Intel: ‘Taping a cellphone to your wrist is not what I’d call a wearable’

Intel’s general manager of new devices, Mike Bell, is unimpressed by the current generation of smartwatches.

“Taping a cellphone to your wrist is not what I’d call a wearable. There has to be a reason why you’d use the technology,” he said, speaking at the Web Summit conference in Dublin yesterday.

Bell later continued the theme. “That’s part of the reason you don’t see wearables selling much today,” he said. “It’s maybe not a thing that normal people want to wear.”

But Bell said Intel is bullish about the long-term potential for smartwatches, fitness trackers and other wearable devices, and intends to play a high-profile role in the market.

“We want to be in this space quickly. We’re like to help drive it. Wearables is one of those things where if someone doesn’t show leadership and make it happen, the hype won’t happen,” he said – in other words the reality won’t deliver on the hype.
“We’re making a very big bet on wearables. We have announced we have a family of chipsets coming out in the next year that are wearables specific. It’s a pretty safe bet … Our plan is to partner with the best people, and have them teach us.”

Bell added that fashion companies will have an important role to play too. “I do think we can make the reality live up to the hype. We are trying to bring technology companies and fashion companies together,” he said. “It turns out they [fashion companies] know their customers but don’t know tech. And vice versa.”

Bell returned to his criticism of current smartwatches, saying that “it distracts me when somebody is sitting there and their watch is doing the blink thing every five seconds”, before praising Apple’s forthcoming entry into the market with its Apple Watch.

“The great thing for me is overnight it legitimised smartwatches. Four to five months ago I would go and do interviews and people would say ‘Will the smartwatch ever take off?’. Now people say ‘Now apple has introduced the Apple Watch, clearly smartwatches will take off’. It’s changed the conversation, which is fantastic.”

But he said future models will be a big improvement on current smartwatches. “I have’t seen anything I particularly like in smartwatches yet,” said Bell.

“I have a Swiss-made watch that I like a lot. I think the ultimate device is where you have something that looks like a Swiss watch, and also has smart features inside it … I think we’re not too far off getting there.”