These days we see a lot of “smart” products coming to the market. Smart phones, Smart watches, smart doors, smart thermostats, smart toothbrushes, etc. Every product around us gets prefix smart and it is marketed to us but not every product called “smart” is really smart or does anything smart or even close to that.
Of course, this “smart” prefix in most cases means that some kind of connection between devices is added or just connection to the internet (which is used to send data and add it to your account etc.).
What bothers me a lot is the addition of “smart” because let’s face it, these products are really not that smart. They (marketers) put that prefix so they can communicate to us (customers) their product message and sell that product.
The easiest way is to look at this is to look at smartphone and smartwatch examples.
(Smart) phones
If you look at today’s smartphones you can easily see that these devices are everything but phones. The functionality of the phone takes up the smallest percentage of the functionality of the device. Easier communication to customers and easier marketing made that products name “smartphone”. If somebody told you that there are new cool products called “computerised phones”, I am sure that it would not sound as cool and interesting as “smart phones”.
(Smart) watches
Smart watches are newer products than a smartphone, but again we have the same story. Existing product that people are accustomed to gets bunch of new functionalities and to sell it better and communicate to customers it gets prefix “smart” and now we have smartwatches. So now we have smartwatches that are everything but the watch.
I really don’t like the fact that today everything gets called “smart”. Of course there are devices that do have additional features that go towards an intelligence and autonomy, but most are far from being smart. “Smart” is a buzzword of modern startup world where young startup companies add that prefix to make them more interesting, to be cool, hip and to follow the trends in the world. Marketing has huge role in this and it seems to me that the word “smart” is prostituted.
If you have some new cool product please be smart and do not add “smart” in front of name of your product if it really isn’t something smart. Thanks 😉
Originally posted at https://medium.com/@bsevo/smart-phones-and-smart-watches-6860290e431