Microsoft is Joining the Race to the Smartwatch

There’s a boom coming in wrist-based electronics, apparently. According to supplier interviews from the Wall Street Journal, Microsoft is working

Pocket watch (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

on a smart watch, joining rumored products from Google, Apple, and Samsung.
It all leads to one crucial question: are any of these companies really onto something, or are they just keeping up with the Joneses in a feverish quest after an imaginary next big thing? It would seem that two things precipitated this recent rush towards smart watch development: the idea that the smartphone market is becoming saturated and stagnant (typified by Apple’s stock crash following the announcement of the iPhone 5), and the fabulous success of the Pebble Watch on Kickstarter. The timing on all of these rumors makes me think that these big companies decided that Pebble was the first moment in an entirely new genre of electronics, and raced to cash in.
The key to the success of any of these products will be their ability to convince us that they absolutely need to be watches. A smartphone with a strap on it will not do. I can’t quite imagine how exactly any of these products will accomplish that, but that doesn’t mean none of them will figure it out. Still, I can’t shake the feeling that all of these gadgets are going to have a hard time justifying their own existence in a world where we all already carry little computers around in our pockets. Smartwatches aren’t new. All of these companies have their work cut out for them if they want to convince us that now is the right time for them.
For what “wearable computing” could actually mean, one need only look to Google Glass. It’s not an entirely fair comparison – after all, we already know what Google Glass looks like, and we haven’t seen hide nor hair of any of these watches. But we can already see how Glass gains real functionality from being on our faces instead of in our pockets, whether that has to do with maps, voice chat, streaming or photos. The fact that Glass is scary enough to draw pre-emptive bans and protests means that Google is dealing with something big.
Any watch is going to need to be able to demonstrate its utility as simply and logically as those early videos from Project Glass. If these companies truly want the next big thing, that’s where the bar is.