What else can mobile phone manufacturers do with smart watches?

【Gearbest】In the past two years, not only have we witnessed the progress of mainstream digital products such as mobile phones and computers, but also some relatively marginal smart digital products are entering the field of vision of more and more people. Among them, many mobile phone manufacturers have also invested a lot of energy in the field of smart wearables while iterating their smartphones normally. Products in this field include various true wireless Bluetooth headsets, smart bracelets, smart watches, smart glasses, etc. Among them, smart watches are the focus of our article.

smart watch

We can notice that smart watches are becoming a must-have for more and more digital enthusiasts. On the one hand, this is due to the improvement of people's consumption level. On the other hand, it also shows that the user experience of smart watches is also steadily improving, which is why they are loved by many consumers. Compared with traditional watches, smart watches are undoubtedly more functional. Most of the functions of traditional mechanical watches or electronic watches are related to time and have great limitations. And now the smart watches have gradually developed and matured, we can even regard them as a small mobile phone on the wrist.

Recently, Gearbest has noticed that mobile phone manufacturers have shown signs of exerting their strength in the field of smart watches. The field of smart watches has also taken a step towards involution. Especially in recent times, many new products with novel designs and surprising ideas have been officially announced or launched. In fact, the design ideas of many products may become the key to the future development of smart watches.

Current state of the smartwatch market

What is the current situation of the smartwatch market? According to the latest global smartwatch market tracking report released by Counterpoint Research, despite the current overall environment facing certain crises, global smartwatch market shipments still maintained a high-speed development trend in the third quarter of 2022, with a year-on-year growth rate of 30%. It should be noted that the current sales of many consumer electronic products, whether smartphones or personal computers, are in decline, but at the same time, the smartwatch market has shown extremely high vitality, which is enough to show that there is still a lot of room for development in this market.

Smartwatch Market in Q3 2022

Moreover, among the current mainstream smartwatch players, we can see many mobile phone manufacturers, including Apple, Samsung, Huawei and Xiaomi. Among them, Apple's position in the smartwatch market is quite stable. The newly released Apple Watch 8 has achieved excellent market results, which has increased Apple's shipments by 48% month-on-month, ranking first in the world. Samsung also benefited from the hot sales of the Galaxy Watch 5 series, which increased its smartwatch shipments by 62% month-on-month, ranking second in the world. The two domestic manufacturers Huawei and Xiaomi also performed well. The former achieved a market growth of 65% month-on-month, even ahead of Apple and Samsung.

To sum up, we can see that perhaps because of the higher brand awareness and recognition, or perhaps relying on the ecological advantages of smartphones, many manufacturers involved in the mobile phone field are also thriving in the smart watch market.

Involution is a good character

We all know that the involution in the smartphone market is heartbreaking and makes people cry. There are even manufacturers who are just making friends and losing money selling smartphones. In the smartwatch market, involution has now become the norm. Not only are overseas manufacturers such as Apple and Samsung constantly optimizing the user experience and exploring new functions on smartwatches, but several leading domestic manufacturers are also not lagging behind in this regard.

Recently, Huawei will hold a winter new product launch conference, which was originally scheduled for December 2, but has now been postponed for some reasons, and the new time has not yet been announced. What we need to note is that at this conference, Huawei will launch two smartwatch products, one of which is the Huawei Children's Watch 5X, and the other is the Huawei WATCH Buds.

Huawei WATCH Buds (exposed picture)

Updating a watch is not a big deal, but these two new watches from Huawei are not simple at all. Among them, although the Huawei Children's Watch 5X is just a children's watch, it adopts a dual-screen design. The front of the watch is an OLED display screen, and the back is a segment code screen. This design can be said to be relatively novel in the current smartwatch market. And the other one is even more interesting. Nokia previously stuffed the Bluetooth headset into the phone and made a stunning “lift your skull”. Now Huawei has also stuffed the true wireless headset into the smartwatch. In addition, the Huawei WATCH GT Cyber, which has a quick-release design and can even be used as a pocket watch, was recently released. It can be said that Huawei has played with its smartwatch products in the past few months.

Huawei Watch Buds

From this we can also perceive that manufacturers who are used to being competitive in the mobile phone market can no longer contain their excitement in the field of smart watches, and have many ideas about the future development direction of smart watches.

Where else can smart watches go?

Although the experience of smart watches is relatively mature now, there is still a lot of room for development. In the future, as this market gradually expands, more manufacturers will inevitably join in, and manufacturers that have already launched smart watch products will also pay more attention to this field. So how will the smart watch product develop in the future?

At present, detecting sports data has become the main function of many smart watches, and it is also the demand of many consumers when purchasing smart watches. It is foreseeable that increasing the types of sports that support detection data and optimizing the accuracy of detection data will be the direction of future development efforts of many smart watch R&D teams.

Watch detects sports data

On the other hand, there are many application scenarios for smart watches in daily life that can be explored. Functions such as NFC and Bluetooth can allow smart watches to be used to unlock mobile phones, door locks, and cars when necessary, replacing bus cards, bank cards, etc., which can greatly facilitate our lives. In the field of smart homes, smart watches can also become the control center on our wrists. These two points may also become the focus of the future development of smart watches.

Smart home control with watch

In addition, the several smart watches that Huawei is about to release this time also point out several future development paths for products in this field in terms of appearance design. As smart wearable devices, smart watches and wireless headphones can not only collaborate in function to a certain extent, but also have the possibility of integrated design in hardware, such as the Huawei WATCH Buds this time. Products like Huawei WATCH Buds not only look very novel and cool, but also can effectively simplify the travel burden of users. However, the battery life of smart watches may also be heavier as a result, and the control of weight and thickness may also become a difficulty that manufacturers need to overcome.

Final Thoughts

The development of smart watches is not only closely related to the product category itself, but also has a certain impact on smart homes, smart phones and other fields. Huawei's continuous innovation in this field is naturally what consumers are happy to see. However, where smart watches will go in the future, only time can give the answer.

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