by Claudia Bruemmer

Wristwatches come in every style and color imaginable. Some have the traditional clock dial and numbers, while others display the time digitally without a click face. Watch manufacturers have been coming out with all kinds of novel styles for telling time on your wrist. While we have the technology to produce a multifunction wristwatch that can provide digital alerts, it may be outdated by the smartphone.

Back in 1977, Hewlett-Packard came out with what they called a “wrist instrument” because it had rows of tiny keypad buttons making it look like a mini calculator. It was called the HP-01 and had 28 buttons. This was a strange hybrid watch with an arithmetical calculator. Because it was more than a mere watch, HP called it a “wrist instrument.” But it didn’t go over big, and perhaps it was ahead of its time.

While cellphones didn’t become commonplace till the late ‘90s, they actually came out in the early ‘80s. When cellphones became ubiquitous, they started substituting for a watch because, among other things, they tell time. As a result, most youngsters today have never gotten into the habit of wearing a wristwatch. Despite that, one technology company has long had the idea of coming out with a digital-age, multifunctional wristwatch. Hewlett-Packard, along with a few other companies, have toyed with the idea of coming out with digitally-connected wristwatches.

In February, HP displayed a special MetaWatch at an event in Shanghai. The MetaWatch is a prototype developed by Fossil, described as the first generation of “the connected watch.” The product has Bluetooth, but eventually HP plans to give it wireless capability so it can serve as the source for every Internet-enabled, portable device a person uses including cellphone, laptop, tablet, etc. The MetaWatch would be like a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot that you could wear on your wrist.

This was the idea of HP’s CTO of its Personal Systems Group, Phil McKinney, who introduced this concept in 2006. At the time, wireless carriers were predicting that all digital devices, including laptops, would eventually be like cellphones and have their own built-in wireless radios for connectivity. So McKinney’s idea was to take all these devices and power them with a single device, a wristwatch. While it was nothing but talk then, last year, McKinney was contacted by executives from Fossil, a manufacturer of watches and other products. They’d heard of his wireless watch idea and were fascinated with it. As a result, they built two prototype watches.

While there is not a lot of space  for displaying information on the face of these watches, there’s enough room for alerts and for notifying the wearer about x-number of email updates, FaceBook updates and Tweets. In addition, buttons on the watch can be programmed to dispatch canned responses.

It’s possible that young consumers unaccustomed to wearing a wristwatch might find the MetaWatch appealing because of its multiple functions other than timekeeping. For instance, they could hit a button and get checked in at Foursquare. However, it’s uncertain if Fossil plans to bring the MetaWatch to market since the smartphone does all that. It was an idea ahead of its time in 2006 but upended by today’s technology.

The casual watch market in the United States is fairly stable with sales of $2.35 billion in 2010, up 4 percent from 2008. Sales are concentrated in the 35 to 44 age group and 65+ age group. However, sales in the 18-24 age group went down 29 percent. Young adults don’t seem to be interested in wearing a wrist watch. Messages come directly into their smartphones, which they use constantly. Wearing a wristwatch to tell them to look at their cell seems totally unnecessary –  a dilemma for watch manufacturers.