You're listening to Roundtable with myself He Young.
I'm joined by Yuxuan and Steve Hatherly in the studio.
Coming up, we share with you what's brought us sheer delight this week.
Join us for a dose of positivity, laughter, and all things that make our hearts sing in Roundtable's happy place.
And, Apple and Huawei just dropped their latest smartwatches, and we're here to spill the tea on all the new features and market trends.
But here's a real kicker.
After checking out what's new, it feels like we're not getting any jaw -dropping upgrades.
Have smartwatches hit their final form.
What's next for these health accessories?
Your voice matters, and we would love to hear it in our heart -to -heart segment.
Got a question? Something you're itching to share?
Fire up that voice memo and hit us up at roundtablepodcast at QQ .com.
Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China, on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever you pick up your podcasts.
Now welcome to the happiest corner on the airwaves, Roundtable's happy place.
Delivery. Delivery.
What is it? Happiness from Roundtable.
So for this week's happy place, Steve, why don't you start the share here?
And I have a feeling that I must be really happy.
Potentially. Can we call it Potentially Happy Place this week?
I am tomorrow, taking my first ever yoga class.
And I like the gym, I like athletics, I played a lot of sports in my life, but I've never, ever, ever tried a yoga class.
And I think I've always kind of avoided it because for two reasons.
Number one, I don't like to be the worst person in the room at something.
Do you know what I mean?
When you're a kid, that's okay.
But as an adult, you know, I feel a little bit shy.
That's number one. Can I stand with your one foot?
That's another reason.
That's reason number two, I'm not flexible at all.
I like the gym, I like to lift heavy things, but I've never attempted this before.
I have no idea how it's going to go.
It's a 75 minute class.
I know it seems like too long, but anyway, I'm challenging myself to something new.
And that's what I wanted to do in 2024 was to try new stuff because I had always kind of gotten into my comfort zone and not really challenged myself.
So that's why I said Potentially Happy Place, I don't know how it's going to go.
It might go horribly wrong, but I'm going to try it out anyway.
And it's going to be so good for you anyways with all the stretching and you might be in a little bit of pain.
We'll see how it goes.
I'll report back. And we'll be very happy to hear the second part of your yoga endeavors.
And Yushuan, what's your happy place?
So I think mine is the one that I recently attended, which is an art festival.
It is called Calling Art Festival.
It featured a lot of things like exhibitions from well -known galleries and museums, also a marketplace where independent artists gather to sell their creative works, also live band performances, screenings of artistic films and even a street food section.
So everything you can get for a whole day.
So the whole experience was very immersive for all the senses.
I was thinking, you know, for seeing, listening, eating, even.
So I spent half a day there and I still didn't manage to see everything.
But what is important, I think, is it left me reflecting on how the art scene in China is becoming more vibrant nowadays, you know, seeing independent brands, passionately showcasing their own works and being well received by a lot of these goers and customers.
It gave me a feeling of inspiration as it feels like there are more and more types of markets and exhibitions these days.
Of course, it is kind of a new business model, but it is also giving me a feeling of artistic atmosphere is quite flourishing.
So yeah, the festival has ended, but I think I will go again next time.
Is Beijing known to be an artistic city?
I think so. Yeah, we have a very vibrant art scene, the theatre, concerts and all kinds of art.
And street blocks. There are a lot of artistic streets and blocks in Beijing, 798, so a lot of the areas are holding or hosting these kind of art festivals and yeah, it is attracting a lot of people.
And can I piggyback on your artistic mood and atmosphere, please?
Of course. Would you renounce love to become all powerful?
The Nibel Logan, Elberich steals enchanted gold to craft a ring, which allows them to do just that, yet the corruptive forces and power won't be his forever as gods and giants.
Discover how far they will go to possess the cursed ring.
Brother kills brother, the innocent are enslaved, and the King of Gods must decide where his power true lies.
I wish I have Steve's voice so I could do like the trailer voice for it.
You're so good at it, Steve.
Okay, so this is Richard Wagner's Das Reingold, Laiyin Dohongjin, a monumental work that stands as a towering achievement in the annals of opera.
I went to the National Center for the Performing Arts, a prime venue for the performing arts in China and it's premiered its own production of Richard Wagner's Das Reingold, featuring a live orchestra from the China National Opera House Symphony Orchestra and it was a great experience.
It was very artsy and very long.
How long was it? Okay, this is the first of a four opera cycle and this is the shortest and it was two hours and four tea minutes long with no intermission.
And I have to say, I tried to get into the mood and I was in the mood for some time.
But after maybe an hour and 30 minutes, I was feeling kind of itchy and then the girl seated next to me, a total stranger, and I could see at the corner of my eye, she was on Taobao.
And then she went on Bilibili to check out exactly the same opera but performed by German or another opera house.
And I was like, when I realized that I noticed all these things, I was like, okay.
You missed like half an hour?
No, maybe five minutes.
But it's interesting that when this monumental work first came out, it was composed in 1855 and it was a huge deal.
And Richard Wagner being kind of a controversial composer nowadays, considering how his music has been used in the last century.
But I realize, yes, there's definitely the artistic value.
And you have to judge from the sort of lens back then instead of now to see its importance and significance.
But also, as a 21st century person, I realize this is really a bit long.
But the National Center for the Performing Arts still made it great and new elements as it's brought together top talent for this production under the baton of music director Lou Jia.
And with heavyweight Italian director Stefano Pota leading the creative team, the whole thing was quite spectacular.
And you can see that there are some new innovation that goes into it.
And one of the most exciting innovations in this production is the creative use of water and sand on the stage.
So I saw the reviews.
You either love it or hate it.
But it's definitely a broad, bold attempt that adds a fresh visual element to the performance.
And this unique approach invites the audience to experience the story in a whole new way, making it definitely a worthwhile exploration of Wagner's timeless work.
And also the NCPA offers subtitles in both English and Chinese for the whole opera and making it incredibly accessible for diverse audiences.
And this feature enhances that experience, allowing everyone to fully engage with the rich storytelling and emotional depth of the performance if I manage to stay off my phone a bit.
And bring snacks if you can.
I don't know. Can you bring popcorn to an opera?
I don't think so. It's a no no.
And you can't even bring in drinks.
Oh my. Yeah. So there's a sound.
You don't want that at the door giving you clear instructions.
But also I see maybe there is an improvement of the audience, the Chinese audience viewing etiquette that no one picked up the phone.
OK, that's kind of a low bar.
No phone went off and then everybody followed the rules of no eating or drinking beverages.
But they're kept on happening.
What I heard was this noise.
I don't know if our mic can catch it.
Oh, drop it. People dropping their phone.
They just accidentally dropped their phones.
I guess, you know, when you're trying to be good, but the phones just kept on slipping out of the pocket when you're on Taobao for forty five minutes at a time.
Then it'll slip out eventually.
Oh, that was just a fascinating experience.
And my happy place that I'm beyond happy to share with you.
Coming up has the smartwatch evolved from an accessory to necessity with new releases from Apple and Huawei.
What's next in the race to dominate your wrist?
Stay tuned. Looking for passion.
How about fiery debate.
Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives.
Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West.
And understanding is the goal.
Is the hour of Roundtable with myself a young I'm joined by Yushin and Steve Hatherly.
Well, for all the tech lovers out there, remember when Apple dropped its smartwatch back in 2014 and changed the game.
Fast forward 10 years and guess what?
Both Apple and Huawei have announced new models today.
Smartwatches are a must have for health and fitness tracking unless you think they're just fancy wrist candy.
But let's be real, after checking out the latest features, it feels like we're not seeing any groundbreaking tech leaps.
Have we hit a dead end in smartwatch design?
Well, in order to assess that, let's start with some of these new releases and anything that you would like to share with us.
Techies rejoice. New features are not.
Everybody always gets excited, right?
When a new phone or a new tablet or a new smartwatch comes out, Huawei releasing five new devices on September 19th via a keynote event in Barcelona in Spain.
Lovely location to do that.
The lineup includes new Huawei Watch GT5 series, two more smartwatches, two new Huawei Matepad tablets.
About the watch, one reviewer said it's where fitness meets luxury.
That's Huawei. Apple 10, Apple Watch 10 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 released on September 20th, the official release date.
Certain stores were taking pre -orders for that, but the official release date September 20th.
About the Huawei features, about the watch, the screen quality they say is super bright enough for a sunny day.
That's nice, right?
It's annoying when you can't look at your screen because it's too bright outside.
Good for all conditions.
Even a little rain on the watch, according to the reviewer, didn't have any problem with the touch screen or things like that.
Apple's new features, thinnest yet, largest screen yet, depth sensors, temperature sensors, faster charging.
Those are just a couple of things to look for.
Wow, they just sound so incredibly new and groundbreaking.
Of course, that's sarcastic.
You're being sarcastic.
But you know, it's not hard to see that this seems to have become the current reality of all of these smart wearables.
It's getting difficult to impress users with just the form of a watch anymore.
All of these functions like the screen quality or bright enough, of course, they're working on it to make you to use it easier, easily, I mean, sorry.
But anyway, this is some kind of way that they're just trying so hard, but you don't see that much of difference and it is so hard to wow consumers right now.
Yeah, the knowledgeable consumer, the super picky consumer, might not notice the big differences coming here.
But Yushin, you're a smartwatch owner yourself.
Tell us if you could.
I mean, I think there's a lot of people out there who don't own a smartwatch.
I'm one of those people.
Tell us about the different things you can do with it or the things that you might be impressed by.
First of all, I think I initially bought a kind of a smart wearable.
It is not a watch, but it is called a band.
So it's from Xiaomi.
It's called Mi Band.
Also, by the way, the song Are You OK?
is from the product of this Mi Band.
Anyway, this is a fun anecdote, but that is how I think a lot of people know about these smart wearables.
And they are having the function that they can track your steps, they can detect your sleep, they can give you some digital status on your sleep to see how much of your time of your deep sleep or light sleep or a lot of these numbers.
And also, they can give you maybe some information on your heart rate, of course.
And sometimes blood oxygen on some devices.
So these are the functions that most of the smart wearables will have and you can get.
But if you are saying that, OK, is it necessary to get a smart wearable compared to a regular watch, it all depends on your needs, of course, if you need something to detect your sleep and you know you like to know better about your sleep, maybe, of course, a smart watch or smart wearable.
But if you only you don't feel comfortable wearing them when you're sleeping.
Oh, good. And also maybe you don't want something on your wrist when you're sweating.
Smart watch is definitely not a good choice when you're having just one basic watch.
Yeah, that's a really good point.
And that's why there's other wearables as well.
Wearable technology.
The activity bracelets you mentioned already, you should.
Next generation earphones as well that will make calls, receive voice instructions, things like that.
If you don't want to wear a watch during your sleeping time, but you still want your sleep activity checked out, why not the Galaxy Ring from Samsung?
Have you heard of smart rings before?
Oh, yeah, of course.
It's it's quite a news.
And as I said, some of the consumers cannot be wowed by the form of watch right now.
So I think that is how creative these manufacturers are being.
So they are trying to use this smart ring.
But the thing I don't think there is a but, but I was trying to say, of course, it is a new image right now.
And we are seeing maybe how far it will go.
And if it is good enough, I think consumers will accept it eventually.
OK, it's a quick question, though, because the most popular one is still the watch, right?
So is it just because it's easier for people to fathom?
OK, I can wear it. I can.
It's not absurd to have it on my wrist and also it's connected to your phone and other devices.
Therefore, maybe the watch is the one that stands out out of all of these wearables.
I think so. I think part of the attraction is the functionality of it.
But also part of the attraction is the aesthetic value.
The new Huawei watch, you know, that quote from the reviewer where fitness meets luxury or luxury meets fitness.
That's a that's a great quote, isn't it?
That's very good. That's a great promotion for your product.
And if you've seen the images or the videos of the new watch, it's really, really nice.
So they look nice. The Samsung ring, which by the way, came out earlier this year, the Galaxy Ring.
People are saying it looks really cool.
It's not that heavy.
When you wear it, you forget that you're wearing it.
Which sounds like a good thing, but it's also a bad thing because it looks so normal, if that's the word, that people don't notice that you're wearing a smart ring.
When you are wearing a piece of wearable technology, you kind of want people to notice that you're wearing it, but it fits in so seamlessly with your other outfits and stuff.
It could be considered a good thing or a bad thing.
Interesting. So do you guys agree with the observation these days that smart watch designs has peaked and therefore this is the final form that we are going to sort of be settled with more or less?
I don't know. Maybe we can look to the numbers to figure out whether we've peaked or not.
I think people, a lot of people are still are still buying these devices.
Of course. And also, you know, as someone who pays relatively close attention to tech news, I was actually very excited about, you know, this year's Apple Watch back then, especially since it's been 10 years, right, since the product's launch.
So I expected it to undergo a significant revolution just like maybe the iPhone 10.
Right. But the thing is, what we have already heard from Steve, the updates, it is, I think, just a normal update.
So we can see nowadays both most of the domestic and international brands watches seem to have settled into a more fixed design with only larger screens, narrower bezels.
And the rest of the changes mainly involve updates to sensors and software.
So I think this perspective makes sense that maybe we are seeing a more mature, I would say, status of smartwatch.
And I believe that smart wearables with new forms like the rings or, you know, there are also devices like a pin on that can pin on your clothes.
You know, they they will still be welcomed by users, but their performance needs to be perfect enough to make people feel that they need them.
And that's the key point that people are talking about these days.
How accurate are the measurements from these wearables?
It was published recently in an umbrella review.
That's a systematic review of systematic reviews.
And experts examine specific literature on whether consumer wearable devices like rings or watches or other wearables can accurately measure metrics like heart rate or aerobic capacity or energy expenditure or sleep and step count.
Your smartwatch, did you know this?
Your skin tone or having a tattoo can affect the accuracy of a smartwatch when reading your levels.
And that's because the majority of wristband wearables, they rely on sensors that work by shining light into your skin.
And then it determines various biometric data based on how much light is reflected back.
So if you have a darker skin tone or if you have a tattoo in the area of where your wrist is, then the feedback, the sensors are not going to be as accurate.
What they found is that measuring heart rate can they can measure that with about a three percent error.
But if you look at things like step counts, then you're looking at nine percent and underestimation by nine percent.
And then calories burned.
The mistakes range from 21 percent to 14 percent for 14 to 21 percent for calories burned.
Oh, it's really useful information to know.
I've always wondered how accurate are these gadgets.
That's not the worst one.
Sorry to interrupt you.
The sleep accuracy errors ranging from 12 percent to 180 percent.
That's a lot. It is a lot.
We'd be aware of this.
Right. And when you look at the Chinese market, this is an interesting one.
You would assume that it must be tech savvy young people who are chasing the trend, who want to buy smart watches.
But that ain't the case until recently.
So you should could you give us some more information on that?
Oh, yeah. So we can see that the user demographic for smart watches has seen changes according to data released by Juyuan Consulting.
As of 2022, the overall market size for smart watches in China reached 44 billion yuan.
That's about six point three billion US dollars with the market for children's smart watches, approximately 20 billion yuan.
So for the first time, the market size for adult smart watches surpassed that of children's smart watches, which means, you know, back then, children's smart watch were dominating the whole smart watch market.
Can you believe it?
Basically, you know, I saw maybe even every single one of the primary school students will have a smart watch in the streets because they tend to socializing with a smart watch, also communicating with their parents.
And I think parents are also using this as a way to locate their kids.
Yeah, of course. Yeah.
And it's really funny among these young consumers.
And apparently, your Huawei, your Apple fancy smart watches do not allure them at all.
They only want I'm not going to name the brand, but only for kids.
And apparently it's selling.
It's the third biggest smart watch maker in China behind Huawei and Xiaomi.
So it's really interesting that in the China market.
Actually, smart watches has found this group of consumers, which you might not see in other countries.
And looking into the future for China's smart watch makers, there are two significant trends that are shaping the future it is perceived.
One is precision and accuracy, which goes back to what Steve has mentioned.
And another one is A .I.
capabilities for personalized experience.
Do you agree? And what do you see as you know, what could be what could pan out for the future of smart watches?
What are you what are you missing from your smartwatch?
And what do you think they need?
I think I am getting most of what I want, you know, actually, if you're thinking about or just getting A .I.
into your smartwatch, of course, it's kind of a personal intelligent assistance that you can get whenever you are because you're wearing your smart wearables.
But do you actually need them because they if you would need a personal assistant, then they need to speak to you or they need to at least respond to you.
And then it will be a speaker on your smartwatch.
Then I think the thing is that do you really need to think about according to your needs when you're actually have or have not have these kind of kind of functions?
An A .I. assistant. Do I need it?
No. Do I want it? Yes.
Yeah. And also, I wonder, you know, for smart watches, maybe those who want this thing, they've already gotten it.
And will they upgrade?
You can have your thoughts after listening to our show today.
For those who haven't got it, maybe we don't really need it.
So we'll see what happens as smartwatches continue to evolve.
It's clear that while they might reach the plateau in groundbreaking features, the role as essential health companions may set to grow.
And the future might not be flashy upgrades, but rather smarter integrations into our daily lives.
And that brings us to the end of today's show.
Thank you, Steve Hatherly and Yushuan for joining the discussion.
I'm Hae Young. We'll see you next time.
