I was going through my usual feeds this morning when I noticed this news from AkihabaraNews: “W-100, the New watch phone from Hyundai“.

I love innovation in all of its forms but sometimes I really wonder why some companies do release things like this.

If you look at the specs it’s quite an impressive piece of hardware:

• 1,3 MPixel camera.
• Touch Screen.
• GSM Phone.
• MP3 and Video Player.
• Bluetooth.
• MicroSD external memory slot.
• FM Radio.

All this for a list price of 250,00 USD. Sounds great.

Would I ever use something like this? Definitely not.

I think it’s a good technological exercise with no link at all with real life.

How long do you expect battery to last? What about listening to your music with a wire connected to you wrist? Weight? Size?

As I told in the past we should take a step back on these kind of stuff and concentrate on making things works for real customers and real needs. The phone is definitely evolved in the past years and several social implications are not really clear even today.

I am perfectly happy to know that Hyundai engineers have been able to put all of these features in such a small device. This shows that they have innovation excellence in their teams but I think they should not bring these kinds of products to the market and leave them for trade shows events.

Concepts are great and lead to innovation in the long run product development.

These kind of devices reminds me of the old calculator wristwatches in the 80s. They were a geek accessory and they never really hit the market with consistent volumes.