Big tech companies and startups are always looking to shake up the way we live our everyday lives. The smartphone has had one of the greatest impacts, changing the way we communicate with each other and spend our downtime (who has not been in a group outing in which everyone stared at their screens?). These days, every new piece of tech, concept or method is heralded as a “game changer” — but very few do, in fact, change the game at the speed it’s expected to.

Research firm Gartner annually releases its Hype Cycle research, pointing out the emerging tech of the year in five key phases. The second phase, the “peak of inflated expectations,” defines the point of the hype — when the publicity doesn’t quite match the proposed capability of the new tech, but everyone is still clamoring for it. Though there are a number of successes, according to Gartner, there are still “scores of failures.”

Even without the help of Gartner’s Hype Cycle, some technologies have had very publicized failures — or, at the very least, sales that did not match up to the expectations…just yet, anyway.

Wearables

Smartwatches

Apple Watch was arguably the leader in this category, but it is too subjective to definitively say whether it has been a success or failure. Fluent, an ad technology company, said in its “Apple Watch, 1 Year Later” study that 47 percent of Americans said that the Apple Watch is a success; of course, current Apple Watch users were more positive. Since the Apple Watch was released a year ago in April, the company has been particularly guarded about sales but has said they are higher than the original iPhone’s debut.

Other companies leapt into action to create smartwatches, including Samsung, Lenovo and Huawei. In September 2015, however, Bloomberg reported that the reason for smartwatches’ inability to live up to its hype is because the other technology that makes smartwatches work — the “doors, stores, or cars” — still needs to catch up.

Google Glass

According to journalist Nick Bilton in a New York Times article, Google Glass was never meant to be publicized as widely as it was or released to the public so soon; it was considered a prototype. Google Glass was originally released as part of a program called Glass Explorers, in which tech journalists could test out the product to offer feedback — but the excitement surrounding Google Glass was so intense that the prototype failed to live up to expectations. Those who were able to test the product said it was buggy, intrusive and came with an implied loss of privacy for everyone around the user.

Google closed the program in January 2015, and Google Glass went quietly back to the lab. Though it’s not available for consumers yet, Google Glass is still being tested for enterprise solutions, with a Glass Enterprise Edition pair recently popping up on eBay.

Gartner predicts that wearables are still five to 10 years from reaching mainstream adoption but still considers them a point of interest for digital businesses. As evidenced by Google Glass’s applications in medical research and business solutions, they could be well on their way.

3D TV

In 2010, interest in 3D TV reached its peak. The technology made its first appearance on Gartner’s Hype Cycle in 2009, but was completely absent from Gartner’s report in 2011. The year of 3D TV saw lots of effort on the part of content distributors and electronics manufacturers to quickly capitalize on the interest, but the audience did not want to put in so much effort. They had to buy glasses, pay for premium content and worry about eye strain, reported TIME.

3D TV seems to have dropped completely off the radar. A somewhat related concept in 3D printing, however, has seen serious adoption.

What to Watch

Though some have already decried it as impossible, the Internet of Things can’t yet be deemed a success or failure — or if it ever can, as the topic is so broad. The idea of connecting everyday items to the Internet to collect and share data has incited both excitement and fear. Consumers question the implications on data security and privacy, while developers must figure out how, exactly, to connect such different items.

Unlike the short-lived 3D TV interest, the Internet of Things has remained steadily on Gartner’s Hype radar since 2011. Gartner’s Hype Cycle shows that the Internet of Things is currently at its peak of inflated expectations, so only time will tell if it makes its way to widespread adoption.

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