- The global smartwatch market fell 7% in 2024, the first ever decline in the overall market.
- Apple retained its top position, despite a 19% YoY decline in shipments due to tighter competition and weaker upgrade cycles.
- China captured the biggest shipment share for the first time, driven by the strong performance of Chinese brands including Huawei, Xiaomi and BBK (Imoo).
- Kids smartwatch was the only segment to witness a rise, as parents’ awareness increased, and brands expanded in this category.
I had an Apple Watch for a while. I used it to track my steps and workouts and to monitor some notifications. Once in forever I’d pick up a call on it because my hands were full.
Eventually I realized I never actually DID anything with the fitness info, the notifications were annoying and stressful, and the times I’d use it as a communicator I could count on one hand.
When the battery finally started dying I couldn’t justify the expense of a new one.
The thing actively made my life worse!
Yeah, I was an early adopter of a smartwatch. I had an android watch before apple watch was even a thing. One day, while on vacation in Croatia, I jumped off a boat into the Adriatic with it on, and those early models weren’t really waterproof. I kinda shook it off because like you said, I never really used or cared about any of the data, and I was kinda over it as a gimmicky, fairly useless thing. It was kinda cool to be able to read and reply to texts without taking my phone out of my pocket, but it wasn’t a game changer. Then my birthday came around and my gf got me a new smartwatch, so I kinda had to wear one again for a while. I wore it for a bit, and then one day, just kinda stopped charging and using it altogether. There is no wow factor with them imo.
I don’t keep my phone on me for large parts of the day. The AW has just enough connectivity to get me the information I need without being a distraction. I’ve found it motivates me to do gardening, landscaping, etc. because I can track that as a workout. The weather alerts are also nice for that since it lets you know a few minutes before it starts/stops raining.
Mine is 7 years old now and the battery still lasts all day so I feel no need to replace it. I wonder if device longevity combined with lack of meaningful improvements might be slowing sales. They seem like the sort of device you wear until it stops working for a full day or you break it.
I’m in the same boat, my apple watch collects dust in the drawer. My next watch is going to be a classic one.
Here’s an idea. Perhaps watches are items with a legacy of lasting years and years? With people wanting to treat them as such? Once the market is saturated and prospective customers already satisfied with what they have, of course you’ll stop selling them.
Pebble ftw
Is Pebble still alive? I quit using mine a long time ago because I wound up getting an AW, but I’ve still kept it somewhere
I just sold my Pixel Watch and bought a Withings Scanwatch.
Daily charging is annoying. I stopped using it to pay because then I’d have to set up a PIN, and then type in the PIN every time I want to use it. I’m not without my phone and it’s more convenient to pay with.
I did like the health monitoring features, but the daily charging made it intrusive and another thing I had to actively monitor.
Scanwatch gives me 30 days of battery, all the health tracking, and some basic notifications, which is fine but I’d get it even without that.
I stopped using it to pay because then I’d have to set up a PIN, and then type in the PIN every time I want to use it
This shocked me when I went from my Galaxy Watch 3 to a Galaxy Watch 6. I used to only have to put a PIN when I wanted to pay, but now it’s anything on the watch?
Because of that, I also disabled the payment app.
Judging by the comments here, my wife and I are anomalies, but I love my Apple Watch. It’s helped my fitness goals, it’s far less awkward when I get a message and on-call notification than digging out my phone, and I can instantly hang up on spam calls/marketers and phone calls coming in when I don’t care to talk.
It also let us put our phone down and leave it somewhere in the house, which has greatly helped prevent doom scrolling and screen time (and increased my mental health). I don’t have to worry about missing a call or message, but I don’t have to have a huge screen in my pocket at all times. I honestly have been tempted to forgo a smartphone and just get an LTE watch instead to break that cycle, but my job requires it at this time.
All that said, I’ve got a Series 4. It’s now 6+ years old, still works fine, does everything I need and more and still lasts the day without battery issues. It’s been a solid performer and I’m keeping it as long as I can because that’s what you do with a watch.
I literally have no clue what the point of these devices is
I have ADHD, so a massive bonus of a smart watch for me is not having to look at my phone every time I get a notification. If I do, there’s a strong likelihood that I’ll just keep on looking at it. Having notifications go to my watch means I only get my phone out for important ones.
Also, an alarm clock that taps my wrist without waking up my wife at 5:30am is worth its weight in gold.
Extra data points for parasites to use against you
I got a simple Casio for my birthday and I don’t think I’ll ever need another watch, unless I lose this one. People say “oh it tracks how many steps I took today”, but I don’t know why I would need to know that information
I got my first watch, a pebble as a novelty. But really ended up enjoying it by being able to have my phone on silent and still get notifications via the watch. This was especially important while I was working as a theatre manager and front of house audio engineer. I could get texts and such from my crew while my phone was silent as to not interrupt the show. The day I left the job I put the watch in a drawer (5 years ago) and have never used it since.
I would like a health tracker with minimal or no screen that I can get notices such as phone calls and texts from my wife and kids as I still keep my phone in silent and often miss calls.
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Regular smart watches are such a luxury good that I’m surprised they’ve been growing up until last year. Realistically most people don’t need a smart phone that’s more than like $300 and I can’t imagine spending more than that on a smart watch which just duplicates most of the features of a smart phone (and adds a few more sensors if you’re lucky).
The rise in kids smart watches is a bit alarming to me, though. If the reason for it is truly that parents want to track their kids more, that’s really bad for the kids for two big reasons. First being that kids need to learn how to behave without their parents always watching, and second is that if the parent can see where the kid is then probably so can the company who made the smart watch. Maybe they’ll make a smartwatch which sends location data over something like the Signal protocol to mitigate 3rd party tracking, but I doubt there’s a big enough demand for that for any of the major companies to do that on their own.
its good to triage your notifications without jumping on the phone. its also been useful to see my pulse at times, great for a silent timer.
If I could get a classic dumb watch with just the ability to vibrate when my phone gets an alert, I’d be soooooo happy.
I was under the impression that fossil had a classic watch that either made a sound or flashed a small light when a notification came in. Connected to phone via BT, so the power cost was “minimal”. Not sure if they make those watches anymore but it’s worth a look if you are interested.
I am very interested. I’ll look into that, thank you!
Edit from Fossil: We are no longer selling smartwatches.
Phooey!
Totally get it. I love my Garmin, but would prefer a classic dumb watch over a Galaxy Watch (which I had before) or any other that requires charging more than once every week and which I wouldn’t be comfortable with getting wet (even though they should handle it well).
Notifications are the main feature for me, I was never a heavy smart phone user and the notifications on my watch allow me to pay even less attention to my phone. In addition I can deal with deletion of unwanted emails immediately instead of doing them in bulk every few days like I would otherwise. Saves me a lot of stress, YMMV.
