Withings CEO Cédric Hutchins has criticised the current state of the smartwatch market, suggesting it is giving the wider wearables space ‘a bad name’
Speaking exclusively with TrustedReviews, the man behind the newly unveiled Withings Activité Pop suggested that gaudy, overly complicated and battery life bereft smartwatches from the likes of Samsung, LG and Motorola are hurting the reputation of the overall wearables industry.
“I want to be careful, but smartwatches today, they are giving wearables a bad name,” he told us.
Suggesting that poor user experiences from daily charges and clunky interfaces are deterring consumers from experiencing the wider range of wearable gadgets, he added: “Samsung and other phone companies are subsidising their equipment and we are seeing a lot of products drop.”
Although Withings offers its own ‘smart’ watch-based wearables, the French manufacturer has taken a radically different approach to the market.
Overlooking touch screen displays and heart rate sensors, call notifications and Google’s Android Wear OS, the company has instead focussed on classic watch styling and simple fitness and wellbeing tracking.
Capable of recording your step count, calorie burn, sleep patterns and even swim strokes, the Activité, and more affordable Activité Pop, displays only your zero-to-100 per cent progress to a pre-set goal. This is shown through a secondary dial on the watch face.
Further, more detailed metrics can be viewed via the accompanying, Bluetooth Low Energy connected, app.
Looking to Withings’ own, more refined watch-themed fitness tracker, Hutchins added: “I think we have quite a unique approach, to make a genuine, true watch that has all these sensors buts appeals to people who are looking for a watch.
Related: Withings Pulse O2 review
Despite criticising the growing smartwatch spac, Hutchins has ceded that these over-the-top, smartphone on your wrist style devices do serve a purpose – namely grabbing attentions.
“A very important point to make is that when you have a new technology disruption or innovation, there is always a need at the very beginning to have something that is highly identifiable,” he said. “The alien technologies appeal for the early adopters.
“However, in the next phase you need another disruption, it is not just about getting a larger audience with the same offer, each time you go more mass market, it puts more of a challenge on a tech company like us because it needs to be more elegant and a smoother transition.
“It becomes harder and harder to change as the product category goes mass market.”
With the Withings Activité having been officially unveiled earlier this week, the manufacturer has confirmed the device will be available in the UK later this month.
Set to be offered through Currys and PC World towards the end of January, the Activité Pop has been handed a wallet-friendly sub-£120 price tag.