A Real Smart Watch

I have always been a sucker for watches, even though they may be fading into obscurity or relegated to a mere fashion statement.  I read some years ago that the number of watches sold worldwide had dropped some 30% because so many people, typically the younger ones, simply consult their cell phone instead.

But this concept - a design only, unfortunately, and not a finished product - should re-invigorate the idea.  Gábor Balogh, a freelance designer from Hungary, took the Swedish Triwa watch design and adapted it to the concept of a truly smart watch.  Below are only two examples of choice of presentation.  There's more.

Before the advent of the Information Age, people (well, Americans at least) would anxiously predict the invention of the Dick Tracy watch, a Skype-like device contained in a watch, and we're much further along on that proposition than those flying cars.  I believe that the video-phone idea is starting to be dismissed as a universal part of communications, since frankly a good number of people aren't that interested in what the other party looks like at the moment, and the other party (other than many women and most metrosexuals, anxious about their looks) would rather not be seen, particularly since they are probably engaged in doing something else while they're on the phone and don't really want you to know that they aren't giving you the rapt attention that you feel you deserve.   ("Uh-huh...really?...interesting...yep...mmm...uh-huh.")

I can imagine a watch of this type as a third leg on the stool of personal communications, rather than a stand-alone item.  It would connect through a Bluetooth connection to the smartphone that you would still carry, in your pocket, purse, or in a carrier attached to your belt.  You would then hear the music, listen to videos and communicate through a Bluetooth device such as an earbud/speaker such as Jawbone, or more likely something like the LG stereo headset.  You could access phone calls and other standard functions with greater ease by merely using your watch, but still use the smartphone in more convenient circumstances for detailed video; reading articles, books, or your favorite web log; web searches; or actually using that video-phone capability.

Faster, please.

(H/T to Donald Sensing at Sense of Events.)