Nothing's $69 Smartwatch Sets 18-Month Price Trap

Nothing's $69 OLED smartwatch is not a good deal.

It is a first draft. And the deal itself is the bait in a trap that closes in 18 months. The CMF by Nothing Watch 3 Pro has a 1.

The specs are real. The price is real. What's missing from the conversation is why a Chinese startup can afford to do this when Apple and Garmin cannot. And the answer is that they can't afford to do it, not for long, not if they want to survive.

This is the OnePlus story playing out again. The people who noticed it the first time aren't talking about it loud enough. In 2014, OnePlus released the OnePlus One with near-identical specs to the Samsung Galaxy S4, a flagship that cost $650. And OnePlus priced it at $299. The margin was thin. The manufacturing was efficient.

The mechanics are simple and brutal. The undercutting startup accepts razor margins to gain market position. But once it has position, it discovers that scale doesn't solve the margin problem. It amplifies it. The company then has three choices. These are to fold, get bought, or raise prices. Almost every startup in this position chooses the third.