Take a look at HP's luxury smartwatch
Despite their utility, smartwatches remain a geeky niche item thanks to a certain lack of je ne sais quoi. However, HP is partnering with a retailer called Gilt to build an Android and iOS compatible smartwatch that may finally tick the style box, thanks to US designer Michael Bastian.
Context & Ripple Effects
HP arrives at wearables from a position of hardware strength: IDC credited the company with US PC shipment growth in July 2014 on strong business laptop sales, and it had just spent the spring cutting tablet prices to defend share. The move announced here is different in kind — instead of competing on price, HP is partnering with flash-sale retailer Gilt and US designer Michael Bastian to build an Android- and iOS-compatible smartwatch whose selling point is style rather than specs.
The timing matters on the software side too: Android had just posted a record 85% smartphone share in Q2 2014, so a cross-platform watch can address both major ecosystems at once. Notably, the story travelled well beyond the tech press — HYPEBEAST, Fashionista, TechCrunch, Gigaom, AppleInsider and others all picked it up within a day, suggesting the fashion-meets-hardware angle was the story.
First-order effects
- HP gains a wearable entry point without building consumer-watch credibility in-house, borrowing it from Michael Bastian's design name and Gilt's fashion-literate customer base instead of selling through traditional electronics channels.
- A cross-platform Android/iOS commitment means the device competes for wrist space in both ecosystems from day one, rather than being locked to the platform of its maker.
Second-order effects
- Rival PC and consumer-electronics makers are pushed toward the same playbook — pairing their hardware with fashion brands and fashion retail — because the differentiation here is explicitly aesthetic, not technical.
- Traditional watch and jewelry retailers face a new class of competitor: a technology company distributing through a fashion flash-sale site, which normalizes smartwatches as accessories rather than gadgets.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, wearables bifurcate into spec-led devices from platform owners and style-led devices built on designer-plus-manufacturer partnerships, with 'engineered by' licensing becoming a durable structure in the category.
- The more fashion credibility smartwatches acquire, the more pressure lands on legacy watchmakers to decide whether to treat connected timepieces as a threat or adopt the same partnership model themselves.
The trend: Consumer computing is shifting from spec-sheet competition to fashionized computing, where hardware makers win the wrist by renting design credibility from the fashion world.