[chm]

Well, everything was at one point.

You would once have been called a materialist for owning your own set of cookingware, I think, but you'd hardly want to live without one now, would you? And you wouldn't call someone who buys a brand new set of kitchen knives "conspicuous".

I don't find much value in the Pebble so I don't buy it, but I definitely see a time when I'll want one of its kin. I'd pay to have data on my glucose level, heart rate, blood pressure etc available to me and me only, i.e. not sent to a central server.

But anyway, time will tell.

[thirdsight]

Cookware has an established practical and has been with us in various forms for thousands of years so I think that's a poor analogy.

The pebble demands your attention. That is all. It does nothing that something else doesn't do already, costs a chunk of money, needs constant feeding and attention. At least a smartphone was a consolidation of communication and entertainment devices. This is a portable distraction. A poor one at that.

Do you think it's healthy to constantly stare at your heat rate, glucose level and blood pressure and micromanage every parameter of your life?

Also in a decade, you will pay a subscription fee for that data from the central provider that your watch talks to. That model is established already plus it will probably be linked to your health insurance profile as well by then. You'll wear one to keep your premium down...

[dragonwriter]

> The pebble demands your attention. That is all.

Almost everyone I've heard from -- in person and online -- that has had a Pebble or similar smartwatch has said that getting notifications on it reduced their gadget-focussed attention compared to having only a smartphone, and cited that as the primary benefit.

So, while I think it could be, for some people, a new distraction, I don't think that's generally the case, and is, in fact, the opposite of what it normally is and what is motivating people to buy it.

[schrodinger]

Cookware has an established practical use now, but not when it first emerged. I don't think that smartwatches have been around long enough to establish themselves yet. It's too soon to say they're impractical.

[chm]

Well, the analogy was good enough that you got the point.

I don't see how wearing a watch that gathers biometrics would be unhealthy. A small bracelet without any display would be fine with me. At the moment, I don't need this - I'm in my prime. But once I get older, I might benefit from having a small buzz on my wrist alerting me that I'm working too hard mowing the lawn, or whatever.

I'm also against a model such as the one you describe, like I have made clear in my post.