So the hoo-har about smart watches begins in earnest with the launch of Samsung’s Gear. But here’s an interesting social factor that might stand in the way of mass adoption…
Whilst it bizarrely appears to have become socially acceptable to whip out a smart phone mid-conversation these days, looking at your watch has a much more defined social meaning: something like “you’re boring me and I need to go”. Moreover, people don’t spend thousands of pounds on a watch merely to tell the time- it’s a statement of the person.
For smart watches to take off, there is a huge amount of unlearning we need to do before they will become socially acceptable. Until then, I reckon only the borderline autistic will be able to use them in polite company…
mmitII 
Nice observation, although I think the idea of looking at your phone being ‘acceptable’ mid-conversation is restricted to a work setting and still pretty dodgy then!
Acceptable, yet still profoundly rude! Unfortunately we appear to be training ourselves to become infinitely distractable.