Can't pay $349 for an Apple Watch? Get a Chinese knockoff for less than $50 China's legendary counterfeit craftsmen have been quick on the draw and are selling rip-off Apple Watch lookalikes for a fraction of the price, even though Cook & Co haven't shipped any devices as yet. "These guys are specialists," Laurent Le Pen, founder of Shenzhen smartwatch maker Omate, told CNN. "The speed at which they …
These Android watches were being offered as low as $30 a few weeks ago.....I was tempted to buy one just to see what you got for the money. Now the Apple watch has been shown its obvious that some vendor might rename it and maybe give it an Apple lookalike screen. That's just cosmetic.
Stand by for Apple to make all sorts of claims about how they invented stuff. Starting with the crownwheel (sorry Apple -- Timex did that years ago). (BTW -- the Timex Ironman is now a good 10 years old. You can write applications for it if you don't mind writing code for a Z80 and insufficient memory. It has a USB connection and the battery lasts at least a year.)
Unfortunately, my even older Ironman required a CRT monitor for the interface, so had to be consigned to the Drawer Of Ancient Technology eventually. Sort of dabbled with writing code for it while it lived, though; still have the SDK (or whatever Timex called it) around somewhere.
"Plus maybe $50 more, assuming a warranty."
Why on earth should it be necessary to pay another fifty bucks for a warranty?
Either the maker puts his name behind it and fixes/replaces it if it breaks, or it's a pile of poo that should be avoided. Doubling the cost to warrant it is saying 'there's a 50% chance of this thing dying in a year'...
Still not understanding the target market. Seems to require an iPhone - but when you have one of these, why exactly do you need this on your wrist?
The effort in smart watches seems to be to make them into one inch tablets. People are not making them into phones for the obvious reason you would have to take it off to hold it to your ear and use it comfortably. But the more successful they are at making them into usable tablets, the more the limitations of the way you are supposed to carry them, and their consequent tiny screen size, become apparent.
I really don't get it. My own light powered watch cost around £50 a few years ago. It does one thing and it does it perfectly, it tells the time, and it seems like it will go on doing that forever with no maintenance of any kind. Its small enough and comfortable enough that you can forget you are wearing it.
I can see fitness bands. They are a distinct wearable niche, they don't try to fit the time-watch segment, they too do one main thing and do it very well. But when you think about this use, go out for a run or a ride and you take your phone, surely? Guarantee you do if you are a woman, and most likely nowadays if a man - its a security issue. And you notice there are little holders you strap to your upper arm to carry phones in when doing this. Your upper arm, not your wrist! Or on your belt, not your wrist!
I can even see a niche for small tablets - smaller than the current minimum which seems to be four or five inches. The thing I am not seeing is why anyone would want to strap one of those to a WRIST! Carry it almost anywhere else and it would be better.
Well, we will see. Before the announcement it was merely puzzling. After it, it looks increasingly like large inventory write-offs coming later this year.
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"...they don't try to fit the time-watch segment, they too do one main thing and do it very well."
Now where have I heard that before?
Ah, I know, Unix.
It seems to be a good methodology.
Nope, these "smart watches" are another solution looking for a problem. and your money of course.
@Cody - it's simple: do you work in a coffee shop? Do you sport a man-bun? Does a parent or relative give you a generous allowance, enabling you to spend your entire waking hours being 'creative' and 'social'? When you hear the word 'job', do you instinctively pluralise it and prefix it with 'Steve'? Does doing so make you feel warm inside?
If the answer to any of these questions is 'no', then the Apple Watch is not for you.
>Still not understanding the target market
Everybody now has an iPhone
So merely wearing white headphones no longer marks you out as sensitive artistic special person
Having one of these on your wrist will allow you to demonstrate your uniquely individual personal creative style without having to sit in Starbucks all day with your macbook open
I really don't get it. I don't get expensive watches either, but I do know they hold their value, because of the craftsmanship, the name, the expensive jewels etc. and of course the fact that they will always do their job as well as the day you bought it.
Apple's "watch" on the other hand will not always do its job as well as the day it was bought. By job, I mean "being a smartwatch". Yes, it'll connect to a 2015-model iphone, but in ten years time, what exactly will it be able to connect to? Are apple going to ensure that a 2035 model of the iphone will still work with that lovely looking apple watch you bought for $10000 20 years previously? I think not. And even if it did, the software won't be upgradeable to whatever apple watches will be using then, for sure.
Unless they've designed it so that the electronics and the display can be easily replaced, leaving a fancy case and strap, the whole thing is fucking daft. No other tech has been made that incorporates precious metals and fancy design in the same way (and I don't count those nokia vertu phones as they're targetted at a different market)
Vertu actually have a point. If you are a consultant or small businessman who travels a lot, the Vertu concierge service probably works out a lot cheaper than a PA and more marriage-friendly than expecting your wife to make all your arrangements. And that's what you actually pay for.
BT charge £3.10 a month just to allow you to prevent people from dialling porn lines and expensive foreign locations. To me, that's far more of a ripoff than Vertu.
No other tech has been made that incorporates precious metals and fancy design in the same way
Fabergé eggs.
The difference is that (for instance) the tiny train set in one of them is repairable.
I agree with your point, but the point of this thing is for rap musicians to buy one, wave it around for a year, and then dump it for a new model. The exact point, in fact, is conspicuous consumption, like people buying £3000 bottles of wine when they are already so plastered they couldn't tell it from Spanish drain cleaner.
And we know what tends to happen to societies that reach that level of inequality. Roman hedge fund managers and slebs, the barbarians are gearing up to storm the gates.
"..but I do know they hold their value, because of the craftsmanship, the name, the expensive jewels etc. and of course the fact that they will always do their job as well as the day you bought it."
I agree with your first point. I had a Rolex Submariner which cost me £3000 for a few years and when I sold it back to the dealer I got £50 more than what I paid for it, so they do hold their value.
As to the second part of your quote, I sort of agree. The Rolex was a "certified Chronometer", it had a certificate and everything but it kept terrible time, losing a minute or so everyday. Also the thing kept needing to be serviced and at £200 a time soon became an expensive liability, hence the sale. So in a way it did work as well as when it was new, it's just that it never ever kept good time.
In contrast my Casio digital watch that I bought in 1990 still keeps good time and only needs a battery every five years or so. Cost £19 if I recall correctly.
"The Rolex was a "certified Chronometer", it had a certificate and everything but it kept terrible time, losing a minute or so everyday."
Whoever was servicing it for you should have been sued. Consistent loss or gain means a simple adjustment. My grandfather used to calibrate Rolexes for people as a hobby. They have the usual adjustment mechanism on the balance wheel, and in fact the balance wheel can be rebalanced if the spring has to be replaced. I remember him on visits waiting for the BBC time pips to check the ones he was currently working on; he regarded 20 seconds a week as acceptable.
"Whoever was servicing it for you should have been sued."
Actually the watch was serviced by Rolex at their facility in Kent. All done through my local Rolex dealer.
It was, to my relief returned unharmed as Rolex has a reputation for destroying all the fakes it gets its hands on. So I know that mine was a real one.
Sort of a "Rolex Genuine Advantage" I suppose!
In my experience a Rolex should keep time pretty accurately - maybe not good enough for sniping on eBay but good enough for real life.
Rolex will service any of their watches for around £400. Your watch and the movement is completely dismantled, anything worn in the movement is replaced, then it is reassembled, calibrated, polished and returned looking brand new.
That might be too pricey for some, but they don't depreciate.
So he is basically saying that for all practical purposes the fake is just as good, just a lot cheaper.
The other day someone showed me a Rolex knockoff that cost £6. I needed my close up glasses to spot the small manufacturing flaws in the case and strap, and the mechanism is actually mechanical auto-wind.
Apparently if you asked, not only did you get a fake Rolex, you got a fake invoice for $11000.
"The other day someone showed me a Rolex knockoff that cost £6. I needed my close up glasses to spot the small manufacturing flaws in the case and strap, and the mechanism is actually mechanical auto-wind."
I had a Rolex knock off in the 80s, it was a permanent drawer resident, but it had a self winding clockwork movement, and sweeping second hand, everything. A colleague brought it back from Singapore.
It's best not to try and look inside the minds of the super rich, it's almost unbelievable to a standard salary earner. But it's enough to say that Apple know they have a market and will shift watches and make money.
And for those that don't get the idea of Smartwatches, don't buy one.
I don't get cigarettes and I never have. So I don't smoke.
I think that the real money will be made for the counterfeiters by cloning the straps rather than the device itself. If the cloners can make accurate, compatible, replicas of the real deal then they'll coin it in. After all, why spend £600 or more on an Apple Watch when you can buy an Apple Watch Sport, and replace the tacky strap with a high quality copy of the steel bracelet or leather strap?
I'll bet that a lot of people who buy an Apple Watch wouldn't want a clone watch - but a clone strap is an entirely different kettle of fish.
>Less than 24 hours after Tim Cook announced Apple's new wrist-puter
Get out of that Apple reality distortion field. Apple presented this product 6 months ago. I remember it. Please stop pretending that never happened.
It seems like every couple of months Apple start waving flags and invite people to come and look at the iWatch. The 'launch' was just a couple of days ago, but it wont be on sale for another month. This drawn-out process is probably due to feedback from consumers about how many f***s they give about the product.
From Wikipedia:
'In November 2014, Apple Watch was listed by Time as one of the 25 Best Inventions of 2014.'
Lol. Way to look stupid, Time magazine.
Those things are cheap for a reason. Their batteries probably don't have any protection circuitry, or if they do they have probably implemented it so poorly that it doesn't work. I certainly wouldn't want to pay £50 for the "privilege" of strapping a lump of lithium with probably no safety equipment (because that shit's expensive) to my wrist. It would be like the explosive neck collars in The Running Man, only you'll survive to feel the agony of your hand going up in flames.
Try watching the EEVBlog on fake Chinese chargers if you want evidence of how seriously these knockoff makers take electrical safety concerns.
This watch might contain a first class (capacity wise) lithium battery with the energy content of ~0.005 kJ.
Not frightening.
A charger has all the destructive energy of a household socket to go boom. That is, at 240Vx20A* /1s over 4kJ.
Frightening.
*The current to actually trip the breaker within 1s.
The current to trip a ring main RCBO in 0.1 seconds is around 160A. The curve is vertical at this point. Much more worrying is not a short but a current of around 100A which can take tens of seconds to trip.
I don't buy knockoff chargers, and I prefer anyway to keep them on a socket strip with a real 3A fuse in the circuit.
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