Top 5: Gadgets That Will Be Dead Soon

Has this guy ever seen the dying popularity of watches? I can't see that it will gain in popularity because it's connected to a smartphone located in your pocket.

When watches become a stand alone device (again) maybe ...... but then, that means that the smartphone would not be needed any longer, assuming your watch inherits all that functionality ..... I just don't see it in the foreseeable future.

The trend is away from watches and other than a blimp (by groupies) for the current generation of "smart watches" people just don't want to wear another piece of equipment .....

I agree. The Dick Tracy watch experiment by Apple, and other copycats, is just a fad. Can't see it ever becoming all that popular.

GPS receivers I don't see dying completely. They will eventually become niche items for specialized purposes, as for general use a smartphone will do the job. For example, routing to a destination with multiple via stops is not something Google Maps can do. Most smartphone GPS apps I'm aware of don't have it as an option either. For that you need a GPS. Even then, you may not need a separate device, as cars all seem to be coming with them included.

Smartwatches are something I refuse to have anything to do with, despite having an interest in keeping up with the latest technology. I stopped wearing a watch five years ago and haven't looked back. To me, there is nothing so important that I need to have it pop up on a watch. People can wait.

I don't know many people outside the GPS forums that still use a stand alone unit exclusively. Even my 74 year old stepdad gave up his Tomtom in favor of his Iphone a couple years ago. I still use my Garmin for long trips.

Not until the price of factory in-dash units drops dramatically and the price of new maps for them as well. Plus, you have to start all over when you acquire a new vehicle.

Granted, smart phones have Google maps, etc., but not the low price of a dedicated GPS w/traffic. You also have to remember that there are still places in the US that do not have ANY cellphone connection. Even worse in Canada the farther you get away from the border. Of course, don't need Traffic that much in the boondocks.

GPS stand alones may be on the way out, but I think it will take awhile. Once smartphones are able to be mounted on the dash and be able to multitask while navigating, a new game will begin - if it hasn't already.

Executive summary: Evolution is complicated. While some species/critters disappear, many evolve and are still around, albeit in a different form. While we don't have to worry about a T Rex chasing us down the street, its descendants are still around to poo on our cars.

Discussion:

At its introduction, the electric motor was large, unwieldy, inefficient, and required an even larger and more unwieldy support structure -- it had no future out of that as a curiosity, possibly in industry, but why would you want one in your home?

Thirty years later, how many electric motors in the average home? Fifty years later? But most of them were no longer recognizable as electric motors (a lot of them became synchronous AC motors masquerading as clocks).

Then there was the computer. Huge, expensive, each requiring its own shrine and dedicated servants. (In the late 70's, the head of one of the leading computer companies of the time asked a room full of engineers why anyone would want a computer in their home. I was in that room -- I had two microcomputers at home. My friend sitting next to me had one, and one of the company's minicomputers at home.)

Now you'd be hard pressed to count the number of computers (which I define as a processor connected to a memory hierarchy and I/O devices) in a home, or carried with you. If your watch has an LCD display, it's a computer, albeit one running a small fixed program. Phones and smartphones? Two or three computers (or more) each. Thermostat? Microwave oven? TV? Remote controls?

While dedicated function devices may wither as such in the mainstream, their functionality will be with us, subsumed by Moore's Law into other devices. The $35,000 GPS receiver consuming 90 Watts of power and requiring an antenna mounted in a 16 inch diameter spun aluminum choke ring assembly is now the size of a quarter and costs around $6.

But those dedicated devices will always be with us, if for no other reason than a dedicated device will outperform the jack-of-all-trades. Additionally, there is still demand for the dedicated device/function. (Part of it is a sort of technological Reinheightsgebot, a demand for technological purity -- I do not want an always-connected GPS device that interrupts its moving map display to offer me a discount at a sandwich store I'll never visit. Yes, I understand that I'm probably in a minority, demanding this technological purity, while a lot of folks seem to be happy with the technical equivalent of Bud Light, or worse, Bud Light Lime .)

As an example, consider the coelacanth of the kitchen... While the electric motor as an electric motor has all but disappeared from the house, it still appears in the kitchen -- in the form of blenders and mixers (and in the garage as drills and drill presses). It isn't extinct.

And while dinosaurs are for the most part gone, there's this Colonel guy selling bits of their descendants fried; they provide eggs for our tables, and poo on our cars.

As with birds, descendants of those dinosaurs, so it is with computers and computer-aided devices.

And if you don't think those computers do the equivalent of pooing on our cars, when was the last time you had to do a software update to get something to work, or workaround a bug or security flaw? Blue screen out of the blue?

I like my technologically pure devices, that I can interconnect as I wish, if I wish. If you'd rather have the equivalent of Bud Light Lime, go ahead and get that Samsung Smart Fridge that leaks your GMail password because they used an open source library incorrectly.

End of rant. Happy Monday.

I agree!
I use my GPS and not the one on my smartphone.
I want to know where I am going and not anybody else who can check the signal from my phone.
Too much technology is not always good.
The cars with OnStar will let you know hot to get where you want to go. But! that system can be hacked into and give you more problems than you ever want to have.
It wasn't that long ago that a Jeep U-Connect system was hacked into and caused a accident. That can't happen with your GPS.

And even if they hack into my GPS what's the worst they could do? Maybe change nmy settuings, change my destination? Learn my home address ? I'm terrified.. I'm shaking in my boots!

.. being made? The undomiciled millennials still living home, the 1-in-6 not born here in the U.S., the BushBama phone crowd? Divorce settlement beneficiaries? Have the increasing number of retirees been included that have more serious concerns than the latest track-you trojan. And what about all those employed in professions that are prohibited from bringing their cell gadgets onto their work site? They will be telling time how?

It is well known that the vast readership loves lists of all sorts. This guy's list of 5 is just as obsolete or irrelevant as yesterday's presidential candidate polls. The intent of both is to increase the number of hits/buzz & advertising dollars. I defy anyone to venture what the next 6 months will be like, be it life on or off the grid.

Thanks for taking the time to give us your thoughts k6rtm. I always enjoy your perspectives on where we came from and where we are going. I especially enjoyed this paragraph:

I went through that same technology history during my career (1969 through 2009). I was never in the "Apple revolution" as you were ... me coming more from the traditional IBM mainframe / minicomputer / PC / networking / Internet ISP experience. But spending those 40 years in the K-12 education sector certainly gave me the appreciation for the knowledge, innovation and contributions from the creative folks like you who have a wonderful view of both the history and future of technology. I agree with pretty much everything you said in your "rant".

SO thanks for sharing your thoughts and knowledge.

I was not talking about hacking into the GPS, I was talking about having units that can be hacked into such as OnStar units that send and receive on line that are connected to the car computer (OnStar can be used to control the car if it is stolen or locked with the keys inside)
I just feel safer knowing that a stand alone GPS can't be used to give my wife or myself any extra problems.
They say it is easy to screw something up, but to do a good job get a computer involved.

I propose that we all pitch in and buy K6RTM a nice car cover....

Quote of the year on this site:

"consider the coelacanth of the kitchen..."

So wise, so true.

We are in violent agreement....

How many of you have given up on their #2 yellow? It's bee around since at least my kindergarten days and I'm almost ready for the retirement home, take your #2 and do the math.

Before stand alone GPS.

I wish there had been a list instead of the 3 minute video.

CNet presents the same items and the same supporting arguments as this list from 2011. At least the Tech Gadget article tried to be a little more specific with the timeline...

I can hardly wait till next year

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/33079

any more the smart phones are controlling more and more, turn your lights off and on change your Chanel on the tv track your movements tell you where friends and relative's are at the moment, keep track of your medical, buy goods, tell you what the weather will be. the part I don't like is seeing kids in a group not even looking at each other their faces are buried in the smart phone no interaction with other humans, we gain and we lose with technology !!

The guy in the video prediction has never left a big city... In my past cross country trip, Waze was useless in the sticks. In the Page Arizona to the Black Hills stretch, I had so little data coverage (even with the "Can you hear me now?" network), that my little Waze-mobile was driving through a white sea of nothing most of the time. The GPS happily guided me between the two without so much as an afterthought. (My GPS has never told me that it couldn't plot a route as Waze so happily did.) Same could be said of the lowly road atlas. Under $10 at Wally World. I still have one of them as well.

Now that we are in agreement I would lik to get my wife to agree with me LOL

Wearing a T-Shirt in her presence that proclaims

I'M AN IDIOT!

Thank you! Recently went through a mountainous area with no signal and the only thing to get me out of the dark foggy roads was my stand alone GPS. Waze and Google Maps were NG!

The free HERE app allows you to download the entire map for pretty much any area in the world into your phone and doesn't need any data connections, it uses the GPS built into all phones now the same as the Garmin uses.

Between my smartphone HERE, Viago and Google maps nav apps and my cars built in nav I realized a few months back that I had not taken my Garmin 3790LMT off the shelf in the closet in well over 6 months so I sold it in eBay.

I use my phone all the time for navigating around town.

What can Garmin and other GPS makers learn from smartphones? The stand-alone GPS has not progressed in a significant way for years. The search functions are primitive, they don't communicate with other GPS devices, they don't find your friend, the update process is clunky and depends on a laptop or desk computer that is itself on the verge of being outdated.

A new generation of GPS should connect directly to WiFi for updates, programming and sharing. They should be capable of good enough speech recognition, that you can tell it where you want to go, and it will set a route. It should communicate with your car's audio system and let you still hear the radio or other media.

Motorcycle GPS units do some of these tasks, but frankly Garmin appears to be waiting for the axe to fall. They are advancing technology at a glacial pace. I think Garmin is prime for a takeover by a smarter company and understands any device should work for people in the way they expect and do more than hang on the windshield and do things Smartphones now do better. Look out Garmin.

thanks for the post really cool segment!
and also very true as far as GPS goes soon every car will just come standard equipped with Navigation as well they didn't even mention that.

Of the functions / capabilities that GPS_Rider described.

They frequently sat in the front passenger seat.

Although they talked about whatever came into their head, when giving directions they were frequently incorrect, confusing and impossible to execute or late in arrival.

Suggesting they should sit in the back seat as I chauffeured them around was met with fierce resistance.

And far from it in my home. Let's see, besides all those in the kitchen, there's an electric motor in my well pump, two in my furnace, two in the air conditioner, one in my hot water heater ventilator, one in my fireplace ventilator, two in the sump pumps, one in the septic grinder, and two in the dehumidifiers. Good thing I've got a backup generator online.

I am about done with printed newspapers, but I do like books.

I can see a version of this type of watch working. One that tracks my calorie count, works as a GPS, watch, and a phone.

Personally, I'd settle now an accurate calorie counter, watch and GPS. I've got a dumb phone (flip). With that, I'd be happy. Well, as long as it wasn't the size of my flip phone.

There are promising items out, but nothing I really like - yet! Maybe soon. Before I croak.

Is so much more convenient, much program options and what about repair/replacement costs

Just recycling the same old ideas of the past. The death of these things have been predicted over and over. They are still around for new predictions like this.
Unless manufacturers give up, GPSrs are going nowhere soon. Some people still carry phones around which are not smartphones. Dead spots abound and reception for cell phones spotty in some places.

Many of the phone options require preloading maps if you go outside cell coverage area, which contrary to popular belief is still easy to do. I go out of cell coverage 2-3 times on my 45 mile commute to work through mostly rural lands.

I still heavily use my GPS as a heads up display to let me know my speed, ETA to destination, traffic alerts, and now general weather data. Its great because I don't even need to think about it because its always mounted and turns on automatically when I get in my car.

Even when in an area covered by cellular, there are times the network is very slow and/or overloaded, or down for the count temporarily. Good to have a standalone GPSr at those times, if needed.

Many people don't have unlimited data plans or Smartphones.

Roaming fees can be extremely outrageous.

Dedicated GPSs will continue to be cost effective for those people and will be around for quite a while. In addition, for speed freaks the loadable POIs for Redlight Cameras, Speed Zones and School Zones are a huge sell factor which car based builtins and SmartPhones don't readily have!

Unlimited data plans are not required to use smartphone GPS apps. That used to be the case with Google, but it now has offline capabilities. I tested this on my Galaxy S4, and you only need a data connection of some sort at the beginning of the trip in order to download the map. In my case, I used a public WiFi hotspot.

Now, it's true that many people still don't have smartphones, but that number is shrinking. As of Q3 2014, smartphones accounted for 66% of the total userbase worldwide, which is the result of a 25% drop in feature phones (source).

For the short term, the dedicated GPS will be cost effective, but as more and more budget smartphones enter the market, the fewer people that will use feature phones. The dedicated GPS though will also have to compete with the onboard GPS in the car, and right at the moment, the ability to generate complex routes notwithstanding, it's only in the narrow circumstances you describe where the standalone GPS makes any sense.

I've been having an ongoing love affair with my Nuvi 255 for a few years now, always rides in my car with me. And in pedestrian mode, sometimes. I've been surrounded with computers my whole life, so it's nice to get away from them, nope, don't want a smartphone. I've got my dumb flip phone for emergencies.

I had one of the early Verizon phones with the navigator built in. I think it was the first implementation of consumer phone navigators. It worked well, I was amazed, but numerous times I got stuck when the phone signal was lost. One time I was way out driving between two cities, but had a lot of turns/intersections to deal with and the phone crapped out, no signal, the Sun was on my right in the morning, so I knew where north was and got there. I love having a stand alone GPS. I'm not giving it up!

Nope. Not me either.

Phone is in my pocket (usually) when I'm driving. GPS is ALWAYS connected in the car (never leaves the car).

Will be a long time before I use my phone on a regular basis, for a driving GPS. Although,I did have to use it once when I rented a car without GPS because I forgot to pack the Garmin.

To get accurate information on routes, traffic, etc you need a data connection. Did you check the traffic while driving? Did you start your "test" from and area where you are not roaming?

Gartner is a great source for stats for getting funding on projects, support etc, but it is not good for the purpose you are using it to prove. Where I am the majority of SmartPhones have data in limited areas, and that includes the major cities. Do to the main Telco here using strange tower restriction complete areas lack LTE/4G etc and drop to 2G with limited data connectivity the GPS functionality is limited. If you use a good APP (is there really one out there?) it uses data to get updates, traffic etc.

For those who live in limited data areas or who travel and have limited data (here the norm is 400 MB when out of service area/roaming per month).

Just like the smart light bulb many people will have a use for the smart vibrator already built in today's assmartphones