Want a smart watch for Christmas? Rethink that

I asked on Nov. 22, "Is there a future for smart watches?" Referring to the "this year's model" mentality of smart watch makers, I observed,

When someone buys a watch, they expect to use it for many years, not have it fall victim to planned obsolescence. After all, does the forthcoming Asus Zenwatch 3 actually tell time better than the 2? Nope. Does it have more or better apps? Nope. Well, not yet; it depends whether Android Wear will get upgraded and whether the 3 will accept the upgrade.

And doggone it, they must be fully, easily readable in daylight! Otherwise, I'll take my Timex.

As I linked, smart watch have plunged dramatically. Now one of the major manufacturers, Motorola, appears to be giving up on smartwatches.

Motorola is putting its smartwatch plans on hold.

While the company already announced it wouldn't launch a new version of its Moto 360 watch in 2016, the company told The Verge on Thursday that it won't have one early next year either, when Google plans to release the new version of its Android Wear operating system for watches.

Motorola's head of product development told The Verge that there isn't "broad appeal" for wearable devices like smartwatches.

But not only Motorola.

Huawei and LG, which have made Android Wear watches in the past, both said they don't plan to make new devices this year. There has even been speculation that Huawei would abandon Android Wear altogether. A spokesperson for Huawei told Business Insider earlier this year that the company remains committed to wearables, but didn't mention those running on Android.

Business Insider has also heard from people familiar with the situation that internally there's still interest in Android Wear at Google, and that the company is considering making its own smartwatch, just like it made its own smartphone this year.

Having owned two smart watches, a Motorola that I returned and a Zenwatch 2 that I still have and almost never wear, I would say that the smart watch concept is in the same hole as Head-Up Displays for automobile GPS systems: good ideas still searching for a solution.