Square Café with the smartwatch to streamline operations. An announcement at the TechTable Summit by Meyer’s Union Square Hospitality Group (USHG) and reservation system software startup Resy said a custom-designed app will integrate the Apple Watch with front-of-house restaurant service. When Union Square Café re-opens in a new location a few blocks north of the square next month, managers will wear Apple watches to be alerted to VIP arrivals, wine bottle orders, when a new table is seated, when a menu item runs out and if a guest waits too long to order a drink, said the article. When a diner orders a bottle of wine, the app will ping the sommelier’s Apple Watch, speeding the process; when a guest finishes a meal, a manager can ping the coat room, it said. A USHG spokeswoman referred us to the Eater article in response to questions Thursday, saying the company doesn't have an official announcement to share.
A year after the Apple Watch set a “new benchmark” for the global smartwatch market, new smartwatch shipments will grow only 3.9 percent this year to 20.1 million units, IDC said in a Thursday tracker report. "To date, smartwatches have remained in the realm of brand loyalists and tech cognoscenti, but we expect that to change over the next few years," said the research firm. It sees smartwatches getting a market boost when more models “will look and feel like traditional watches, appealing to those who put a premium on design and style,” it said. Once more smartwatches get cellular connectivity, “they’ll disconnect from the smartphone, making them more useful,” it said. It also sees smartwatch pricing coming down, “making them more affordable to a broader market," it said. IDC sees global smartwatch shipments increasing at a 23 percent compound annual growth rate in the next four years, reaching 54.6 million units in 2020, it said. It’s becoming increasingly “obvious” that consumers are not willing to deal with poor battery life and the other “technical pain points” that are associated with smartwatches, IDC said.
Movado Group, which entered the smartwatch category nearly a year ago with its Movado Motion line (see 1511240041), will debut its first smartwatches this holiday selling season under its various licensed brands, President Ricardo Quintero said on a Thursday earnings call. The brands that Movado licenses for watches include Coach, Hugo Boss, Juicy Couture, Lacoste, Scuderia Ferrari and Tommy Hilfiger. “We are encouraged by consumer interest in the smartwatch,” Quintero said. “Our new connected watches” under the licensed brands “will allow us to participate in the smartwatch category at key price points, offering consumers new and preferred functionalities, such as readable notifications, step counts, world timers, but as part of a traditional-looking watch driven by design,” he said. Though Movado is “confident” in its approach to the “emerging” smartwatch category, “we will remain focused on traditional watches, which we believe will have great growth potential in the segments in which we compete,” he said. Movado is “not playing right now in the segment” of fitness bands or activity trackers, CEO Efraim Grinberg said in Q&A. “We’re strictly right now in the watch space and for the time being in analog watches that have additional functionality,” he said of the Movado Motion smartwatch line. But unlike Movado’s Motion line licensed-brand smartwatches will “have a hidden screen, so when you receive notifications, you can actually read the notification,” he said. “The screen pops up, then disappears, and it’s a very, very cool feature. We’re very excited about it. We’re in the process now of testing these watches, and we’ll begin delivering them in the third quarter.”
Fossil began taking preorders Friday for its previously announced Marshal and Wander Q Series smartwatches. Prices range from $295 to $315 for the eight models that will be available for shipping Aug. 29. The Bluetooth 4.1 and Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n watches, powered by Android Wear, are compatible with Android 4.3 and later smartphones and iPhone 5 and later models with iOS 8, said Fossil. Features vary according to platform, said Fossil, and battery life is given as “all day.” The watches recharge on a supplied inductive charging magnet.
Newer smartwatches with cellular connections that free the device from a smartphone could be a major adoption driver for the next generation of smartwatches, said NPD analyst Eddie Hold in a blog post. “The freedom to completely untether from the smartphone could become the next logical ‘killer use’” for smartwatch owners, allowing them to go for a jog without carrying a phone, he said. Service fees stand in the way of the rise of the cellular-equipped smartwatch. “Success will no doubt be related to the correct balance between service fees and how important the untethering aspect of these devices proves to be,” said Hold. Time checking is still the most popular use for a smartwatch with more than 55 percent of users tracking time on a “very regular basis,” according to NPD data, and some 41 percent of users tracking steps. Activity tracking has become more important to users, but getting notifications and checking time remain “front and center,” he said. Smartwatch adoption skews “younger and lower income” in many cases, leading to an inclination to label buyers as “early tech adopters,” said Hold Wednesday. The service industry, however, is emerging as a viable target group. Valets, bar staff and waiters can’t “stay glued to their phones while they are working, but still want access to ‘glanceable’ information,” he said, such as messaging notifications, alarms and time remaining on a shift. “The ability to remain in contact without reaching for the phone is still the killer app,” he said.
Movado Group research recently found that half of U.S. consumers are “not interested” in smartwatches (see 1605270034), but buying intentions are much higher among Chinese, an ABI Research survey found. The research firm estimates nearly two-thirds of Chinese consumers plan to buy a smartwatch in the next 12 months, it said in a Tuesday report. “The heightened demand is due to the wide range of choices that local manufacturers offer consumers, as well as to the products’ affordable pricing, good design, and comprehensive feature set.” Some among the more affluent Chinese consumers regard the Apple Watch and other branded smartwatches “to be a desired status symbol,” it said. ABI found 42 percent of the respondents it canvassed are willing to spend between $150 and $310 on a smartwatch, while 36 percent regard “a reasonable price to be below $150,” and 22 percent are likely to spend more than $310, the firm said: “It is likely that some consumers will gladly pay a higher price for a reputable and customized smart watch, but most will probably choose the cheaper options.”
Though Movado Group is “well positioned to capture share” in smartwatches, company research shows about half of U.S. consumers “are not interested in smartwatches,” President Ricardo Quintero said on a Thursday earnings call. “We remain balanced in our approach to this segment of the category,” he said. “We believe in the continued long-term opportunities in the non-connected watch category, driven by brand, image design and innovation.” Movado thinks “obviously that wearables and connected watches will have a place in the watch business,” said CEO Efraim Grinberg in Q&A. “But it really helps to build a new category” in smartwatches while bringing “new consumers into the arena who weren’t wearing” traditional watches, he said. “So we actually believe that millennials will go down both paths.” For example, he sees millennials buying “simple fashion watches, and that’s where we’re going with things like our ultra slim collections,” he said. “But they’ll also buy connected watches and we’ll have those offerings as well.” Movado’s research shows that top capability of smartwatches is “time-telling,” he said. It’s “gratifying to know” that consumers are using smartwatches to tell time, in addition to the “notifications and health functions” that are important to people, he said. The industry is “very early in the rollout” of smartwatches, he said. “The technology will continue to improve” in battery life and "the things that watches can do for you,” he said. “What people seem to forget is that when we all started with cellphones, they were about the size of a brick and weighed a pound or two and then progressively got smaller and better and higher quality and better design. So all of that will begin to happen in this category as well.”