EEVblog Electronics Community Forum
General => General Technical Chat => Topic started by: Bondguy on April 19, 2017, 07:54:38 am
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Guys,
What do you think about this project?
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1282890542/zetime-worlds-first-smartwatch-with-hands-over-tou/description (https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1282890542/zetime-worlds-first-smartwatch-with-hands-over-tou/description)
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So, basically, the fad is wearing off and people are realizing that a watch should be a watch? Will the next kickstarter be for an "elegantly simple wrist watch" with no computer components?
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6 CxO's
Only 4 dedicated to software, zero to hardware.
Is this a company invented with non real employees, because that's a lot of people..
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It is almost at $3.0 Million, and 7 days to go. :scared:
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I'd call this a BS but this company has real smartwatch products currently selling.
https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=srs%3D9274777011%26search-alias%3Dspecialty-aps&field-keywords=MyKronoz (https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=srs%3D9274777011%26search-alias%3Dspecialty-aps&field-keywords=MyKronoz)
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Only novelty seems to be a TFT with a hole - I see no reason why this isn't doable in principle as long as you have a manufacturer willing to invest in tooling it. This would be ridiculous at the 50K goal.
However I'm skeptical they could get
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Only novelty seems to be a TFT with a hole - I see no reason why this isn't doable in principle as long as you have a manufacturer willing to invest in tooling it. This would be ridiculous at the 50K goal.
However I'm skeptical they could get
I've been skeptical about 50k too. But they obviously have the money and use kickstarter just as a place for advertising and preordering the product.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ9Tppb51Yg (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQ9Tppb51Yg)
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6 CxO's
Only 4 dedicated to software, zero to hardware.
Agree, that's very strange.
A watch should get along nicely with just a single crystal oscillator, and it should definitely be in hardware. ;)
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Given that they're an active company already selling products including both analog and smart watches it's only a tiny step for them to combine the 2 and do the hole in the screen thing, they've already got well oiled development and production, no problem. The 50k goal obviously means nothing in such a case, they already had the development done and were going to come out with the product anyway, the kickstarter campaign is just used as a marketing tool and gauge for interest (very successfully).
And yes, I backed :)
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Patent for "motorised hands" :-DD
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Well it's stupid, but the only other hybrid smart/analog watch I know of had the 2 parts completely separate... so it's not pointless to attempt to get a patent for moving analog hands from a connected OS since that's obviously how it should be done :P
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there is nothing not doable in that design.. and actually i like it. i would even back it it if i haven't had a smart watch already. and i can imagine a Chinese manufacturer happily doing the tooling for the TFT with a hole... because he'll sell millions of those displays to other Chinese manufacturers copying that hybrid smartwatch :D
i agree with the opinion they're using KS as a cheap advertisement ;) if you're a existing company already having your manufacturers (they sell smart watches) and you want to introduce a new product with some level of novelty in it... then a KS campaign is much cheaper than a big advertisement campaign in media because you only pay some 10% to KS+payment processor and you offer the product 30% under retail price. and as a bonus you not just advertising but also selling the product.
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The idea is great, and is what the original concept of a smart watch should have been. If they pull it off it could be great.
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30 day battery life.. not a chance I say.. it's not going to look like the watch they show in the video.
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30 day battery life.. not a chance I say.. it's not going to look like the watch they show in the video.
30 days for mechanical part :palm:, 3 days for smartwatch.
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The whole point is precisely that you can see the the time without powering the screen up or when the battery's dead... reading helps.
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The idea is great, and is what the original concept of a smart watch should have been. If they pull it off it could be great.
YES! Make watches GREAT again!
Sorry, couldn't resist when I saw how you worded it ;D
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The whole point is precisely that you can see the the time without powering the screen up or when the battery's dead... reading helps.
where does it say that.. I watched the video and just glanced at the page.
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The idea is great, and is what the original concept of a smart watch should have been. If they pull it off it could be great.
YES! Make watches GREAT again!
Sorry, couldn't resist when I saw how you worded it ;D
Haha. We have many watches, but this watch, this watch, is the one, the one watch, you should buy. We're going to build a watch store, and make the Mexicans pay for it, and it's going to be great!
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The whole point is precisely that you can see the the time without powering the screen up or when the battery's dead... reading helps.
where does it say that.. I watched the video and just glanced at the page.
Well, unsurprisingly on the page.
(https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/kickstarter-really-real-project/?action=dlattach;attach=309729;image)
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IMHO we don't need smartwatches whatsoever; it's one of the products that needs artificially created demand as it doesn't solve any real problem ;)
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I don't need such a watch but the idea that a user can see their incoming texts (or at least the headline) while sitting in a staff meeting and avoid being 'that guy' - the rude one playing with their phone - kind of appeals to me.
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I've been using a Samsung Gear S2 for more than a year and it does allow to skip many "dig in the pocket" occurrences when you see straight away in a second whether it's something you want to deal with or not.
Never really used apps though, loaded a bunch but the small interface always takes more time to manipulate than taking the phone out.
So IMO with a smartwatch the really useful stuff is notifications, the pleasant stuff is to be able to choose your watchface, the needed stuff is >2 day battery life, and the slightly annoying stuff is when you want to look at the time and the screen doesn't catch it and power on. This one does the first, isn't too bad at the second, checks the third and is the only one to do the 4th (without going all Apple watch and turning the screen on so easily it ends up on at your slightest move thereby killing battery life), hence me backing.
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this watch looks stupid
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Let's see if I got this right...
It's pretty much an iWatch but thinner and more watch-like. And it adds a regular watch function as well. And it costs wat a much lower end smartwatch would cost.
So, either the thousands of engineers working at Apple, Fitbit, Samsung, Withings,... are all idiots, or...
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It's pretty much an iWatch but thinner and more watch-like. And it adds a regular watch function as well. And it costs wat a much lower end smartwatch would cost.
So, either the thousands of engineers working at Apple, Fitbit, Samsung, Withings,... are all idiots, or...
... or the business guys working at Apple are rather greedy. ;)
MyKronoz have smartwatches already on the market. These use either mechanical hands or a touch screen, but are offered below the targe price for the new model. E.g. this one here: https://www.mykronoz.com/de/de/collections/zeroundpremium-leather.html (https://www.mykronoz.com/de/de/collections/zeroundpremium-leather.html). As mentioned by others above, this Kickstarter campaign is not a project by a couple of fresh-out-of-school kids, but a marketing play by an existing company.
I would tend to trust them -- except maybe on battery life, which may turn out to be a tad optimistic. But I would not complain about 2 days and 20 days in screen mode and mechanical-hands-only mode, respectively...
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It's pretty much an iWatch but thinner and more watch-like. And it adds a regular watch function as well. And it costs wat a much lower end smartwatch would cost.
So, either the thousands of engineers working at Apple, Fitbit, Samsung, Withings,... are all idiots, or...
... or the business guys working at Apple are rather greedy. ;)
MyKronoz have smartwatches already on the market. These use either mechanical hands or a touch screen, but are offered below the targe price for the new model. E.g. this one here: https://www.mykronoz.com/de/de/collections/zeroundpremium-leather.html (https://www.mykronoz.com/de/de/collections/zeroundpremium-leather.html). As mentioned by others above, this Kickstarter campaign is not a project by a couple of fresh-out-of-school kids, but a marketing play by an existing company.
I would tend to trust them -- except maybe on battery life, which may turn out to be a tad optimistic. But I would not complain about 2 days and 20 days in screen mode and mechanical-hands-only mode, respectively...
I have no problems admitting Apple products are overpriced, but to me they do represent a technical benchmark: there's no reason to assume others can put together a product that is more than marginally better. So either they are misrepresenting, per example, the dimensions and/or looks or they we are in for a post in a year or two that starts with 'despite our best efforts, yadayadayada...'
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Apple products are somewhat of a technical and design benchmark yes - but that's the whole point. You can do perfectly good things for 1/5 of the price it takes to be the "benchmark", the reason Apple stuff is expensive is precisely because they want to be taken as the benchmark, and as such that commands a premium pricing and premium materials/features of which the actual relevance may be small.
The watch market is the prine example of a field where anything goes for pricing, and completely unrelated to capabilities. Just see the orignal "Edition" Apple watch - exact same one as the normal $350 one, but sold for $12k. The actual extra material costs are probably $1k, the rest is marketing fluff.
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* kicks topic from the grave *
Looks like they actually delivered something. Unfortunately it does look like they rushed it, both on software and hardware level. Also they seem very unresponsive to backers. Too bad, I think the concept is quite neat.