I'm not sure if wearables even got truly started. But honestly, at this point I just want it to end.
I've never been much of a watch guy — I owned a Fossil watch for a few years when I was a teenager — but I was hoping technology would rekindle my interest. That hasn't happened, and I'm not sure if it ever will.
The Apple Watch is probably the most popular wearable gadget right now. I like it, but I don't love it, and I can totally live without it.
The killer app is paying for goods with your wrist, but everything else basically boils down to sending notifications from your phone to your wrist, and I just don't really care for it. In some ways, I find checking my wrist to be more inappropriate than pulling out my phone. Unfortunately for Apple, I just don't see myself buying an Apple Watch in the future unless it sees some radical changes to the hardware and software.
Suffice it to say, Android Wear doesn't interest me either. It's not fashionable, and it's not much different than Apple's offering. Besides offering exact turn-by-turn directions with Google Maps on my wrist, I don't need or want any Android smartwatches. That includes Samsung's shiny and new Gear S2, the company's seventh attempt at a smartwatch. It looks pretty, but I'd rather use Apple Pay over Android Pay or Samsung Pay, mainly because of the ways in which Apple protects customers from merchants and itself.
Wearable devices tend to offer health and fitness benefits, but I still haven't seen a solution that speaks to me — something as simple looking as a Livestrong bracelet, but more complex under the hood. The fitness devices from Jawbone, Misfit, and others haven't impressed me. I don't like wearing these devices on my wrist — or needing to remember to wear them.
No other wearable device piques my interest at the moment.
This is just one person's opinion, and this isn't to say wearables will never interest me. If I could buy "smart clothes" in the stores where I already shop — for instance, if H&M sold smart shirts and smart pants that aren't markedly more expensive and can measure fitness activity, stress, etc. — I might be more interested in the category. Some companies are working on this very solution. But right now, I don't care about making accessories "smarter," like watches, necklaces, and earrings. Those I can live without. My phone is another story.
