Is the World Ready for Seiko's New Bluetooth Watch?

That doesn't mean people won't buy Bluetooth watches that integrate with their mobile phones, but it does mean they could easily go the way of the PDA if problems like size and battery life are not sufficiently addressed. In fact, I will go so far as to say that any watch that needs to be charged more frequently than your mobile phone is in very real danger of winding up in the back of a dresser drawer. Most of us won't even put up with a watch that we need to remember to reach down and wind, much less plug in and recharge. The concept reminds me of the relationship between pocket watches and wrist watches. Why did watches move from the pocket to the wrist in the first place? Convenience. So now that even the cheapest modern pocket watches (mobile phones) have far more functionality than even the most advanced wrist watches, the answer isn't to sacrifice convenience for features. The answer is to once again step up to the technical challenge of shrinking down key features to the point that they can again be no more than a quick glance away.Of course, Seiko clearly needs to work on the shrinking part. The current prototype (TR-006) is way too big to have any chance at commercial success in the US. But bulkiness is almost always temporary in the world of technology, and is certainly excusable in prototypes, so I'm much less concerned about the size than I am about the battery life. I'm probably the geekiest watch and gadget fanatic I know, and even I get tired of recharging my SPOT watches, which is why I usually find my way back to some form of solar atomic Casio.