Tag Archives: watches

Over 1 million smart watches to ship in 2013 according to ABI Research

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Research firm ABI Research has issued a new report looking at the smart watch market for 2013. According to the company, over 1 million smart watches will ship this year. ABI Research says that while the wearable computing market failed to take off in the past due to things like ugly watches, watches that were too bulky, and watches with poor functionality; things are set to change this year.

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ABI is predicting that over 1.2 million smart watches will be shipped this year alone. The company believes that the wearable computing device will be split into four categories including notification type, voice operational smart watches, hybrid smart watches, and completely independent smart watches. The company considers notification type devices to be products such as the MetaWatch and Cookoo.

Those devices offer alerts for incoming calls, messages, and other notifications. Voice operational smart watches will allow users to start and stop calls and issue commands to the watch using their voice. Products in the standalone category include watches such as the Martain smart watch. Standalone smart watches will have their own OS and will move beyond being a smartphone accessory alone.

You can bet that some of these standalone smart watches will run the Android operating system and Android-powered smart watches fit into the other categories are expected as well. There are already some basic Android-powered smart watches available on the market, such as the offerings from Pebble. Additional products are expected this year from several manufacturers.

[viaABI Research]

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Pebble: All black watches now ready with colors still several weeks out

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It looks like we have another Pebble smartwatch related update. This one will likely come as a bit of good news or bad news depending on the color you originally picked when you backed the project on Kickstarter. You see, the folks at Pebble have announced that all of the black watches are ready for shipping. Well, specifically, Pebble has said they are currently “making their way through the fulfillment process.”

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Basically, if you ordered a black Pebble and don’t yet have it — you should soon. On that note, I can say that I backed the project on almost the last day and received mine this past weekend. The other side of this latest Pebble update is in regards to the colored watches. Unfortunately, these are not quite ready just yet.

The folks at Pebble have offered some details on the colored watch manufacturing process and are also offering the option for those still waiting on a color to switch things up and go with a black model. Sure, you may not be getting the flashier color you originally wanted, but you would have your watch quite a bit sooner.

As for the colored watches, Pebble has said they expect the first red watches to be ready for shipping in about 2 to 3 weeks. From here things get a bit worse for those waiting on another color. After red the team will be working on orange and then gray and white. Unfortunately though, things were then left with little more than a promise that more updates will arrive when they have additional information to share.

[via Kickstarter]

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