I remember buying a smartwatch a few years ago and getting excited about counting steps, checking heart rate, and receiving notifications on your wrist. Over the years, every new launch promised another sensor, a brighter display or a slightly longer battery life. Those upgrades were enough to convince consumers to upgrade. Today, the conversation has become more nuanced. Consumers still expect smartwatches to monitor their fitness, but that has become the starting point rather than the destination. They are looking for devices that fit naturally into their routines, help them understand their health and encourage them to make better decisions every day.
According to Counterpoint's IoT Service Research, India's smartwatch shipments fell 27% year on year in Q2 2025, marking the fifth consecutive quarter of declining volumes. While budget devices saw the sharpest fall, premium smartwatches priced between ₹15,000 and ₹30,000 recorded strong growth as consumers gravitated towards devices offering AI-powered health insights, better biometrics and richer experiences.
For marketers, this presents a different challenge. Selling another smartwatch is becoming harder. Selling a healthier lifestyle, however, is proving far more compelling.
Utsav Malhotra, COO, Noise, says the category has reached a point where hardware alone is no longer enough to drive differentiation. “Display, battery, sensors — most serious players in this category are now within touching distance of each other, so a spec sheet on its own does not do much to move a consumer anymore.”
He explains the value of a wearable lies in how it captures data, interprets patterns and turns them into meaningful, actionable insights. “That is what has pushed our communication to move away from feature-led messaging. We now lead with outcomes, whether someone is sleeping better, recovering well, or making more informed choices about their day.”
Archi Gogoi, Head of Brand, Marketing & Growth at Ai+ Smartphone and NxtQuantum Shift Technologies, believes consumers have started looking beyond specifications. She notes, “The smartwatch category is evolving much like the smartphone industry did a few years ago. Consumers today are looking beyond hardware specifications and asking how a device fits into their everyday lives."
Instead of filling campaigns with technical jargon, brands are trying to show how technology simplifies routines, supports healthier lifestyles and becomes useful long after the initial purchase.
Malhotra says this is also reflected in the kind of consumers entering the category. Noise’s research identified what he describes as a “health curious” cohort that may not identify as fitness enthusiasts but is interested in sleep quality, recovery and overall wellbeing. “They are not chasing personal bests; they want guidance,” he says.
Gogoi says storytelling, community engagement and real-life use cases are proving far more persuasive than specification sheets. She believes the real advantage comes from the complete experience a brand delivers, including software, design, after-sales support, privacy and seamless integration across devices. Those are the qualities that create lasting trust and loyalty.
The role of the smartwatch itself is also changing. Rather than acting as a passive tracker that records information, it is beginning to function more like a coach. Software updates, AI-powered recommendations and personalised insights keep the relationship between the brand and the consumer alive well beyond the checkout page.
"The relationship with the consumer shouldn't end at the point of purchase," Gogoi explains. Connected devices allow brands to keep delivering value through software updates, personalised experiences and intelligent features that improve over time. She says consumers appreciate wellness insights that are practical rather than overwhelming, helping them build healthier habits without adding unnecessary complexity.
That growing emphasis on everyday usefulness is changing how agencies approach storytelling. Vibhor Gulati, Founder of Defodio Digital, believes the biggest question brands must answer is no longer what a smartwatch measures, but how it improves someone's life.
"The smartwatch category has reached a point where adding one more sensor or improving battery life by a few hours isn't enough to excite consumers. The real challenge today is answering a much bigger question: How does this device make someone's life better every single day?" he asks.
According to Gulati, agencies are replacing feature-led campaigns with stories built around habits and outcomes. "A sleep score isn't the story. Sleeping better consistently is. A step counter isn't the story. Feeling more energetic at work is." That subtle difference has changed creative thinking considerably. Rather than highlighting dashboards and health metrics, campaigns revolve around relatable situations such as managing stress, recovering after exercise, taking mindful breaks during work or creating healthier daily routines.
Consumers, Gulati points out, rarely buy wearables because they enjoy looking at data. They buy them because they hope those numbers will lead to meaningful improvements in their lives.
This has also elevated the role of creators. Instead of polished product demonstrations, audiences respond more positively to people who genuinely integrate wearables into their own routines. Authentic experiences often carry greater credibility than technical explanations.
AI is adding another dimension to this evolution. For Gulati, artificial intelligence has changed wearables from simple trackers into active coaches, forcing marketers to rethink both creativity and media planning. "Creative can no longer stop at showing features. It has to demonstrate relevance," he says. Instead of merely saying a watch tracks sleep, brands need to show how better sleep helps someone recover faster, manage stress or become more productive.
The communication also extends well beyond launch campaigns. Educational content, personalised challenges, app engagement and regular software updates become ongoing opportunities to strengthen consumer relationships. Success, he argues, will be measured through active users, app engagement and long-term usage rather than device sales alone.
Yet, alongside innovation comes responsibility. As smartwatches collect personal health information, trust becomes central to the brand promise. "Consumers will embrace AI only when they believe it is genuinely working in their interest," Gulati says, adding that transparency and privacy need to be communicated as clearly as innovation itself.
Malhotra sees AI playing a similar role, but says its value lies less in generating more data and more in helping consumers understand what they already have. “Most consumers do not want another dashboard full of numbers; they want technology that helps them understand what those numbers mean in the context of their everyday lives,” he says.
At Noise, he says, AI is being positioned as an intelligence layer that works in the background, making health insights more intuitive and reducing complexity rather than becoming a feature brands showcase for its own sake.
Malhotra finds a broader shift in how consumers are approaching wearables. He explains, “Health and fitness applications already account for nearly 54% of India’s smart wearables market, and chronic disease monitoring is projected to grow at close to 24% annually.” He points out that this is particularly visible among working professionals, who are using wearables not to train harder but to manage long working hours, hybrid lifestyles and everyday burnout.
Ankit Shastri, Senior Group Director at Gozoop Creative, sees another important change taking place. "Nobody buys a watch for its chipset anymore. The story has to move from what the watch does to who the user becomes," he says candidly. That single thought captures how smartwatch advertising is evolving. The product itself is gradually becoming less visible, while the person wearing it becomes the focus.
Shastri points to a recent campaign centred on a woman overwhelmed by conflicting health advice. Rather than showcasing technical features, the story finds its emotional turning point in a simple notification from her watch. "The whole film rests on a human moment instead of a spec," he adds. It reflects a wider creative direction where brands identify everyday pain points such as sedentary lifestyles, poor sleep or wellness fatigue, then demonstrate how technology quietly fits into those moments.
As watches begin coaching rather than simply counting, Shastri believes every aspect of marketing changes. He describes, “The story moves from features to everyday value. Not the heart-rate sensor but someone avoiding burnout, not a step-count milestone but a personalised nudge to recover." That also means brands cannot rely on one glossy campaign every few months. Instead, they need continuous conversations that appear when consumers actually need encouragement, advice or reassurance.
He further adds, "The real goal isn't selling a smartwatch; it's becoming part of someone's day." Perhaps that is where the category finds its greatest opportunity. For years, smartwatch brands competed over specifications that quickly became expected across the industry. Today, the competition is becoming far more personal.
Malhotra finds this is particularly visible among working professionals, who are using wearables not to train harder but to manage long working hours, hybrid lifestyles and everyday burnout. “People are seeing wearables as everyday wellness companions rather than one-time fitness accessories,” he says.
That shift puts the focus on a different kind of engagement. The value of a smartwatch is no longer limited to the moment it records a workout or delivers a notification, but to whether it can become useful enough to influence everyday behaviour.
Consumers are asking whether a device helps them sleep more soundly after a stressful week, encourages them to take a walk between meetings or reminds them to pause before burnout takes over. These are small moments, but they are also the moments that build long-term relationships between people and technology.
The smartwatch may still sit quietly on the wrist, but its role has grown considerably. It is becoming a daily companion, a gentle coach and a trusted guide.
For marketers, that means success will depend less on announcing the next hardware upgrade and more on telling stories that people recognise from their own lives. In a crowded market, the brands that leave the biggest impression are likely to be the ones that make technology feel reassuring, useful and genuinely personal, every single day.
