2015 is just around the corner, and the only thing between us and CES 2015 is New Year’s, which means it’s time to get hyped up for what sweet new gadgets we will see emerge next year. Earlier today we talked about Kodak’s surprising plans to unveil a smartphone and a tablet of their own, but of course, CES will have an entire showcase for us to gawk over from January 6-9 in Las Vegas. When looking up what to expect to see at CES, I realized there was an astonishing amount of smartwatches that will allegedly be showcased.

Could 2015 be the year the smartwatch finally goes mainstream?

Smartwatches have been steadily gaining popularity over the past couple of years. It seems that once the Pebble smartwatch, which initially started off as a kickstarter campaign, finally hit shelves, other manufacturers realized there was a true market for smartwatches in general. Soon you had a whole array of different smartwatches to choose from: Pebble, Sony, Samsung, Motorola, Qualcomm, and LG were some of the manufacturers that have attempted to perfect the smartwatch; however, while smartwatches have undoubtedly grown in popularity, the concept is not exactly taking the world by storm. There are still a few things that need to be fixed, in my opinion, in order for the concept to truly take off.

With so many companies zoning in on smartwatches this next year, I wonder if this will be the year that smartwatches really hit a home run with consumers.

Companies like Lenovo and HTC are expected to enter the smartwatch market this year, as well as the official debut of the Apple Watch that has been long awaited by many. There is also the possibility of some upgrades coming to smartwatches like the Moto 360 smartwatch and possibly another G Watch variant. Whether these upgrades and new watches will actually make a debut at CES is up for debate (except for the Apple Watch, that probably won’t happen) but it doesn’t seem like a bad time to show them off, especially if they tackle the biggest problem that smartwatches face today - battery life.

I hope that smartwatch manufacturers really focus in on battery life this year, whether it’s with a new release or an updated watch. Only a couple of watches in the market last more than a couple of days, and I feel that it’s important to make sure that smartwatch battery life greatly surpasses the battery life of a smartphone. While it’s not the biggest hassle in the world to charge two devices every night or every other night, it would still be nice to just have to charge one device so often.

Although not as important, I also hope that this is the year that smartwatches become more form-fitting - like having flexible displays and batteries. This could potentially allow more room for a larger display, and even room for a larger battery by placing the battery in the strap rather than in the watch itself (and also helping to solve the battery life problem in smartwatches).

Finally, I would like to see smartwatches get the ability to work by themselves. That is, I don’t want smartwatches to necessarily have to depend on the smartphone being in close proximity in order to receive calls and notifications. It just seems like it would be a handy feature for those days where you remember your smartwatch, but somehow forget your phone - which seems like it would be an easy thing to do if you’re used to relying on your smartwatch for smartphone notifications.

Either way, with the market becoming more saturated with smartwatches makes me realize that the smartwatch is definitely here to stay. Although I still personally haven’t found a reason to use a smartwatch yet, I’m intrigued to see if any of the new entries to the market next year will sway my opinion.

Here’s to 2015, the potential year of the smartwatch.