Talk about smart watches is all the rage among tech pundits and enthusiasts, especially since the announcement of the Apple Watch last year. But not everyone is convinced they’re going to be the defining wearable device.
Fred Wilson, the co-founder of New York-based Union Square Ventures, said in a post to his blog that he doesn’t think the Apple Watch will be a blockbuster product like the iPod, iPhone and iPad.
The Apple Watch will not be the homerun product that iPod, iPhone, and iPad have been. Not everyone will want to wear a computer on their wrist. Eventually, this market will be realized as the personal mesh/personal cloud, but the focus on wearables will be a bit of a headfake and take up a lot of time, energy, and money in 2015 with not a lot of results.
That doesn’t mean the Apple Watch won’t see some success. In a set of tweets this morning, Wilson went on to say that he thinks Apple will sell a lot of watches, but that doesn’t mean the smartwatch will define the wearable market.
3/ I don't think everyone wants a computer on their wrist. But plenty will and I am certain that apple will sell a lot of them
— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) January 2, 2015
4/ I think wearables will involve many devices, some of which we will wear and some of which we won't
— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) January 2, 2015
5/ I don't think the watch form factor will define wearables in the same way that the smartphone defines the mobile market
— Fred Wilson (@fredwilson) January 2, 2015
Of course, it’s not clear yet what other wearable devices have the potential to take off. Google’s experiment with Glass isn’t going all that well, and other major tech companies haven’t really unveiled other plans just yet.
