I last looked at the MetaWatch nearly a year ago and found it to be an excellent partner for an Android smartphone. The reflective display paired with a highly capable Bluetooth radio allowed me to get notifications for email, text messages, phone calls and more from my Android device; even as far as 80 feet before losing the connection. I found that triaging email on your wrist is a huge time saver.  But as the Pebble e-paper watch has recently shown: Android support alone isn’t enough for mass market success in the smartwatch market, although Motorola’s MotoActv shows much promise – I wear one all day, every day.

Pebble was the first such watch to include support for Apple’s iOS devices, and the project blew through all funding records on Kickstarter, eventually finding nearly 69,000 backers with a cumulative funding total that topped $10 million. The Pebble device also supports Android phones, but I suspect much of the project’s success was due to iOS support via Apple’s Made for iPhone program. Ironically, as MetaWatch has added the same iOS support, Pebble has opted to go with Bluetooth 4.0. That makes sense as the new Bluetooth Smart standard uses far less power for wireless connections; a key aspect for a watch if you don’t want to charge it for a week or more.

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I’ve been following the market for wearable displays and smartwatches for some time now. These small devices either act as remote displays that interact with your smartphone over a wireless connection or have smartphone guts of their own. With them, you can run apps, manage messages, check your calendar or view the weather, for example. My first foray in this area was back in 2004 with a Microsoft SPOT watch; it used FM radio waves to shoot news updates, text messages, event notifications and weather to my wrist. The service was quickly leapfrogged by smartphones and cellular wireless technology.

More recently, I tried a Sony Ericsson(eric) Live View watch, but it lost connectivity to my Android handset far too much. The MetaWatch prototype I reviewed back in June worked far better and is a reliable solution. And the folks at WIMM Labs are working on a wearable touchscreen device based on Android that has Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, GPS and various other sensors.

The new nano can’t do nearly as much as these devices. With the software update, it gains new watch faces. The integrated accelerometer can measure how far and fast you run or walk; there’s no external Nike+ sensor needed. Since the device has no wireless radio, you’ll need to physically connect the nano to a computer for offloading the Nike+ data. And you can’t run third-party apps, so you can use any exercise software you want, provided it’s Nike+.

Now Apple isn’t positioning the nano as a smartwatch. But I could easily see the nano slowly morph into one with incremental upgrades. For the mass market audience, there isn’t yet a market for smartwatches. Few see the need, as they get all the information they need from a smartphone. But I see future merit in this market. Being able to triage or manage email and messages with a glance at the MetaWatch on my wrist is a huge time saver that doesn’t require me to pull out and power on a smartphone, and as we depend more on mobile devices, that’ll become increasingly important.

If this market does gain traction, I’d expect Apple to leverage the nano and iOS. Similar to past approaches with other products, Apple would likely create a smartwatch based on what it feels consumers need most in a wearable device. And because so few consumers are thinking about a product like this, it would be perceived as magical and revolutionary, much like the iPad is, despite the earlier presence of other consumer tablets.

For those currently developing smartwatches, there’s no immediate danger for two reasons. First, the nano isn’t yet a serious threat. Second, all the existing smartwatch efforts are based on Google Android; they don’t connect to iOS devices. That means as long as Android is around and popular — a safe bet — they can continue to mature their products for non-iOS users. But for those that have Apple products, the only smartwatch likely to connect to an iPhone is going to come from Apple, likely in the form of a nano successor.

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With key leaders from Fossil taking over the Meta Watch assets, the project’s focus won’t change. Meta Watch will still be a Bluetooth-enabled wristwatch that wirelessly connects to a smartphone for alerts, notifications, messaging and more. The company will continue to sell a development platform for $200, with expected availability this month. The goal remains to make Meta Watch a platform for developers; not to create end-user consumer products.

In advance of the news, I spoke last week with Geiser, who takes on the CEO role of Meta Watch, and asked why Fossil was willing to let Meta Watch go. “It’s a win, win, win,” Geiser told me by phone, saying, “It’s good for Fossil, good for us and good for this category. But the connected watch business wasn’t in scope of Fossil’s core competency of lifestyle products. So this generated an opportunity for a focused team to take this on because when you throw radios in these products, it changes everything.”

I agree with Geiser’s thoughts, in particular the last one because I’ve used several “smart” watches over the past half-dozen years. Simply put: Few have worked well for me outside of the Meta Watch prototype I reviewed this past June. The Meta Watch manages the wireless connection extremely well, runs for a long time on a single charge and smartly provides useful information at a glance, instead of trying to do too much on a small screen.

You can read my full review and impressions of the gadget here, but this summary of my thoughts explains the vision that the Meta Watch provided me:

[T]he MetaWatch team “gets it” when it comes to smart watches. There are many visions of what a smart watch ought to do, but the more functionality added, the more complex and disruptive the technology can be. Perhaps one day we’ll all be talking into our wrist for a phone call, but for the coming future, a display-at-a-glance device with a simple, intuitive interface is saving me much time.

In my use of a Meta Watch prototype, the device hasn’t yet missed a notification from my Android smartphone. “We think of ourselves of the FedEx of notifications,” Geiser says. As a result, I found myself relying on the watch to triage my email because notifications are instantly pushed from smartphone to watch. With just an unobtrusive glance at my wrist, it’s a simple matter to see if an email is urgent enough to pull out the smartphone, or if the message can wait until later, for example.

Geiser told me the Meta Watch team will continue to look at other smartphone platforms and also move beyond standard notifications for incoming calls, SMS, email and other alerts. Music control, location-based check-in — perhaps even advertising based on location — navigation and sports activities are all potential areas for the platform. And developers looking to instrument their own apps can easily do so.

We’ll be talking about “smart” watches and other non-traditional connected devices later this month at our Mobilize conference in San Francisco, and I’ll be curious to see where the conversation leads. In particular, we’re not yet at the point for wearable computers to take the place of smartphones in our pocket.

We’re limited by display size and input methods, just to name a few constraints. But for now, an ambient notification system on the wrist can provide far more value than people realize. It’s now up to the Meta Watch team to preach that message to consumers and attract developers to broaden the possibilities for this useful prototype watch.

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My experience with the MetaWatch, a prototype watch project backed by Fossil , couldn’t be any more different. The reason is because the MetaWatch takes a different approach, which I’ve come to see is more effective. Instead of trying to cram extensive application functions into a small screen on the wrist, the MetaWatch offers useful information at a glance without the need for scrolling. MetaWatch isn’t trying to replicate or replace smartphone functions; it supplements them. And the connection is rock-solid and reconnects by itself.

Less Is More; Convenience Is a Feature

Bill Geiser, VP of Watch Technology, and David Rosales, manager of product development and engineering, both from Fossil, recently told me the watch is an exploration for the company. “Some may overlook the convenience, which to us is a feature. Think of Netflix and microwaves: each takes an existing concept and makes it easier to use, for example,” Geiser said.

A perfect example of that convenience is how I’ve used the MetaWatch to help me triage the near-constant flow of email coming to my phone. When a message arrives on my handset, the MetaWatch vibrates two times as an alert. That tells me some type of message is about to appear on my wrist. A few seconds later, the watch vibrates once and shows the sender’s name, subject line and a few words of the email. That’s all I get, but I’ve learned that’s all I need.

From that one glance of minimal information, I can tell if the mail is important enough to pull out my smartphone (cat videos can wait) and take action or if I can simply ignore the message until I have more time later in the day. It doesn’t sound like an earth-shattering change, but after two weeks with the MetaWatch, I find it an effective time-saver. The alternative is taking out the smartphone with every notification, unlocking the device and then scanning the email, which may not even warrant immediate action; a much more disruptive activity.

This same at-a-glance functionality works with incoming text messages, incoming phone calls and calendar event notifications. The watch face can also show local weather, and of course, the time and date, in addition to the number of unread emails, messages and missed phone calls. The current music track and artist can also be shown, although on the prototype, that function hasn’t worked for me.

MetaWatch Is a Platform, Not a Product

The “secret sauce” behind what the MetaWatch displays is actually an open-source solution, aptly named OpenWatch. I’m using the software on my Android handset, but it supports other platforms as well: BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Java handsets, for example. The MetaWatch pairs quickly with the OpenWatch software using Bluetooth, and the wireless range itself is far better than what I experienced with the Sony Ericsson Live View. In contrast, I’ve worn the MetaWatch at least 80 feet from my handset and still received notifications. That’s likely due to both the software as well as the low-power Bluetooth solution used in the MetaWatch, which is a wireless chip from Texas Instruments .

As a reminder, this is a $200 prototype for developers and other watch manufacturers to leverage so don’t get hung up on size, form factor and other physical features. The device uses a 96 x 96 reflective display, has six function buttons, backlight capability, vibrating motor, leather strap, accelerometer and rechargeable battery. The beta software I’m using is specific to stress test the messaging, so it hits the battery harder than a production version would. I was told to expect a day per charge and I can easily see that. With final software, the watch should run for a full week.

Developers can instrument their applications to leverage the MetaWatch with very little code; since the device is essentially a remote display, applications simply need to provide output to the MetaWatch through the OpenWatch software. And that’s partially why Fossil is backing the project as a platform, instead of driving their own individual sales. “We think there are 1,000 killer apps for this,” Rosales said, and by licensing the effort, Fossil stands to gain back the last few years of effort and research dollars to pair a smart watch on the wrist to nearly every smartphone out there.

My conversation with Geiser and Rosales and the last few weeks of using a MetaWatch, have taught me that the MetaWatch team “gets it” when it comes to smart watches. There are many visions of what a smart watch ought to do, but the more functionality added, the more complex and disruptive the technology can be. Perhaps one day we’ll all be talking into our wrist for a phone call, but for the coming future, a display-at-a-glance device with a simple, intuitive interface is saving me much time.

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