Passkeys might really kill passwords
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Welcome back. All right. Let's talk about how to have good password hygiene on the internet, which is the least interesting thing I could possibly imagine saying to begin this.

But that's actually part of why I want to talk about this. I feel like i've spent most of my life scolding people to have Better passwords and use a password manager and get two factor authentication, but not s ms. Two factor and IT.

Turns out most people just don't care, and even I still use the same password across way too many services. It's a real problem, but there's this one new technology called pakehas that in theory might be the solution to all of our problems. It's designed to be more secure than passwords and also simply than passwords and basically just Better in every imaginable way.

And it's growing really fast. Google support pakis now so as amazon, IOS and android both do, you can pass key log in the tiktok and what's happen, uber and paypal and a whole bunch other services. This tech is very much catching on.

In a way, a lot of the supposed replacements to the past word haven't in the past, but I have to confess, I don't really understand paques. I mean, I understand the theory. They use an encysted token on your device, authentic cate you, rather than a password that you type into a taxi. That's about how I understand about IT. So I invited under the show somebody who knows much Better.

ana polites, head of password. This at one password.

Ana has been working on password list tech for a long time, so I asked her to come on the show and explain to me how past is work, why everyone is convinced there, the future, and most of all, how we, as Normal humans, are supposed to use them in our lives. One day before we get into IT, SHE talks a bunch about one password specifically, which makes sense to me. That's where he works.

But a lot of what she's talking about is true for most password managers and most platforms. That part of the point of package is that they are the same everywhere. SHE also makes a point later on in the interview about the upsides of a third party cross platform passa manager rather than using the ones built in deer device, and actually think that argument is pretty compelling.

But again, there are a lot of good options there, and you can can go wrong. Anyway, let's get into IT. The first thing I asked ana about is basically, why haven't we killed passwords yet?

The death of password for forever pasques are supposedly the end of passwords, but i've heard that so, so, so many times before. So what is IT about passwords? That means they just won't go away.

We've been talking about how passwords are bad for like twenty.

twenty five years like ince passwords .

yeah has exactly like over and over again. So why now? Seems like a very reasonable question. And I think the truth is that this is the first time where security and user experience aren't mutually if you think about previous attempts to either like improve the security of passwords or replace passwords, they always come at the expense of user experience.

So for example, multifocal real dedication add security to pass words by in requiring A T O T P code or any mail or something like that. But that's an extra thing that the easier has to do to log in. If you think about certain types of biometrics, like prieta biometrics, that some sort of hardware that you need to add into the mix. And so there's always this extra step or extra thing that a user has to think about. But with past keys, the ideas that you don't have to compromise on those things, you're going to get Better security and you'll also get a really smooth, frictionless site process.

So from a pure user experience perspective, I think it's it's right to say people will do the simplest thing, right? And even when we know it's bad, even when it's terrible hygiene, everybody agrees is bad. I think most people intellection know, don't use the same crappy password every single thing.

And yet most people do, because IT is IT is just the easiest thing to do. And it's very annoying to remember all of the different passwords in a funny way. IT seems like the bar is both very low in that you have to replace people's crm mi passwords with something more secure, but also very high because actually remembering one password that is just one, two, three, four and then typing that in everywhere is actually pretty good user experience.

Certainly a good user experience, yes, but the part is low on the security side.

IT leads to the things.

I suppose yeah exactly.

So when I think about like all the things that are wrong with passwords, for me, IT really comes down to the fact that passwords put all of the burden on a user to be secure, right? It's on you as a person to think of good password, remember them, not use the same one everywhere, not fall for a fishing attack, all of these things, but with past keys. The goal is we can actually remove the human error completely from logging into apps.

And so if we give you something that's easy and frictionless less, and the security is actually into the technology, then there's nothing free to do wrong, right? Like IT just works. So in the case of package, when you're logging in all IT does IT looks and feels to you like you're just unlocking your device, usually something like face ID, touch windows, hello.

And so IT looks and feels like something that is familiar to use me, you know how to do. And there's nothing there's no thought you have to put into IT of that. I pick my most secure packy, right? It's just kind of all happening behind the scenes .

that's really smart because I think so much of this stuff, and we talk about this with sort of security and privacy in all forms on the internet IT all is in scolding, right? You can have to make people feel bad and scare them in certain ways in order to just like beat them in a having good behavior. And what is actually is, is if you give people a Better product that is also safer, they'll do IT. And if you make them feel bad, they still won't change there with. And I think what this whole industry seems to be coming around you in a cool way, like what if we just build Better products and I think that they are exciting.

Yeah, totally like it's not that people don't want to be secure. That does not where that this is coming from. That's not why passwords have stayed around. It's sort of just like an inertia like IT is that people know how to do and it's there and there's never really been an option that feels a lot Better.

Like I used to do security consulting for a number of years and we would work with these companies and they we tell them like, hey, you have a weak password policy or you need to add two factor, all these controls around your account security and especially for consumer facing applications, they'd be like, I mean, I could, but that's gonna t my user conversions. People aren't to sign up for my application. And so that trade off is never worth IT to them, right? But with pakehas, you can actually, like we can say, is actually going to help your conversions. Users will sign up faster for your application. And so all the sudden, there is also a business reason to use path key is not just a security.

Yeah, where did pasques come from? I feel like in the time i've been covering this space, there was a minute where IT was like everybodys going to have a ubique. And that's the solution. And then we got into two factor in all of its many different forms. And I think we went from bad two factor of S M S to a pretty good two factor inside of act like one password. And off the and familiar, I suffer and pakehas kind of cropped up on me a little bit over the last couple of years, but my senses theyve been around longer than most people realize as kind of a possibility and an idea like, where did this come from?

Yeah, so there's a technology that kind of undersized passes called web off, and that's been around for probably about ten years, I think. And there's a group called the photo alliance that's like an industry organization. Um a lot of big companies are a part of IT.

They're all focused on you bringing password less authenticate to the world. And so this protocol was invented is the same thing that ub keys use that's used to provide this sort of public key crip tom phy based authentication. So it's been around for a really long time, but you usually had to have some sort of hardware key like a ub key. And so you IT might work really well in workforce or a corporate environment, but could really chAllenging for the everyday people who don't just have a ube key.

I got a ube key. I set up everything on my ubique, and then I realized the place I leave my keys is several rooms away from where I sit.

right? It's on near your computer like .

my key's rob stairs right now with my ubique on them and there is no .

chance i'm going to use IT exactly like the fact you even have one is really rare. And so a couple years ago, there is a big announcement from the major platform saying we're now supporting what we're calling package, which is essentially web off and credentials that can be sinked between your platform account.

So now instead of being tied to hardware, those past keys are stored in your eyes cloud account or your google or your microsoft account. And more recently, maybe you're one password account, which will obviously get into at some point. But the ideas that now these credentials are a little bit more accessible.

You don't need special hardware. They'll sink between your different devices a little bit Better to make you a little bit easier free to access them. And that's been like the big push that um you're hearing about the last couple years got IT.

okay. Was there a technical development that made that possible? Like what what happened between a decade ago and maybe two years ago when this really started to become a thing that kind of tipped IT into this is the thing we can .

do in a real mainstream way. Now yeah, I was really this thinking concept. And so apple, google, micro soft saying like guess instead of storing these s um and like a secure on clap on a device, we can store them securely in your cloud account and we can think them between these different devices.

So you in some really, really highest ance environments that might be a little bit of a security trade off, right, because you don't have as much hardware security there. But for most consumer use cases, if you're logging into homey boo or netflix or things like that, that's actually still a really good current story and it's a way, way Better than passwords. So you're still getting all of those. Unfixable security benefits of packers, but with a little bit more user friendly .

inss got IT OK. Yes, talking me about the unfished able part of this because I think I was reading through in preparing for this a bunch of the criticisms people have of kind of all of the password replacing technology. And there are two I wants to talk about.

One is now everything is on my one device. What happens if I lose my device? We're gets to that in the second because I think that's very interesting and also just happened to me recently, so will talk about that.

But the other one is people saying will actually secure passwords are part of the problem. But the bigger problem is fishing and its people social engineering their way into my accounts. And actually what we have to solve is that problem, and not people having bad passwords, because if somebody can continue to type in my password on a fake wet page, we've solved nothing. But the belief of past is that they actually solve most, if not all, of that problem too, right? How does that work?

yes. So there's a few really big security benefits with packy. So there's kind of the obvious of like there is no user generated secret type of thing that someone could guess that they could just reuse across a bunch website.

Think guess I can't leak you password. If I don't have a password.

I guess is something exactly. If I don't know what IT is, you can't guess IT. So that's really big. great.

There's a lot of attacks that can happen remotely and at scale that things like credential stuffing are really common against websites. So those things can all go away because there just isn't a credential in the traditional sense. Now the other big thing is, of course, resistance to fishing attacks.

So the keys are tied to a specific website or domain. And so if attacker where to make a look like, say, your facebook dot com with zeros instead of OS, you're past key for a facebook to come will not be used on facebook. The local I say, right, like those pass key simply aren't transferable enough. The same thing .

because the key on your phone and the key on fake facebook just will literally will not understand each other .

exactly like that. He won't be used on that site at sort of the device level, browser levels. Like all there's a lot of protections in place to surfing these packs to a specific domain.

And so at least for that specific type of fishing attack, where which is really common, you have a look like, say, they ask you for your password and then they reuse IT on the real site that just kind of totally goes away. And I think that's really big, especially right now, there's so many news articles around like A I and how A I is making IT even easier to make really realistic fishing attacks. This type of prevention of that whole swap of attacks is really, really big and just gives people a little a bit more confidence.

I think, when using the internet that you don't have to constantly wonder, is this the real life? Is this the real email? Like, do I need to double check? Like I think he's giving people a little more confidence in that way is helpful.

But and there is a weird tension in that even that IT feels too easy, honestly, using passy sometimes. So it's like this can actually be solving my problem. All I did was tapped the thing, the pop up on my phone, that said, we cool and I said, yeah, we cool.

And then I am now blogged in, like at least of the password you kind of understand. I am delivering something that is a secret in order to allow me in. And there is something to the fact that this is so simple that IT almost feels less secure, even though it's not, I don't know, part of me wants you to, like make IT seem scary or every time I do IT because it'll make .

you feel more secure. This is actually a very real thing that I think i've seen that people, the fighter alliance i've seen when you do research with and users that they're kind of like, oh, okay, I guess I logged in like they maybe don't even recognize that they actually like registered for or logged into an application and their OK guess that was okay.

How am I gonna do that next time they don't totally understand? And so there's a ton of research done on the best ways to communicate to users what's going on, which I think is so important as websites start to roll out package that the user experience there is just so important to make sure users are like, oh, okay, like this looks and feels like my touch. I D like, I understand what i'm doing here and kind of giving them that experience. But IT is really hard, which is it's silly of silly that, you know, security has to look hard, like people are used to security being hard for IT to work. And so it's kind of breaking that stereotype and that .

kind of go to the other piece of feedback. I've seen a bunch of about parkies, which is that we've all been trains now that you have to have two factors, right? There's there's the thing you know and the thing you have and the thing I know is my password and the thing I have is my phone great that is Better than just a password.

And there's something too kind of compressing all of that back down into a pi that like I just I don't even remember right, like tweet or something about past keys in one past or being like this is cool if I can now have all of my stuff in both apps. And I got a matter responses from people being like, that's not two factor security. That's one factor security because IT all just lives inside of one password. And I like I don't think that's true, but I but I sort to see the point right where it's now as long as i'm holding my phone, there is no other jobs to do. And I I wonder if part of that is, again, you're sort of obfuscating the steps in the name of simplicity that actually makes me feel like i'm not doing that the hard work with being security anymore.

Yeah, I think that's really fair. And I think we've talked about these traditional and action factor, something you knows you have, something you are, whatever, and talking about passes in that senses like a little bit confusing. But I think I kind of do IT anyway to help explain to people.

I think the easiest way to think about is, is something that you have. It's whatever device you're currently logged on to say you're google device or your one past, whatever your one past or your browser extension or your just top up and then it's also something you either have or are no or something like that depending on you there. Your touch I D face I D, your pin, your one passport password and secure key IT can be like whatever that other factor is that you actually using to log into the account where your passy is stored. But there's always a little bit of a like device ownership aspect to that, which kind of gives you that second fact. And so it's a little bit like square peg round hole, but I think you can kind of roughly put passes into that bucket to help people feel a little bit Better about .

that OK 颜色 的 the two factors。 Then if you were to sort of put that all the way down to basically be my phone and the information required to log into my phone, exactly, which is two things uh, and I think ironically, back to the like, this is almost too easy thing. I think if you were forced to type in your past code every time, IT would make more sense where is with the face idea or the windows? Hello, IT can IT almost happens so fast that you lose track of IT. And it's like, well, I didn't have to authenticated anything, so you did that just happened really quickly automatically, which is a great thing, kind of an alarming when to get used to at first, like I IT certainly took me, if you tried to realized, oh, it's doing face I D every single time my passion comes up because that's part of the authentication process.

exactly. I don't think people think about that when they're just unlocking their phone to use IT like they don't necessarily think too hard about IT just become sort of second nature. But maybe I was like that at the beginning and I was like, oh my god of my password, my phones don't locked.

But yeah, I think it's like you almost don't notice because you're so used to using your face I D A, your touch I D for all sorts of things, right? Like a lot of apps use that technology just to unlock an APP. And so the idea is we are using the thing that's familiar that people is just getting people comfortable with that technology in a new context, like a website or nap.

What do you make of the idea of trying a lot of this stuff to a device? I think on the one hand, phones are sort of inextricable parts of us at this point, like my phones right here on my ubi is upstairs, like that is a telling fact, right? But at the same time, I had this moment the other week where I woke up one morning and my phone heard updated overnight and was bricked, the touch Green didn't work, I couldn't do anything.

And I had this motor realizing, like, oh, I can't do two factors because I can't get sm as I can't see them anymore. I can't get into my one password account because it's lady, it's just sitting here on my phone. I can't text my wife and like, I had this crazy moment of being like, oh, I am way to rely on on my phone to work and have a charge and be sitting here nearby me all the time and others SE my life kind of falls apart. And I think there is a reflexive worry that people have about that. That is like the nice thing about having a bunch of insecure password stored in my head is the battery doesn't die.

Yeah.

they're always there, right? And so that is IT the right path to go down, you think, to tie IT to these devices in that way.

I think it's Better to think about IT. Less is tie IT to a device and more of time IT to your the platform account. So if you're an apple user, primarily, you know you have an iphone and a macbook in all that, you probably use your eyes cloud account to store your contacts and to store a lot of stuff.

And so when you get a new phone, for example, you log into I cloud and like you recover all of your data in that way, right? And so I think thinking about IT that way is a little bit more realistic, to be honest. I absorb the current state of.

Where it's chAllenging. It's the same way like you lose your film. It's really annoying to recover all that data, but pakehas will get recovered if you think back to like the old web off ten days, your places were like impossible to recover in that situation.

And so that's one of the big problems you are trying to solve, is to make account recovery a little bit more possible. I think that's also a really big benefit to using something like one password. So I use a macbook laptop, but I have an android phone.

And so I have this like cross platform situation in my life that isn't really ideal for paces, to be honest, because of packy on my android phone doesn't really naturally translate to my macbook. Is this really kind of weird Q R code experience? But instead, I use one password for everything.

okay. And then the idea is, is that then because one password works across platforms, my package live in my one password account. They don't live on my phone, they don't live on my laptop. They live with my one password account as long as I can get into my one password d account, which ironically, two you might do through a packy, which we should talk about, then I kind of have IT wherever I am.

Exactly that structure makes sense to me because then you're on as long as you can log in as something, which I think in the year twenty twenty four is a pretty reasonable assumption to make. But that brings me to the question of logging into all of my passes with a packy. And and I just think part of what's really interesting about that is like one pastor is very much starting to try to own like the whole security sc, right.

Like I know have two factor codes in my one password and I have my passwords in my one password. And I would think that raises the stakes pretty dramatically for one password that now if something bad happens to my one password self, not only are is something going to get a control of my passwords, they're going to get control of everything. And like one piece of security advice, whatever, from people over and over and over is don't store everything in one place because you should assume everything is insecure and essentially like don't let the two sides of the coin talk to each other and your kind of saying the opposite, which is like put everything in this one place because it's simpler er and Better and I certainly agree that it's simpler. But like does IT change the way you have to think about even the security of one password itself?

That's a really interesting question. I actually don't think IT does because our whole thing from the beginning has been that we take your security and privacy really seriously. Everything is and an encrypted like one password has no access to anyone's actual credentials.

And I don't necessarily see a password as being any different from a past key from like the one password specked. It's ultimately just a credential material of some sort that we're storing and we're gna protect the same way that we would credit card data or social security numbers are like whatever data you want to store with this, right? I try my best instead of saying password manager to say credential manager or something along those lines because IT is so much more than passwords and husband for a really long time.

And so I don't don't think IT changes our security model that much. We're always looking to like upgrade that and like what can we do to improve, which is where you know obviously sing a pass key to sign into one password comes in right now. We have that password and secret key sort of model we have like as a so support of your business customer, but for the most part of kind of that two factor there, the secret key or a device key. And so we're always looking for ways to upgrade that, which is why we've been expLoring paki loggin, which would be really incredible to add to one password.

Yeah why does that feel like the right way to do the sort of master logging? I think part of what i'm getting at here is I think what we're boiling down to is there being one sort of crucial log in, right, whether it's the password on my phone or my master password for one password, like there is going to be one thing I have to know, and that is the thing that opens up everything else.

And I think with phones, one reason people are nervous, like the wash journal that is very really good reporting about people having their phones stolen in their past coats red. And that becomes even scarier in this world where my past keys also live on my phone. Because now all you need to know is the four digits I used to log into my phone and you can have everything and with something like one password.

Now it's like I don't I literally don't know any of my passwords except my one password password anymore, which I think a lot of this is the intended behavior and that makes sense to me. I don't reuse that password anywhere. I don't even have that passed written down anywhere. It's just the one passport I have memorized. But now you're trying to even replace that.

why? Yeah so the good news is like in one password case in particular, so speak, really just about that. But you have this password and you have this secret key.

And so even in just the the state of the world right now with one password, if someone were to get your master password, that really long one, the one that you have to remember, they actually still can't get into one password account unless they also steal a device that you have one password on already, which is really great, right? That's a good starting point. But now what if we also make IT even harder for someone to steal that password? Because it's not a password, right? It's not even something you know.

Now yes, that pesky does have to then live somewhere, right? So IT has to live in your platform account or in A U, B key or something along those lanes. So there is kind of this like vicious cycle of where does the final past key live.

And I don't know that that's like a perfectly solve problem right now, but still a way Better experience than right now. So we're through IT. Yeah.

I grew that. I mean, that is just really interesting. I think you're exactly right. At some point there is the one thing and the question of what the one thing should be, I don't know we know yeah, I don't know that we've answered that.

And I think the idea of that being A A hardware thing that lives on my key ring makes a lot of sense but has downsides. There's like the perfect version that would be like IT lives in a safe somewhere far away where no one can get to IT. But that obviously as a disastrous .

user experience but also somehow you can get to .

IT ah I die can teleport into IT when necessary but that's IT yeah I don't do you have any sense of what the best available version of that is? Is that your phone at the moment like the active device you have?

Yeah I think the current state of that is we recommend that your past key four one password lives in whatever your platform accounts or ub key right in your I cloud, your google. We typically recommend that you have a back up because obviously, if you lose is just kind of a pain, to be honest, to recover if you kind that master one. So we recommend you have some backup PS.

And so that kind of the state of the world right now, I think in an ideal world, it's something much more about your real life identity, like your your human identity that can identify you to a computer, right? Like none of that stuff is really yet, but there's a lot of really exciting things that people think about in the future and are working on of ways to kind of like tie those things together. But in a way that also still is the privacy preserving and in some way, right to protect your identity online. But IT makes a stronger sense of who you actually are on the internet and how .

bad can pass keys be in that sense. I mean, you mention wanting to log people in quicker and in making the case that there are more to the complete transactions that we're right. I just think about the number of cards I have left on purchase because typing in my address and credit card number is really annoying, like much less setting up an account, even though like guest flow as a giant pain, can pakehas be a store of information beyond passwords. In that sense is that even to think people are thinking .

about IT definitely is. It's not really inherent mask's themselves, but there's a lot of like additional like wallet type of technology or other types of technology that people are talking about and working on that is kind of like that where it's more about other information that's being stored.

It's almost like that password, your experience, right, where you can store your address and your credit card information to auto fill because no one likes that. I don't want have to make an account. I want to be able to check out to guess, but I don't want to type all that information.

So there is a lot of work to be done on like doing that in a more like cypher, graphic secure way like pakis. But the technology is that exist today doesn't really support that. Just get it's really exciting.

Now IT is really exciting. I mean, that's the kind of thing if IT goes from. I have to type in all of this information about me on the internet over and over at nosie too.

I have a secure version of all the relevant information about me. And I can just dull IT out in secure ways whenever I need IT. Like that's just a Better internet.

That's that's how this should hold work. That's the dream. yes. And I just seem like increasingly, the companies who are storing things like my addressed in my credit card information in my password don't want that anymore because it's a security risk.

Like I can't imagine if I best buy your home debo. I want any of the risk that comes with that. Any or so I would think both these businesses would be sight to figure out how to make this stuff work, right?

yeah. I think that's the same way that companies would want to get rid of passwords or any really like P, I, either storing right, if they can offload any of that risk and not have a giant database table full of something that people are looking forward. You know, I think that's obviously a win, right? And so I think paki solve that security benefit sort of compliance regulations around like there's a lot of good reasons. And I think it's the companies who are excited to make a user and security improvement like those of the companies that i'm seeing like most excited about.

So if you ask forward, I don't know, two, five, ten years, however long IT takes for pakis to become like truly mainstream. Is there any case left for either having a password that I type into a website or the flip side having like the log in with google, log in with apple stuff like best passy get really good, everything else disappeared, or those things kind of have their place too?

Yeah, I think passwords are never really gonna fully go away. But I would hope that maybe, like ninety percent of passwords can go away, especially for the types of apps that we as people just like use everyday, right, our banks, our netflix, our online shopping with those types of things.

I think our kind of perfect use cases for pakis, I think there's a lot of good uses for more like social log in, like a log in with google or something like that because maybe they need access to your email. You're sharing other type of information that you get from having that connection and then they'll probably always be some apps that just use passwords and maybe it's a password and the past key as a second factor of author or something like that. But I would hope that for most of the things are using every day, we could get to a point where pakistan working for those types of apps.

right? We've got to take a break and then we're going to talk about wearables. We'll be right back.

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IT not come.

Looking back over the last couple of years, IT feels like the wearable industry has boom. Do you have the apple watch and the pixel watching and the galaxy watch all getting pretty popular and pretty, but IT also feels like the wearable industry has kind of died. I don't know. IT just feels like a few years ago, there was all this energy to bring tech to our bodies and give us stuff to hold and wear and clip on, that would do all kinds of computer things on our bodies in simpler ways. And others just smart watches and they are basically all just health devices, and that's just what there is now.

So is this just the way IT goes from now on? Is this what the wearable ables industry has become and will be forever? Tells me figured out I grab v san, who is the virgins? Variables review, and the person wearing the most gadgets, and in a given time that I have ever met in my entire life, feeds on welcome back.

Hi, how many whereas do you have on you right now? What are they? Are you allowed to talk about all of them?

I why things watch late of the apple watch, ultra two, the oring. Jen, three and the evening. Okay, two smart watches, two smart rinks.

pure redden's. Y so many things counting your step and giving you to be as information of life.

Yeah, yeah, it's it's what we like to call a control 的。 So I actually use that orring to test all like sleep tracking OK just because there like a we're sleep tracker, there are pretty accurate for certain metrics. So I have that and my bed also tracks sleeping. There's just a lot of control devices to control.

And so do you wake up in the morning and get like six different scores on how you slept? Yes, I do sounds for I one scores stresses.

I get like six different scores. And then while i'm rushing my teeth, I compare all of you are not accurate or that sort of stuff. So yeah, that's the hind, the scenes of wearable testing.

I gave up on sleep tracking like the third day that I woke up feeling like crap and I was like on hating your sleep call like I don't know if I data didn't .

screw you to be fair, like a lot of sleep tracking as kind of dubious and terminals of accuracy. It's not you know when you usually take a grain assault, take two with sleep tracking. So that's just how IT is yeah okay.

But I want to talk about like the state of wearable ables because I feel like just a bunch use about wearables. In the last few weeks, there was bunch stuff c where in kind of a weird place right now, and I have i've bunch a theories about this, but is, are with fossil, because I feel fossil as a company was trying to do something different and interesting and had a really sort of cool idea about what smart watches could be.

So, you know, it's really, really sad that fossil is now a fossil. But but like.

I didn't make that joke .

in the actual headlined, so I had to do IT elsewhere because everyone else was making that joke at me. But so far, basically kept where S A float, like almost by itself. Because fossil is not just fossil.

It's die l it's scogan at all these other sub brands. And for the longest time, if you bought a war of a pot, IT was a fossil. So they kind of kept google going through all of that time and suffer them to actually adjust like collision z to completely exit the smart watch industry.

That's really big. It's kind of just wow IT IT says a lot about where smart watches are at this point in time and that it's lake there used to be this notion that apple was its close garden and apple was the main smart watch of toys for IOS users. But it's sort of happening in the way west space now too for android because I used to be that, you know, android was a wild west of smart watches kind of like phones, but now it's google and samsung also kind of like phones. That's that's just kind of where we are and fossil leaving kind of cement. And I like pretty sad about IT.

I am this seems like and i'm realizing now how long ago this was. But if you go back to like twenty seventeen, maybe twenty sixteen and seventeen, there is this idea that all watches, or at least many watches of many different styles, many different Price points, whatever, we're going to become some kind of smart, right? There was going to be this whole interesting spectrum where I remember I went to, I think it's called bozzle world.

This like very fancy watch shows, which one? And then IT was like the year everybody was into smart watches. So I was at wired at the time and am sitting down with all these people as they're explaining, like the beautiful history behind this twelve thousand dollar watch.

And then they be like, and blue youth wired are IT cool. But I liked to that idea. IT was like readings, was doing cool, suffer that. This kind of like hybrid smart watch idea, where IT looks like a watch, IT looks like a piece, but also still had some taking IT. And IT feels like everything on that spectrum that in an apple watch or something that looks like an apple watch is just gone, like we've just given up .

on that idea almost entirely. IT is really weird because for right now, I in the last couple of years, actually smart watches have just like slowly consumed everything like where has the budget fit tracker gone? China that's IT like that. That's where most of them are at the moment. And IT used to be that fit bit had it's a vibor was the word that everyone used even that was a brand they .

used IT to mean fitness IT. What if IT was?

And now now where nowhere fifth James park has left very suddenly during CS I like woke up and was like, are you kidding me? I met. see.

Yes, please. Are you kidding me right now? Um but yes, that's kind of where football is. And IT is really just the apple watch, the galaxy watch or the pixel watch at this moment time. And that's really sad.

Back to your point, fossil really embodied idea of we are gonna have so many different smart watches and so many different form factors, and so many different flight styles. There was the kate spade watch. There was that they bought this fit for a while. You to be fit.

right? They had so many cool today.

they did. And like the the touch buzzell, that samsung basically manage to actually execute all of that stuff. But there used to be a joke, I would tell my editor since like, yes, it's a trade show, i'm gna go to fossil.

But and I did this like this motor a few times. I like, i'm not onna cover every single watches that they released because there's gonna twenty of them. I'm just going to take a picture and say, look at all the frick smart watches that fossil has brought and they would come to each trade show.

I want to say like twenty to thirty different watches and i'd be in a room and i'd be like, okay, what's new about this watch? This watch is that watch, but our money, this watch is that watch. But diesel. And you know, that kind of gets to the the problem of the .

first diagnosed that for me because I think you could make the case that is actually like an awesome outcome, like nobodies d that there are a lots of different t shirt that are all t shirts like that's how IT should work. It's fashioned, lets you make choices. And we are in this moment where technology is can sort integrated into that.

And i'd liked to the idea of having a watch that seemed like a watch, but I would also buzz when I got a phone call and count my steps like that, to me was almost everything I wanted from a smart watch. And that has died. I know what I can't tell is which of the many things that went wrong or the real problem.

Like I think there's a thing we're google neglected warehouse for a really long time and sort of hung fossil, a bunch of their company is out to dry. There's a thing where maybe people just didn't want those things and maybe I am wrong in the people who wanted any kind of technology on their rest, wanted all the technology. The rest, the apple watch and the pixel watch became the thing. I don't know what's you're read of.

like why that all fell part IT. A lot of of those things in small increments. So IT is like the fact that fossil invested so much in the sits of the google system.

And then you know, a couple years back, google took about forty million dollars with the fossil R N D. And brought IT over into. So that was kind of one of the first dig signals that google was gone to start taking wearable seriously again.

But, you know, kind of gutted fossil a little bit. And then another problem with fossil is that the Price for the Price that you were getting their watches, you got a software that was kind of not so great. That is what IT IT was very like.

jitter. Things would work and then they wouldn't, and more often they wouldn't. The battery life was. So you're just getting a Better experience on other smart watches, but paying a similar Price. So what you really were paying for with the style and the fashion and the fact that I didn't look, you know like this, this giant slab of phone on your risk, right? You are paying for a watch that looked like a watch. And then I think another aspect of IT is that the people who are going to go for something like with and the the hybrid is that they are people who are not going to a be buying on an upgrade cycle very frequently.

You don't buy a nice watch intending to replace IT in two years.

exactly. And the battery last a long time. Like this has been lasting me for, I want to say, two weeks.

I like I haven't charged that voted IT. And that is what a lot of people want. But those people aren't the ones going out buying and upgrading every single year.

So that's not making the company a lot of money. So it's is one of those paradoxes where planned ops lessons is a shadier product, but IT makes but IT makes the company a lot more money. Yeah, so that's kind of the conflict that you have there.

And I just think the other issue with where three and that transition is that google clearly, uh, put samsung first because everything comes to a samsung watch first and then it'll come to google and then everybody who isn't some sung google. The short end of the sick mob voy was the other really a well known a where O S. Watch alternative.

And they didn't get where's three upgrade until I want to say december, oh, like this past to december. Was a thing where mob voy users were like, hey, you told us that if we were going to buy uh, this particular tik watch with the forty one hundred chip we were going to get, uh, where was three and basically they waited until december. That's when the the rollout happened and warehouse four is already here.

So now they're just like a generation behind. They're barely touching up and they don't even have google assistant on their rest. And fossil did have where google assistant, but they also had to wait a really long time to get that role out out. So I can understand where from perspective, they were just like, okay, we didn't even know where I S three was happening until you announced IT what the hell I coach because foal had a very, very regular update dance and they missed IT like twenty, twenty three was when the john seven, if IT was going to come out, was gonna out nothing.

I they really were the one company you could rely on to keep caring .

about this every single year. So s is up, down. S but every single year I would be I would reach out to go and here's what we got go in and this year I have each shot and like, we're not onna be at CS and I was like, excuse me, hold up.

Do you see what like so many just alarm bells are going off. And I think I reached out to them. And of november, early december, and we were talking for a while, and IT wasn't until after C. E, S, even that they got back to me. We out.

Yeah, yeah. So that makes me sad, I have to say. And the other part that makes me sad, as I think we like skip past the fitness band thing way too quickly.

This is a thing, and I ve talked about before, I still believe this very strongly, that like the original job on up was a perfect gadget, and there should be more of them. And I don't want to watch, but I want something on my risk that tracks basic things. What IT seems to be is that instead of bands, rings are going to be that thing like that. Seems like the big bet now is that if we're going to do a non screen, long lasting, simple, kind of wearing able, everybody seems to think rings are the thing.

I mean, rings are big this year. S, E, S, there were more rings than I could count to be like due to do. I've seen all the rings and then i'd turned and to be like, no, there's more rings and like from names that I had never heard of .

before because I worked like me in this for a few years, the product seems really well. I feel like the like viral marketing for ora is very good because you you watch a podcasts, you see somebody on T V, and it's like a taxi E, O in a vest and there's like a one in two chance they have an orring on.

And it's not just the tech people, it's the celebrities ring about your sports starts have IT. There is a period of time where I think kim cardi an and guentz palo, maybe we're having a sleep competition with their ora, and these people have millions of followers on stage. M, and they were just like a beat you in my instagram story.

So, or I really had this, like prince Harry has an order ring. So they had a lot of in that respect. But they weren't the only smart ring around.

They just kind of R I P. motive. That was a smart right. Had two. There was the motive and the motivation to and they just kind of like killed them, uh, so to speak.

And I was actually really quiet in the smart ring space for several years. And that's because smart rings compared to fitness bands have a lot of technological chAllenges because they're so small, they're just so entirely small. But I think we're starting to figure that out. And then there are some health advantages to a smartening compared to a IT ness band that really make them good for sleep tracking .

and really where it's placed on your body.

yeah. So actually your risk is terrible for most.

No, I just learned this recently that they are like all let's put all this offering tourists.

even the herries is the worst. yes. So like the way the sensors work is that they're shining light into your skin and it's reflecting off of your blood.

And so that's how they reach your heart rate. It's it's a proxy for here or possible. Ya I A A I write about at a time, just read my stuff.

But the the problem is, is that you have so many tendance, there's so much movement in your risk, that there's so much signal alta noise that it's very difficult to get an accurate read, which is why if you have a risk of wearable and your like, that sounds wrong, that plays into IT. But the underside of your finger is a lot more ideal. There's a lot less noise.

The skin on your palm, no matter what, no matter how much melanin you have, the skin on your palm is a lot later. So I kind of removes your skin color a little bit as a barrier to accuracy. So there's just a lot of reasons it's a lot more comfortable aware you wear rings anyway.

And when you're going to bed, you're not I have had a lot of watches that are dragani from common for IT. Now in the middle, I i'll wake up and i'll wait off because it's on. So sleep tracking has gotten a lot of popularity in the last few years. This is the ideal for factor for IT.

So that's kind of why I I agree with that. I will say the thing that i've had trouble with, with rings and the ora in particular is one that I would say, like every three months, i'm like, i'm going to become an aura person again. And I pulled one out of my draw.

I charged IT. I put IT on. I like IT for the step tracking. I like IT because the batter doesn't dial that time forever being driven crazy as my apple watch battery seems to always be dying. No matter what is happening, it's always dying.

And the orring is like a sort of light tracker in a way that I really like. I cannot type with that thing on comfortable ly. Part of that is that i'm not used to IT yet in the same way that like going to started reading a wedding wearing IT took me while they get used to IT.

Now I don't even notice on my finger, but it's a pretty chunk y day and IT bends round on the palm rest of my computer. Like I grant that I am not used to wearing chunky rings. A lots of people are used to in chunky rings. But IT IT was harder for me to get used to having on my body than I expected IT .

to be actually, oh yeah, if you're in fashion, you definitely have a statement, right? right? This is not state mental ring size, but IT is chunky, like I have several rings on my finger right now. And like the Normal, not smart, rings are much than .

are IT actually kind of looks funny when you like .

ring are four rings and like, and a lot of that is the attack. Yeah, there is just like what you is a miracle that they can make IT this small. It's actually a miracle that this particular version of the oring is completely round. That was a huge engineering change.

the flat time for a time yeah .

the flat tires where they put the battery because when you have a flexible battery is very difficult to make IT around. So there is just all these like technical chAllenges that come with smart rings that make them big because unlike this, this is pretty good if you think about what a smart ring is. And I always get our readers and some people in my dms, just like I am not getting IT until it's as thin as a regular ring. So OK, you'll be waiting for a while.

you fifty long time.

So but then in that case, I understand .

why these things would exist, right? I like the size of or as market makes sense to me, there are people who want the things that are the office. What I can't figure out is why somebody like samsung would make this because especially the thing we've learned over the last bunch of years is that, like a, your rate ecosystem is important.

But b, the market, even for a smart watch, is significantly smaller than the market for a smart phone, at least right now. And then to take away all the computer stuff, even on a smart watch, and say, okay, this thing is just basically a light weight tracker. IT just feels like that. That just seems like A A thing that cannot possibly apply to as many people as a company. Like same sung is trying to reach, but maybe i'm underestimate how many people want that thing.

So what I will say, and I think a lot of our readers who have all rings will kind of back me up, is that it's not a good primary tracker, is a very good secondary tracker OK. But having a very good secondary tracker and necessitate .

that you have a primary tracker. You already down the fun of people who care about stuff.

a thing like if I are about sleep tracking, which an increasing number of people do and especially if you're an athlete, you care about recovery. Tracking like this is a very small, subjective people. But IT is a very passionate sub people.

Then a ring that is something that you can have all the time is not like held to the same battery constraints as a smart watch. Then IT kind of IT comes like a nice secondary and like I know i'm crazy because I have four wearable ables on right now. Think you're the average yeah yeah I horton the average ser.

But basically, you know I will say that I I definitely am like oh yeah if I haven't, or a ring and an apple watch that is of the perfect health tracking kind combo. Would you have to care about health tracking, which I think the thing that makes wearable ables like this subject variable is the hardest, is that fitness and health is a very, very hard habit to develop. Like, well, this is kind of where .

I will enter the smart watches. And I think it's definitely true that the most useful thing the apple watch does for the most people is the health and fitness. But I totally buy that.

I still think that only one lace of the pie of like a reasons to buy an apple watch and there are a lots of them. And I think apple used to think the like get notifications on the rist slice was the biggest. It's not the health and fitness one is clearly the biggest, but it's still I mean, i'm making a num, but like that forty percent of the thing that leaves.

Fifty other things that comprise the other sixty percent. And as we get to these other things, we're just pulling all of that a way. And so what I keep trying to figure out is like is samsung gonna a try and figure out how to put like a microphone and speaker into the galaxy ring tool that I can talk to my assistant through IT? Or are we just going to get to the point where this stuff matters enough to enough people? That is a real business.

I think it's gonna be probably the latter just because, you know, my grandpa, my family's full of doctors, my grandpa was like mr. Doctor in our family, he was the most esteemed one. And he would always tell us that your health is the most valuable thing you have.

If you don't have health, your life kind of is it's not what I could be. It's one of those things that I think there are longer that we live, the more technology advances, the more that we know about our health. Like I think that's going to a kind of impress upon people that want to live longer.

I want to see my kids, I want to be able to do things with them. That's going to become more important to people. And the thing that really time is that is that health is not built in sports.

It's not in new year's resolutions. It's in tiny things that you do every day, and that's very, very, very difficult. Most people to make that behavioral of change is the number one thing that I think stands in the way of where able adoption and battery life those two things.

So you know, it's just I really do think the health aspect is big there, but I don't think that samsung would be smart to put microphones into the galaxy ring. I really don't. I think the smartest thing I could do is to bundle IT with the galaxy watch so that you're not buying IT separately, you're buying IT for a discounted Price and then you have the whole picture of of the samsung health experience and then you're just in their ecosystem.

I really think it's an ecosystem pay play where you get an accessory for your accessory to your phone. And I think if they're smart, they'll do IT that way where you're just like, oh, you're going to upgrade to the same on galaxy seven free galaxy ring for you. And then you know, you do that at first and then people get on different upgrade cycles and then then they buy in. And that's my insidious capitalism of IT tracks.

No, IT IT does kind of make sense. And IT also gets you to the point we're now you're literally wearing something from that company twenty four hours today.

And I think IT IT should be released scary for or unprompted, sent me a statement when the galaxy ring was.

They say, we're not scared .

and fine said, we're not scared. We have hundreds of patents. We are the leader. This is validation in the space. I like, yes, but also you should be scared because you charge a six dollar monthly subscription on top of a three hundred dollar ring. Sams, I can go, we do not need a subscription for you.

Have Venus, have some IT with our.

with our watches that also doesn't come with rings. We've also spent two years beeping up our sleep tracking like features. So yeah so I think I think or is I I don't think have to worry now, but they should be a little concern is what I think .

yeah yeah that seems right. That has a lot of the vibes of like when slack took out that full page ad, when microsoft ams came out being like everything is fine, we think our product is terrific and that went super grade for slack lasting. Then when I got to go, should I just give up on my idea and dream of the like wearable computer as a thing? Like ever since the beginning of the apple watch, I have loved the thesis of the apple watch originally IT, which was basically like, we want to build a new simper, lower touch, more personal device for you to use instead of pulling out your phone all the time.

And I think, like if I were to get real galaxy brain about all of this, right, it's like you come back to all this day, I stuff that happening in the suffer, doing with voice and with transcription and you can get to the went like, okay, maybe actually talking to my wrist is going to quickly become a thing I can do and I will be good. And at the same time, all of these products are running away from that stuff and toward health and fitness. And so one of two things is either going to happen is if they're going to come back around or it's just these are just going to be health and fitness devices and were either going to have to invent something new or the phone is going to continue to be the computer.

Which one do you think that? I think in the short term, the latter, but in the long term.

the former. I think gonna .

come back around and you can see IT with air glasses. They are I just don't necessarily think it's going to rest. I think it's to be your eyes. yeah. So like those really .

meda glasses are like that is pretty good and it's get IT now yeah yeah like I get IT once they .

figure out how to do actual air and not mixed reality, that's going to gonna a lot. But the thing is, is a quite when you wear something on your body that health ah that requires the fda to get involved. Like we've been talking about smart contacts for long time.

There are various prototypes in that. But when you are shining light into your eye that way, that are you going to burn your recent we don't know, you don't know. That's why that's my theory. Is that why in the last versions of IOS and watch O S, they included vision health for children. Because children's vision health, if you mess up your health as a child, you can really get into a vision pro, can you?

Speaking of ruthless capitalism, like we're not we're going to save children's s eyesight .

so they can use IT. I but actually I really do think that's IT. I really do think that's part of the thing because you smart glasses leave out a lot of people who don't like you know Normal vision, including myself, with my terrible of stigmatism.

But I really do think that we're gonna go and what way around. It's just that we are in the very David ages of wearables and might feel like we've got really we are super early on in the tech is not very it's not miniere enough yet. As we saw with the vision pro, it's here to sell you on the future.

And that's what smart watches are here. The raban metal glasses, that's what they are here. Like the all ring these are selling you on the future hasn't arrived at because technological it's not possible yet.

And like, are we going to get non invasive blood blue OS monitoring someday? But they ve been working on IT since one thousand and seventy five. Like I should do not.

They've been working on IT since nineteen seventy five. It's gonna take a long time. There's a lot of advances that have happened in the background.

I talk to all these vendors and it's really cool what they are doing. They got to do what the F. D. A clear process.

And that will take anywhere between two to four years depending on how much money and testing capabilities they have in the mountain of paperwork that they want to do. They have to do in a medical facility. They have to have the the security protocols in place. It's a lot of work. So yeah, now wellness, future health, that's kind of the trade off that they're making OK.

And then long future.

David gets his risk computer. Long future David gets his face computer, his computer, his finger computer, every another computer, you will be a computer.

This is i've ever wanted. Thank you. All right, we've got to go see. Thank you always. We got to take one more break and then we're going to get to the verge test hot. We'll be right back.

Hey, it's slim from decoder with new IP top. We spent a lot of time talking about some of the most important people in taking business about what they're putting resources to and why they think it's so critical for the future. That's why we're doing this special series diving into summer, the most unique ways companies are spending money today.

For instance, what does IT mean to start buying and using A I at work? How much is that costing companies? What products are they buying? And most importantly, what are they doing with IT and of course, podcasts? Yes, the thing you're listening to you right now, well, it's increasingly being produced directly by companies like venture capital firms, investment funds and a new crop of creators who one day want to be investors themselves.

And what is actually going on with these acquisitions this year, especially in the A I space, why are so many big players in tech deciding not to acquire and instead license tech and hire away cofounder? The answer, IT turns out, is a lot more complicated than that seems you'll hear all that and more this month. I'm decoder with the light presented by strike.

You can listen to the coder whatever you get your podcast support for the verge cast comes from the home debo. Hey, it's almost the holidays. And whether you're planning to travel or host, it's always good to have that extra layer of safety, security to help ease your mind. And now with help from the hung deepo, you can stay connected and protected with the convenience of smart home security products. The home deepo offers a wide selection of products that afford you easy control and automation of your home.

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All right, we're back. Let's go to the hot line. As always, the number is eight, six, six, verge one one.

And the email is verge cast at the verge dot com. We love all your questions. We tried to answer at least one on the show every week. Please keep calling, keep your mAiling. I love hear from you this week we have a question about the vision pro.

If you're tired of hearing about the vision pro and apple and headsets and the whole thing, i'm really sorry, but it's everyone keeps asking about this question comes from john. Hello, bird has team. I'm john in west lavie, inDiana.

Apple Price the first vision pro at thirty five hundred dollars for getting apples high profit margins for the moment. What would the Price need to be for your review to say we don't get know how much consumers will use this, but the Price is attractive? Fifteen hundred dollars, two thousand dollars optional.

Follow up question today, apple cells ipad models from three twenty nine to ten ninety nine in two or three years, what will be the right Price range for two or three apple vision models if everyone love the show? Okay, I picked this question not because I have a Crystal clear answer, but largely because I really want to know what you all think. As you've heard on this show, I have spent a lot of time yelling about how expensive division pro is.

I think the phrase all caps thirty five hundred dollars is like going to be written at the top of my orbital at this point. But I think this is a really interesting and complicated question. And I, before I give my answer, I do want to know what you think.

So call eight, six, six verge, one one verge cast at the verge, I com. Tell me what Price feels like the tipping point where this goes from sort of need thing that exists, but doesn't make sense for most people to think you would consider buying for real and telling other people to buy. And if you are about a vision pro, i'm curious how much more you would pay.

So think about that in both directions. And let me know. I have two answers. I think the consumer Price to make regular people buy this thing in huge numbers is nine hundred and ninety nine dollars. I think there are a long way away from that.

But I think when you can get a thousand dollar version of this, that is basically a very good ipad, it's a good entertainment device is the thing you don't have to use all the time to feel like you ve got your moneys worth. That's a nice Price for. That is right in that high and ipad range.

It's what you'd pay for a really good computer monitor. It's about the Price of a macbook air IT just feels like that is kind of the top line by this device. It'll be cool and fun.

You'll love IT in my dreams. We're more than like the five ninety nine, six ninety nine kind of game console Price. But I think apple is apple.

And at nine ninety nine, this thing would do just as well, but also at eight and ninety nine, one thousand nine hundred and ninety nine dollars. I think the vision pro as IT exists now becomes an order of magnitude more compelling at that point. You're in nice macbook pro range, and it's very much still a pro device for pro people who want to use IT for pro things.

But even still, IT becomes hugely more palatable. I think a lot of people who spent sixteen hundred dollars on a studio display or are happy to upgrade their own PC for a thousand dollars, just to get a little more performance and a little more memory and all that kind of stuff, those are the sorts of people who I think a two thousand of our Price tag feels right. This is a great television.

You can honestly, a two thousand dollars say this is the best TV. It's cool aware you'll love IT, but it's a television and it'll still be compelling to a lot of people at two thousand dollars, thirty five hundred dollars, you're just out of that range, at least for me. And I would guess that long term, based on right i've scene so far and the way people are talking about and the way even apple talks about the vision pro, I think this thing will end up covering that gaming.

I think this lands kind of in macbook range where you can spend a thousand dollars for the cheapest one. And I think the cheapest one ends up basically just being a screen with apps. It's an ipad on your face in a very real way.

And I think for a thousand dollars, that's going to be compelling to a lot of people over and over. The thing that i'm hearing is that people like this most as an entertainment device is a way to sit on the couch or line in bed and watch something. That's what people buy an ipad for.

And I think you can get to a point where if you're apple and you can sell basically an ipad, but it's cooler to use, you don't have to hold IT in your hands, which is actually valuable for a lot of things. And IT has all this kind of gaming and productivity upside. I think you can sell the best thing for a thousand dollars and then for more stuff, more power, more productivity tools, more ability to like, do cool stuff.

I don't know what they would add into these other things other than just Better spects. That's how you get up to two ground. So that's my theory, is that this thing wants to land basically on the whole spectrum between one and two thousand dollars.

And when IT gets there, that becomes pretty powerful. I think it's going to take a while to get there. I don't think apple is charging thirty five hundred dollars for this because IT is like a massively greedy company.

I think this is a very, very, very, very expensive thing to make. And it's going to take a long time before they can sell you for one or even two thousand dollars. But when they do, I will stop yelling about how expensive that is and i'm very much looking ford to that day.

But again, tell me what you think email us verge test the verge come called hot and eight, six, six verge one one. I won't know how you feel about the vision pro Price. Would you have paid more than you did? Are you waiting for IT to be a certain Price?

Are you like David or insane? I'm only buying this thing if it's ninety nine box. Tell me everything.

I'm desperate. Want to know he is up, right? That is that for the verge cast today.

Thank you to everybody who is on the show. And as always, thank you so much for this thing. There's lots more from our conversation at the verge a com.

We have now posts on the site with all of our shown notes for every episode. So if you wanted know more about everything that we did, go check IT out. Also, like I mentioned, the top, we are now on the verge s youtube channel with all of our full episodes.

So go like subscribe, smash all the buttons. Take me things about us in the comments is up. We love him for you. This shows produced by anger, marino, liam, James and will poor the verge casts is verge production and part of the box media high cast in work nearly. Alex, I will be back on friday to talk about all of the super ball streaming mishaps, more headsets, trillion dollar A I ideas and lots more. We see them rock roll.

Support for this episode de comes from A W S. A W S, generate A A I gives you the tools to power your business forward with the security and speed of the world's most experienced cloud. Hey, it's lee. From the koto with new light ita.

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