The Sky Watch Watchphone - It works fine - but someone moved the goalposts
Friday, July 22, 2011 at 5:16PM OK, so I bought a watchphone and I can now tell you that the idea of owning a watchphone is a lot more exciting than actually owning a watchphone. At least this kind of lesson can be learned relatively cheaply. There are plenty of other ideas where the concept is a lot more exciting than reality - like getting a dog, getting married or having children, all of which are a lot more permanent and expensive.
I mention in the video that speaking into your wrist makes you look like a fool, I'm still relatively OK with this, but there is another big insurmountable and fundamental flaw in the concept of a wrist phone, let me explain….
Most people nowadays have a mobile phone that does more than take calls. At the minimum most people can receive Email on their phone, but many more have now come to rely on a smartphone containing a hand picked suite of apps. Now there is no way that a device that can fit on a wrist could compete for features & usability with a proper smartphone. For example, attempting to read a full webpage on a device with a 1.8" screen will never be a pleasant experience.
Most people also now have a mobile phone number that has been ported from phone to phone and been with them a few years, it has in effect become their personal identification number. Now that number can only be on one sim, in one phone at at time. I choose to keep this number, the one that all my contacts know, in my most capable device - my iPhone. The watch therefore has to make-do with a pay as you go sim - the number of which only I know.
If I were to be asked for my telephone number , the number that I'd give out would be the one I've been using for years, not my secondary number, that is in the watchphone - that I may or may not be wearing on the day.
So that's the fundamental problem, who is going to call my watchphone? Answer; nobody (well except for me when I was shooting this video). Perhaps I have this wrong and lots of people use multiple mobile phone numbers - however I don't, so the watchphone ends up being pretty much useless in the end, but most of you probably already figured this out without actually having to go and buy one - so well done you.
Anyway, wrists-on review below.
Reader Comments (5)
Great video as usual, could you tell me where the still at the beginning of the video is from? (The one with the kids sat round the computer). I recognise the show but can't for the life of me remember the name of it.
Anyway, keep up the good work!
@Andy It's Whizz Kids...a very short lived programme from the early 80s that attempted to recreate a Wargames type vibe for TV. I have fond memories...but it was probably terrible.
In Norway the phone companies offer what they call a «twin SIM card» for customers that for some reason ned two phones with the same number. I use this service since my car has an in-built GSM phone system.
So when I am driving and somebody calls me both my phone and the car phone rings. The first phone I accept the call with gets the call, and the other phone stops ringing. I also get text messages on both units. The behaviour is customable on my GSM company's web site.
I guess this might be useful for a watchphone as a second GSM unit.
@kristaga. That sounds like a brilliant solution to this problem. I'm pretty sure that it isn't an option in the UK...but it should be.
Google is our friend... a search shows that it is possible, but quite uncommon in UK:
wirelessforums.org
avforums.com
forums.digitalspy.co.uk