从智能手机到智能手表的这些年

Unlike the Gear, which needs charging every day and does not keep its watch face lit all the time, the Toq’s screen is always on and the battery lasts for several days.
Toq比Galaxy Gear更胜一筹的地方在于：Gear每天都得充电，屏幕也不是一直亮着；而Toq的屏幕不但一直亮着，电池续航时间更是长达数日。

“Being able to do things at a glance is very powerful,” says Mr Chandhok. “I don’t want to replicate the smartphone, but I do want to use it to raise things above the noise level. Notification really only works when it’s at a glance.”
“能够扫一眼就解决问题是非常有用的。”钱德霍克说，“我不想复制智能手机，但我真的想用它来着重提示一下要做的事。通知真的只有在扫一眼就看到的时候才起作用。”

But Robert Brunner, partner at the design agency Ammunition Group, which works on products such as Beats by Dr Dre headphones, says the appearance of these devices is just as important as what they do.
但设计公司Ammunition Group的合伙人罗伯特•布伦纳(Robert Brunner)认为，这些设备的外观与它们的功能同等重要。Ammunition Group设计的产品包括“Beats By Dr. Dre”耳机等。

“We are in the fashion business,” Mr Brunner said at a recent GigaOm conference in San Francisco. “The things that people carry and use define us almost as much as the clothes we wear . . . Wearable technology needs to understand fashion.”
“我们身处时尚行业之中，”布伦纳在近日于旧金山举办的GigaOm大会上说，“我们所所携带和使用的东西对我们的影响程度，几乎与我们穿的衣服一样……可穿戴技术需要懂时尚。”

A similar challenge lies in the smart home market, where devices such as the internet fridge are solutions searching for a problem.
智能家居市场也存在同样的挑战，像网络冰箱这样的设备纯属“没事找事”。

“The magic that we all love of being connected and the things that it does is going, going, gone,” Mr Brunner says. “At some point, having running water in your house was amazing. It’s no longer just about this magic, it’s about what it’s actually doing in our lives.”
“我们都喜爱连通性，它就像魔术。但这种魔术连同它带来的东西正逐渐过时。”布伦纳说，“过去，家里有自来水都是一件神奇的事。但今天，神奇本身已不再重要，真正重要的是它能对我们的生活起到什么实际帮助。”

Dozens of new devices have emerged in recent months, from smart locks such as August and Lockitron, which open with a wave of a smartphone, to Philips’ Hue lightbulbs, which can be set to match the colour of a photo from a mobile app, as well as other features.
近几个月来，有几十种新设备相继问世，从August和Lockitron智能锁（利用智能手机发出的电磁波开启），到飞利浦(Philips)的Hue灯泡（该灯泡所发光芒的颜色，可被设定为与手机应用中图片的颜色相同），以及其他特色产品。

Some are aimed at security-conscious folk: Dropcam’s $200 Pro camera constantly monitors its owner’s home, alerting them to movement after they’ve left the house and letting them watch a live video feed. SmartThings sells kits that enable garage doors to be locked remotely or sends notifications to a phone when the kids get home from school. Large retailers such as Home Depot, Staples and Lowe’s are devoting more and more floor space to such products, even though it is unclear how large the market for them is today.
有些产品瞄准的是那些关注安全的人群：Dropcam售价200美元的Pro相机，能持续监视用户的住所，在用户离家后向他们通报家中的动态，并能让用户观看关于家中动态的实况视频。SmartThings销售的产品能远程锁上车库大门，还能在孩子放学到家时给家长的手机发送通知。家得宝(Home Depot)、史泰博(Staples)和Lowe's等大型零售商，正将越来越多的店面空间划拨给此类产品，尽管人们还不清楚现在它们的市场到底有多大。

“It takes time for people to embrace connectivity,” says Tony Fadell, chief executive of Nest, whose “learning” thermostat and app-enabled smoke alarm have attained an Apple-like cult following among early adopters of the “connected home”.
Nest公司首席执行官托尼•法代尔(Tony Fadell)说：“人们接受连通性是需要一些时间的。”该公司的“learning”智能温控器以及支持移动应用的烟雾报警器，已得到“联网家居”尝鲜者的追捧，其中一些拥趸的热情与“果粉”无异。

“Most people are just jamming things together because that’s the fastest thing to do. They don’t rethink the experience from top to bottom . . . Just because it can be connected doesn’t mean it should,” he says.
他说：“大多数人只是把各种东西硬连在一起，因为这是最快捷的方法。他们不会自上而下地反思整个体验……一样东西能与网络连在一起并不意味着它就应该与网络连在一起。”

Ben Wood, analyst at tech consultancy CCS Insight, sees great potential in smartwatches, but says the connected home is “just too hard for the man on the street right now”. The plethora of single-purpose “point solutions” is still a long way from the joined-up vision touted at trade shows, he says.
技术咨询公司CCS Insight的分析师本•伍德(Ben Wood)认为，智能手表蕴含着巨大的潜力。但他表示，“现阶段而言，普通人还很难实现”联网家居。他说，大量单一用途的“点解决方案”距商展上厂商兜售的整合后愿景仍相去甚远。

Amanda Peyton, co-founder of Grand St, a marketplace for creative technology, admits that the “independent, creative, alternative electronics” market is worth just a fraction of the $1tn consumer electronics market today.
创新科技产品销售网站Grand St的联合创始人阿曼达•佩顿(Amanda Peyton)承认，“独立、创新、另类电子产品”市场在今天价值1万亿美元的消费类电子产品市场中仅占一小部分。

“But it is absolutely the fastest growing of any sector,” she says. “Over the next few years, you will see this section of the market just growing enormously. It’s going to cut into some of the existing consumer electronics market, but it’s going to grow the whole thing overall.”
“但它绝对是增长最快的板块，”她说，“今后几年，你将看到这块市场呈现巨大的增长。它会蚕食部分现有的消费类电子产品市场，但同时也会带动整个市场实现整体发展。”

Wearables and other “smart” devices might not overtake the smartphone market any time soon – but they promise to be a much livelier arena for innovation in the coming years.
可穿戴设备和其他“智能”设备或许不会在短时间内赶超智能手机市场，但在未来几年里，它们有望成为一个活力远超后者的舞台，为人们展示各种创新。