可穿戴設備市場遲遲未見“引爆點”

Google leapt back into the smartwatch market this week with its first significant update to Android Wear in three years. Yet the launch of the new operating system, and accompanying watches from LG and Verizon comes at a moment of crisis for the wearable technology industry.

谷歌(Google)最近在智能手表市場再次有了大動作，發(fā)布了三年來對Android Wear的首個重大升級產品。然而，這個新操作系統(tǒng)以及搭載該系統(tǒng)的來自LG和Verizon的智能手表問世之際，整個可穿戴技術行業(yè)正處于危機之中。

Once tipped as the next big tech market after smartphones, wearables pioneers such as Fitbit and Jawbone are struggling and laying off staff, while others, including Motorola and Pebble, have abandoned the market.

可穿戴設備一度被認為將是繼智能手機之后，下一個擁有廣大市場的科技產品，如今該領域的先驅如Fitbit、Jawbone卻處境艱難，落到裁員的地步，摩托羅拉(Motorola)和Pebble等其他一些制造商則停止向這個市場邁進。

Last week, Apple hailed record sales of its Watch, widely seen as the market leader, in the holiday quarter after revenues for the device declined earlier in the year. “We couldn’t be more excited about Apple Watch,” chief executive Tim Cook said, hailing the “huge potential for wearables going forward”.

蘋果(Apple)前不久聲稱，其手表產品Apple Watch在假日季度(holiday quarter)銷售創(chuàng)紀錄，扭轉了去年早些時候銷售收入下滑的趨勢。Apple Watch被廣泛視為是市場領軍產品。蘋果首席執(zhí)行官蒂姆•庫克(Tim Cook)表示：“我們對Apple Watch感到無比興奮。”他盛贊“可穿戴技術在未來有巨大潛力”。

Much of that potential, however, is yet to be realised.

然而，這種潛力有很大一部分還有待挖掘。

“Without a doubt, wearables have failed to live up to the hype by any measure,” says Ben Wood, analyst at CCS Insight, a tech and telecoms consultancy. “In general, it still feels like a solution looking for a problem.”

科技與電信業(yè)咨詢公司CCS Insight的分析師本•伍德(Ben Wood)表示：“毫無疑問，以任何標準衡量，可穿戴技術都未能達到炒作中宣稱的高度。總體上，它仍讓人感覺像是帶著解決方案找問題。”

Apple does not break out sales of its Watch, leaving analysts’ guesses for its growth rate in the quarter ranging from 20 per cent to just 2 per cent.

蘋果并未透露該季度Apple Watch的銷量數(shù)字，因此分析師們對其銷量增長率的估計值相差很大，在2%至20%之間。

According to research group Strategy Analytics, which made the more pessimistic estimate for Apple Watch, global smartwatch shipments grew just 1 per cent in 2016 to 21.1m. Even optimists say that Apple Watch sales barely grew over the full year.

研究集團Strategy Analytics對Apple Watch銷量的估計就偏于悲觀——據(jù)該機構測算，2016年全球智能手表出貨量僅增長了1%，達到2110萬部。而即使是樂觀者也表示，Apple Watch全年銷量幾乎沒有增長。

Strategy Analytics pegged Apple’s smartwatch market share at 55 per cent last year, followed by Samsung at 11 per cent and “others” at 34 per cent. “Others” includes many based on Google’s software, which any manufacturer can use with its Android smartphones.

Strategy Analytics估計去年蘋果在智能手表市場占有55%的份額，三星(Samsung)占11%，“其他”占34%。“其他”中包括了許多采用谷歌軟件的制造商——任何制造商都可以在其搭載Android系統(tǒng)的智能手機上使用谷歌軟件。

The new Android Wear 2.0 adds Google’s Assistant, a voice-activated digital helper, as well as apps that run on the device, rather than relying on a paired smartphone. The new software was first announced last May, with Alphabet-owned Google blaming the launch’s delay on taking extra time to refine the technology.

新推出的Android Wear 2.0增添了語音激活的數(shù)字助理——谷歌的Assistant，并新增了多款應用，可以在手表上直接運行，而不必依賴配對的智能手機。隸屬Alphabet旗下的谷歌在去年5月首次宣布了Android Wear 2.0，該系統(tǒng)之所以遲遲沒有推出，谷歌表示主要是為了有更多時間打磨技術。

“I think the delay was Google struggling to work out what it would need to do in order to reinvigorate the platform,” says Mr Wood. “It’s hard to see that there is a major disruption with this new version.”

伍德表示：“我認為，推遲是因為谷歌很難想出要怎么做才能為該平臺注入新的活力。新版本很難看到大的突破。”

At a time when Amazon’s Echo speaker and its Alexa assistant is seeing rapid growth, the inclusion in Android Wear of Google’s Assistant — similar to Apple Watch’s Siri — could help voice control reach a “tipping point”, he says, “but it’s far from being a slam dunk”.

他說，在亞馬遜(Amazon)的Echo音箱及Alexa數(shù)字助理取得快速發(fā)展之際，Android Wear系統(tǒng)中加入了與Apple Watch的Siri類似的谷歌Assistant，可能會有助于其語音控制技術到達一個“引爆點”，“不過這遠遠算不上王牌”。

The long tail of smartwatch makers runs from traditional watchmakers such as Fossil to sports brands such as New Balance. So far, few are shipping in meaningful scale. “For all the players, Apple included, it’s a narrow market,” said Aymar de Lencquesaing, president of Lenovo-owned Motorola, in an interview at the Consumer Electronics Show last month.

智能手表制造商的身后有大量尾隨者，既有Fossil等傳統(tǒng)手表制造商，也有新百倫(New Balance)之類的運動品牌。到目前為止，幾乎沒有公司做到了大規(guī)模出貨。上月在消費電子展(Consumer Electronics Show)上接受采訪時，聯(lián)想(Lenovo)旗下摩托羅拉的總裁艾瑪•迪-倫奎賽恩(Aymar de Lencquesaing)表示：“對所有參與者、包括蘋果來說，這都是個狹窄的市場。”

While its latest Moto 360 smartwatch can be updated to the new Android Wear 2.0, the company has said it does not immediately plan to release a new smartwatch to coincide with Google’s latest launch. Mr de Lencquesaing believes that having to connect a smartwatch to a smartphone via Bluetooth, rather than being able to operate fully independently, is a “limitation”. “That tethering limits the market because some people are going to feel it’s just as fine to have it in their pocket and they don’t need to have it on their wrist,” he says.

盡管摩托羅拉最新的Moto 360智能手表可以升級到新的Android Wear 2.0操作系統(tǒng)，該公司表示并沒有在近期推出新款智能手表以配合谷歌升級Android Wear的計劃。迪-倫奎賽恩認為，智能手表必須通過藍牙與智能手機相關聯(lián)，而不能完全獨立操作，是一種“限制”。“這種關聯(lián)限制了市場，因為一些人會覺得有口袋里的手機就行了，他們不需要戴在手腕上的智能手表，”他說。

While Motorola is still dedicating “some resources” to building a standalone smartwatch, overcoming that problem “requires a level of integration with the [mobile network] operators that is not trivial. I’m questioning whether the maturity of the industry is there yet”, Mr de Lencquesaing says.

盡管摩托羅拉依然將“一些資源”投入到開發(fā)獨立操作的智能手表之中，克服這個難題“需要與(移動網(wǎng)絡)運營商在一定程度上相互整合，這不是一件能夠輕易做到的事。我在懷疑，這個行業(yè)是否已經(jīng)成熟，”迪-倫奎賽恩說。

A deeper problem is that even customers who buy smartwatches end up not using them. A recent survey of 9,592 consumers in the US, UK and Australia by Gartner, the research group, found that 29 per cent of smartwatch owners abandon them, which its analysts called a “serious problem for the industry”.

更深層的問題是，購買了智能手表的顧客最后也可能不使用它們。研究集團高德納(Gartner)最近對美國、英國和澳大利亞的9592名消費者進行的調查表明，29%的智能手表用戶將其棄之不用，該集團分析師稱這是一個“行業(yè)性的嚴重問題”。

While Moto presses pause, others are forging ahead in the hopes that fresh innovations will catch consumers’ imaginations. Fitbit has been building out its smartwatch capabilities, with the recent acquisitions of start-ups Coin, Pebble and Vector Watch. Fitbit said last week that it would cut about 6 per cent of its workforce after holiday quarter revenues would come in lower than expected at up to $580m — almost half Wall Street’s estimates as recently as November.

盡管摩托羅拉暫停推進，其他制造商仍在繼續(xù)努力前進，希望新的創(chuàng)新能夠激發(fā)消費者的想象力。Fitbit一直在發(fā)展其在智能手表領域的實力，最近收購了初創(chuàng)公司Coin、Pebble和Vector Watch。近日Fitbit表示將裁員約6%，其假日季度的收入將低于預期，最高為5.8億美元——幾乎是華爾街在去年11月預期的數(shù)字的一半。

Yet despite the scale of the shortfall, Fitbit chief James Park described the market as being in a “temporary slowdown and transition period”.

然而，盡管與預期相差很大，F(xiàn)itbit首席執(zhí)行官詹姆斯•樸(James Park)稱該市場處于“暫時的放緩和過渡期”。

While some are hoping that tie-ups with fashion and jewellery brands will boost wearables’ appeal, others are looking beyond the wrist for other places on the body that can monitor health, from shoes to ears and even fingers.

一些人希望，與時尚和珠寶品牌合作能夠提高可穿戴設備的吸引力，還有一些人正在尋找可以監(jiān)測健康狀況的手腕以外的其他身體部位，從腳到耳朵，甚至手指。

Motiv, a start-up based in San Francisco, has spent the last three years incorporating many of the sensors traditionally found in a fitness tracking wristband — including step counter and heart rate monitor — into a ring.

舊金山初創(chuàng)公司Moti過去3年一直致力于將傳統(tǒng)上健康追蹤腕帶使用的許多傳感器——包括計步器和心率監(jiān)測器——整合到戒指上。

“With wearables today, we are at the stage of lipstick on pigs,” says co-founder Curt von Badinski, referring to fashion brand partnerships. “They keep doing the same thing but changing the look of it a bit . . . We take over what you do with your typical wearable and put it on your finger.”

“就今天的可穿戴設備而言，行業(yè)還處在給豬涂口紅的階段，”該公司聯(lián)合創(chuàng)始人庫爾特•馮巴丁斯基(Curt von Badinski)在談到可穿戴設備與時尚品牌的合作時說，“他們繼續(xù)在做同樣的事情，只把外觀改變了一點……我們接手了他們對典型可穿戴設備所做的事情，并且要讓它能戴在你的手指上。”

Motiv’s $200 device, whose curved batteries last for three to five days, goes on sale in the spring.

Motiv的設備配備的彎曲電池能夠續(xù)航3到5天，即將在春天上架銷售，售價200美元。