Garmin Instinct-inspired future smartwatch design – concept

Now based in Egypt, Saudi designer Ibrahem Hassan, seems to have taken inspiration from Garmin’s small circular display on its Instinct 3 smartwatches. Except where Garmin used the extra screen to make a watch look a little bit uglier, Hassan has played with shape, form and number to create a novel-looking smartwatch concept.

The Challenge

In a world of stagnation in smartwatch design, we have perhaps only experienced the circular form, or rectangular time pieces, if you are an Apple devotee.

Watch designers mimic the analogue past, leaving innovation for the UI and watchface engineers. The basic watch form is unchallenged and has changed little.

Tech has perhaps plateaued. Complications come in many and varied forms, but any variation remains in the data they contain, not how they are presented to their owner.

At least Garmin Instinct deserves some credit for breaking the mainstream mould. Hassan takes it to the next level.

Hassan’s Vision of Future Smart Tech

He is not envisaging what the Apple Watch could turn into; he is appealing to an archetypal Scandinavian who lives in a monochromatic world of predictable interiors – enjoyable to them but drab to others.

He transforms the complication into a hardware element, gives symmetry in the arrangement of three of them and stretches a fourth to give the whole look a new, visual twist. And a slightly larger area to display some textual feedback more visibly conveys a distinctive function to the novel form.

I would guess he imagines the complication screens are mini touch screens to tap, toggle and swipe through relatively rudimentary data and controls. That works.

Trade-offs and yet more challenges

The looks are a challenge. I like them, many won’t.

The battery is also a challenge, but without a heart rate sensor, it shouldn’t need a huge one, and while it has to power four screens, their total area is probably less than on many existing watches. In any case, by the time this could become reality, microLED displays will be all the rage, and they are especially battery-friendly.

Battery life is a challenge he will overcome.

I see no issue in designing software for this. It would be easy to develop the displays and numerous complications for them. Perhaps the challenge would be how the owners navigate to more complex, deeper levels of the watch’s control. Maybe that boring stuff is a job for the partner phone app.

This watch must link to a phone to get the live data it needs for weather, messaging and calls. But I don’t see it needing any form of health sensor. Just a smart controller and interface to some of the phone’s functions.

It will have to make and take calls, though, and needs 2-way audio integration to the ephone. No doubt there will be some form of AI somewhere, perhaps to transcribe the incoming voices to the stretched screen in real time and perhaps as a translator.

Could this be a universal language translator for the internal business connoisseur?

I can’t see this watch needing the latest GPS chipset, but it needs a good dose of tap-and-pay goodness. Even the most trendy amongst us still need to pay for things, and a digital wallet on your wrist avoids the need for that unsightly physical wallet bulge in your pocket, ruining the line of your trousers.

Take Outs

As a smartphone partner, I like it. It’s perhaps too trendy for me, but this design could work at an engineering level, providing it ditches those pesky, power-hungry health and activity sensors. The battery would last for weeks with 24/7 beauty lit up on the vivid displays.

Pay> Translate> Make & Take Calls> View Calendar Items, Notifications and Messages> Dictate notes and Texts> Access Key data (weather) from smartphone> Tell the Time/Date> Haptic, Audio and visual alerts

I like the idea. It’s different. It looks good. What do you think?