If (when?) the Apple Watch fails, the IoT will be just fine

Limited Failure, Really

Two unrelated but conflicting items in the news feed this week:

1) Apple Watch sales fall 90% from the launch rush, speaking to how this is a bleeding edge product that mainstream users are not taking on.

2) IBM announced a breakthrough in computer chip manufacturing, which basically means that the next generation is going to be half as big as the current ones. (FYI, we are also now getting into the molecular level, with special facilities that eliminate all vibration, because Ye Gads, we are manufacturing things at a molecular level.)

So here is where I get to out of this. The Internet of Things is still coming, but it is not going to do so directly.

A wearable watch is, well, still a watch. There’s an entire generation of people who more or less missed that choice in apparel, and expecting them to just latch on because it’s tech now was always going to be a bit of a stretch.

However, what is most telling is that three million users went for it anyway, with many more going for FitBits. Other providers are joining the fray with lower cost items, but even if the eventual connected band market is 10X the current Apple Watch world, it’s “only” 30 million, or about 10% of the populace. Significant, but nowhere near smartphone numbers.

But those super-thin, super-small components? Well, those could go anywhere, really. Individual SKUs on apparel, to replace bulky security devices, and provide much more information about consideration and browsing behavior. Once the user owned the apparel, the pieces can communicate with each other and get to a baseline for health. Imagine, honestly, how much better preventative care could be if the populace has the option of frequent monitoring. Your clothing could save your life… and back to an e-commerce standpoint, items at a wearout stage could potentially alert a vendor.

The point is that the Internet of Things t will not be about a handful of high-touch, high-consideration screens that you, as an individual consumer, will purchase. Instead, it will be immersive, easy, and driven by market forces that speak to marketing and advertising efficiency at the consumer level, and manufacturing and shipping efficiencies on the front end.

So don’t take the Apple Watch sales as the canary in the coal mine for IoT. We are barely in the first few minutes of a very long game, where the benefits / players have barely begun to take the field. I realize that we are all on hyperspeed now, but this trend is going to be determined by more than monthly sales of a couple of SKUs.

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