Think Bigger, Skeptics: Wearable Tech will Change the World

http://blog.straphq.com/2014/07/21/think-bigger-skeptics-wearable-tech/

by scald • 12 years ago

4 2 12 years ago

blog.straphq.com

VLM• 12 years ago

He fundamentally goes off the road at the "don’t add life-changing value" and "The device or combination of devices must be perceived as life-changing" stage.

Observationally the people who like fitbits like grind games. Every MMORPG experience I've had mirrors my fitbit experience along with everyone else I've talked to (hard core EVE addicts have EVE spreadsheets and graphs, and spend time analyzing fitbit graphs). Only a fraction of the population has addiction susceptibility problems, enough to make money (see big tobacco) but not enough to "take over the world".

The purpose of the medical system is to co-opt the legal system to help maximize funneling money to certain groups. I'm not seeing self diagnosing medical gear as helping, and they've been super efficient at using the legal system to maximize revenue, so this entire class of ideas is dead, although it just won't die in journalism.

"I would love to no longer need ... keys"

I've had electronic door locks on my house doors for many years, and both the car and office door dongles in a pocket on the phone. Its not life changing other than if I lose my phone I lose access to my house and office and car, which would definitely suck. That's probably not the kind of life changing he's looking for. The future is here, its just not evenly distributed.

(edited to add, the electronic door locks on my house are a basic utility to me, like having a tankless water heater. Move somewhere without them and it would be like, what is this, a log cabin? Yet I'm not going to seek them out, I'm just going to expect them. This is a harder marketing job than pushing a mere social fad.)

"I long for the ability to not have to charge something every single day"

Market research and past sales experience indicates he's nearly alone. You want a phone that you charge every week, buy a feature phone. Nobody cares, they buy fancy phones with 4 hour batteries to make them lighter. People like to complain especially if its a way to show off how much money they spent.

"and to have a device that actually feels smarter than me"

Again some tiny fraction of the population loves paternalism, formerly best implemented by Big Brother government. Carrying a prison warden around to regulate me sounds horrific to me, and to most people. I'd rather live in a HOA neighborhood where all they regulate is the color of my garden flowers.

He also runs off the rails with social interaction and "wearables". I have a fitbit aria scale that tracks my weight. I have absolutely no interest in giving "the internet" access to my weight and I'm just an average guy. My wife is beyond horrified and didn't want it in the house until she was sure her weight wouldn't show up on twitter/FB. I'm not seeing that behavior as likely to drive social adoption. I like the graphs but hate the social aspect of them. I imagine this is the likely outcome of hooking up the toilet flush lever or the microwave oven or my wife's hair curling iron.

formaldehyde• 12 years ago

I think this blog post does a great job at putting the evolution of technology into perspective. It's a reminder that when "now old" technologies, ones that are fully integrated into our lives today, were first introduced everyone didn't immediately accept them. Facebook is the perfect example as used in this blog post. And microwaves, could we really imagine our lives without them? I don't think so. But once we remember how reluctant society initially was to accept these into our world, it shows hope for the future of wearables. While reading this post I felt nostalgic as I remembered when Facebook came out and how hesitant I was to create a profile that has so much personal information on it. And today, I can't live without it. I truly believe in only a few years everyone will associate such nostalgia with the evolution of wearables. I don't understand why people think wearables are only for "geeks," as stated in the post. I see wearable technology as an extremely enhanced version of smartphones. We didn't stop at the creation of the "flip-phone" what makes people think we'll stop at smartphones. Wearables are what's next.

Think Bigger, Skeptics: Wearable Tech will Change the World

Related Stories