Smartwatches have been around for several years, but the category just got a huge shot in the arm thanks to Apple. If you don’t want to wait for Apple Watch to arrive nor pay the premium, competitors can offer the best parts of the experience.
Preliminary reports indicate that Apple may have taken pre-orders of more than 1.2 million watches on its first day, with an average price of more than $500. The cheapest “Watch Sport” is $349, but apparently many are willing to spend $550 or more on a version that’s fancier looking but functionally identical to the less expensive models.
I don’t plan to spend any money on the Apple Watch right away. My Apple Watch avoidance is partially because I don’t have an iPhone, but I’m also not convinced that I’d want to shell out even $349 for Apple’s first watch iteration if I didn’t own an Android. I have no doubt that Apple will stick with this product line and that the company will release both cheaper and better models.
Still, I am in awe of Apple CEO Tim Cook’s decision to invest in this most personal technology. It took the Apple iPod to popularize digital music players, the iPhone to seriously jump-start the smartphone business and the iPad to get consumers to consider tablets. Based on reported first-day sales, Apple seems to be doing the same for the nascent smartwatch industry.
The launch did restimulate my interest in smartwatches, mostly because it got me thinking about all the fitness apps that are available not only on the Apple Watch but on competitive ones as well.
I had a couple of watches sitting in drawers. Basis, which is owned by Intel, let me try out a Basis Peak when I was at CES but I never got around to using it, and I also had access to the original Pebble smartwatch.
When I first tried out the Basis Peak it was only an exercise band, but in late January the company released firmware that gave it smartwatch functionality, including notifications of incoming phone calls, text messages and email. Unlike the Apple Watch, you can’t respond to these notifications from the watch, but you can see who’s calling and either decline the call from your Basis Peak or answer it from the phone itself.
When I first got my hands on a Pebble, it could only run the native built-in apps which, surprisingly, didn’t include any fitness functions — not even a pedometer. But, last year, the company launched a third-party app store, and now there are plenty of interesting fitness apps, including lots of pedometers.
Both the Basis Peak ($199) and the Pebble ($99) are less expensive than Apple’s least expensive watch and they work with Android phones and older iPhones. And while they aren’t as versatile as the Apple Watch, they — and other smartwatches — have what I consider to be many of the important features of Apple’s offering.
As someone who tries to stay in reasonable shape, I appreciate the Basis Peak’s fitness apps, including real time continuous heart-rate monitoring. There is also an accelerometer that automatically determines if you’re walking, running or cycling, enabling it to estimate calories consumed as well as exercise intensity.
While it can track your heart rate (and get a better estimate of calories burned) on indoor exercises like an elliptical or indoor bike, it doesn’t recognize those exercises per se. It strikes me that it would be easy enough to add a feature that — at the very least — allowed the user to tell the watch what exercises you’re engaged in and have it calculate calories based on that plus your heart rate. The Peak gets about 4 days on a battery charge compared to about one day for the Apple Watch.
The Pebble doesn’t have a heart rate monitor but the company is encouraging third parties to build what it calls “smart straps” that can add all sorts of functionality including pulse sensing, cellular network connectivity and other functions that would add complexity, size, battery drain and cost if built into the watch itself.
Pebble already has a large ecosystem of app developers. The Pebble Time, which is expected to be available in May will have a color e-ink screen, a battery that lasts up to 10 days and voice recognition.
Of course there are also smartwatches from Samsung, LG, Motorola and others that — in most cases — run Google’s Android Wear operating system and work with Android phones.
I have no doubt that Apple will develop an incredibly rich ecosystem of app and accessory developers but I also expect Apple’s new entry into the smartwatch business to spur lots of innovation from its competitors. And that’s how it should be.
Contact Larry Magid at larry@larrymagid.com. Listen for his technology chats on KCBS-AM (740) weekdays at 3:50 p.m.
