Text| Wei Wen
Editor| Peng Xiaoqiu
Buying a mechanical watch or a smartwatch? Shenzhen-based startup "Dream" believes that traditional watches can learn from the technology and trends of smart watches, combine the design and ingenuity of traditional watches, and innovate again.
Traditional watch brands and consumer electronics manufacturers have tested this idea. As early as 2015, when the smart watch market was hot, LVMH's brand TAG Heuer told the media that there was a smart watch plan. However, in the face of the crisis of market and consumer changes, more traditional watch brands "disdain" smart watches and still adhere to "tradition".
The bezel gradually split into two factions: the traditional watch bezel represented by traditional watches and the consumer electronics behind smart watches. Even in the eyes of some traditional authorities, smart watch companies have never stepped half a step into the watch circle.
Consumer electronics manufacturers are gradually approaching the traditional watch shape. In 2016, mobile phone manufacturer Meizu launched a light smart watch Mix, using a quartz / mechanical watch + smart sensor design, with intelligent functions under the appearance of traditional mechanical watches. But this smart mechanical watch did not get good market feedback and disappeared from the consumer's vision.
Smart Watch Mix
In 2018, Samsung released the first generation of smart watches, the SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch, in New York, and the rotating chronograph ring element of the Swiss diver's watch appeared for the first time in the smart watch.
SAMSUNG Galaxy Watch
In 2020, ZEPP released its first T-rex smart watch focusing on outdoor sports at CES in the United States, which is considered by the watch industry to have a strong Casio element. The sales of this watch created a legend of several hundred million yuan, and within two years, Huami successively launched advanced and iterative models such as T-rex Pro and T-rex 2.
T-rex smartwatch vs Casio
In 2022, Huawei released a 43mm ceramic women's watch, which is considered a tribute to the Chanel J12 series of watches. But the price of up to 3,000 yuan and the large-size dial did not gain too many female users of Huawei mobile phones.
Huawei vs Chanel
Facts have proved that the idea is beautiful, but whether the product can be polished and whether the product can be accepted by the market is a long wait.
Li Yulin, the founder of "Knocking on Dreams", believes that waiting and running-in are worth it. Data show that the global shipment of traditional watches is as high as 1.9 billion, while smart watches (including smart bracelets) are only one-tenth of it, 170 million. "Compared with the shipment of traditional watches, smart watches still have huge space."
In his opinion, the essence of a smart watch is still a watch, in addition to function, but also has strong decorative properties. However, the design and function of consumer electronics companies on the market have tended to be homogenized, with single products and iterations year after year, and consumers have very few SKUs to choose from. Smart watches are already a market of hundreds of billions of dollars, and in the future, fashion smart watches will open a market of the same scale or even larger as smart watches.
36Kr also observed that the appearance design of smart watches on the market is mainly divided into two categories, one is a square shaped like an Apple Apple watch, and the other is a round shape similar to a Samsung smart watch; The function is constantly superimposed, and the product iteration of smart watches is basically developing towards the "second mobile phone". Li Yulin told 36Kr that smart watches can also be designed less digitally. "Traditional watches and smart watches are not incompatible, in fact, they can be combined with better designs."
Among the three major categories in the field of smart wear, smart watches do have stronger decorative and diversified needs than TWS headsets and VR glasses, and also have more playable space.
After the establishment of Knocking Dream, after 2 years of research and development and exploration, it has successively polished nearly 30 smart fashion watches in four series: "Captain", "Time to Run Oyster", "HOP" and "Queen Queen", and has accumulated a number of innovative patents in the field of smart watches. For example, mechanical gear linkage, rotatable chronograph ring, luminous, COB active luminous ring, OP color change, floating dial, plant ceramics, all-steel diver's smart watch and other patented and composite technology.
"Time to run Oyster"
Dream of creating a smartwatch that looks good and is fun. For example, "mechanical gear linkage", that is, the mechanical timing function of traditional diver's watches. Specifically, Knock Dream adds a rotatable stainless steel chronograph ring and micro gears to a smart watch screen, and consumers can time and "decompress" like a traditional diving watch by turning the chronograph ring.
Li Yulin explained that when turning the bezel, it can achieve a texture similar to a Rolex water ghost, and when the user turns the chronograph ring, he can also interact with the dial interface through a complex structural system of mechanical gear bite. Similarly, using a mechanical thing to manipulate the smart watch system and complete interesting interactions is a combination of smart technology and traditional machinery.
「HOP」
The design of the luminous dial allows users to see the scale on the chronograph ring at night, which increases the gameplay of this smart watch and is also a tribute to the traditional watch industry by the designer of Dreams; As for the COB active light-emitting ring, it is reported that the watch model will be the cool style of "Casio", and when the screen lights up, dozens of miniature LEDs in the bezel glow together; Regarding the technology of the floating dial, Li Yulin revealed that it is on a quartz dial, plus a suspended LCD screen, this phenotype is planned to participate in the annual Geneva International Watch Awards.
Design and technology are beautiful, and one of the difficulties lies in the search and control of the supply chain. As a fashion watch company based on consumer electronics, Dream spent two years learning, polishing, and searching in the bezel, and finally chose the supply chain of traditional clocks.
In the production of watches, the supply chain of traditional watches may be more mature and rigorous than the supply chain of consumer electronics. Unlike consumer electronics companies, every worker in a traditional watch manufacturing factory is a craftsman, and there are too many processes that need to be polished by hand and passed on experience, and the work of art is made rather than digital products.
The second difficulty lies in the reconstruction and innovation of engineering technology. For example, put a screen from bottom to top in the watch frame, but also put a chronograph ring on the screen, which not only needs to consider waterproof, but also considers structural stability and the thickness of the product, and finally meets the strict requirements of watch designers for the appearance of watches in terms of overall appearance; Every product of Dreams needs to go through the joint collision and innovation of the consumer electronics industry and the watch industry, Li Yulin said, "Breakthrough and innovation under the condition of preserving the bottom line of the two industries is the most difficult place for me in the past two years." ”
Before the pandemic, Dream had conducted research and sent out 7,000 questionnaires. The results show that the surveyed users who have been wearing traditional watches, although they have reduced the desire to buy traditional watches, have not taken smart watches as one of the choices because they have too few choices. This is one of the reasons why the current penetration rate of smartwatches is so low. "We believe that the watch industry in the next five years should be based on decoration + intelligence, and the main advantage of Dream is the global market." We plan to present a more beautiful fashion smartwatch at the price point of a traditional fashion watch. ”
The data shows that the ratio of male to female consumers of smart watches is 8:2, but the ratio of male to female consumers of traditional watches is 4:6, which means that there is a gap of nearly 1.1 billion female smart watches in the global market. "Especially in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East, consumers will buy fashion watches, two or three a year. But now the size of smart watches is too large, there are few categories to choose, and there is a lack of desire to buy, and the female market is currently very small, which is the direction of the power behind the dream. ”
Founded in 2021, Dream has its international business headquarters in Singapore and its product headquarters in Shenzhen, China. In the process of its establishment, Dream refused the investment of many mobile phone manufacturers. The founder Li Yulin has 18 years of service background (ZTE, OPPO, TCL, ZEPP) of listed companies in the world's top 500 and the United States and Hong Kong, and has a broad international vision and rich management experience in the field of consumer electronics. The founding team members come from the consumer electronics, watch and luxury industries. The series of fashion smart watch products of "Dreaming" will be launched in March 2023, and the first round of financing is expected to be launched in January 2023.