The writing’s been on the wall, but Microsoft have just announced that they are putting down their SPOT service for Smart Watches like the lame dog it was.
SPOT (“Smart Personal Objects Technology” — Smart Watches that could send and download information via FM Radio) was an interesting idea, briefly capturing my fascination as I dreamed of an affordable SWATCH with all the Dick Tracy technological trimmings. But the watches themselves — drab-looking LCDs, the lot of them — were far too ugly to seriously consider wearing, and the features didn’t seem worth the premium of the subscription to MSN Direct. They were either mundane (weather updates, lottery numbers) or absurd (you could receive but not send IMs on your watch). There was just no compelling reason to own one.
Well, SPOT’s dead now. If you’ve got a SPOT watch, its services will continue working, but no more SPOT Watches will be released. Microsoft seems to be channeling the MSN DIrect service into more powerful devices, like GPS units. That’s probably for the best. Personally, I think SPOT Watches highlighted a big dilemma with modern watch design: the more technologically modern a watch becomes, the less pleasing it is to wear.
Smart Watch Update [Spotstop via Crunch Gear]
I’m sure you meant to type LCD instead of LED.
I did. I corrected. Thanks!
What a shame. I really did enjoy my SPOT Watch, while I paid for the service. Yes, it was a little large and rather heavy. But I was the first in the office to know about Anna Nicole’s death as well as plenty of other miscellaneous news tidbits.
I’ll miss having to “reboot” my watch when it crashes. *sniffles*
Good point. As soon as I got a watch that got phone calls I started to keep it in my pocket. Which is to say as soon as I got a cell phone I stopped wearing a wristwatch.
Wah. I LOVE my Swatch Smartwatch–I can get my Office calendar on it, which means that on days when I have back to back meetings, I can get on-the-fly room updates so I’m not running around our corporate campus like a lost chicken. Leave it to MS to kill the one product they have that actually works.
oh no!!!
I’m pretty late, but I liked my watch. For me I relied heavily on the Outlook sync. I need the warnings on meeting, especially when I traveled.
But along cam iPhone and imagine that, it syncs with my calendar too. Bye spot, what could have been.