TO UNDERSTAND WRIST-BASED WEARABLES, one must first consider how they came to exist.

“I think it started with the Livestrong bracelet [in the early 2000s],” Strasser recalls. “That was the first time we saw silicon wristbands. Then Fitbit came along and said, ‘Wouldn’t it be cool to make the same thing, but with a pedometer?’”

And that’s what many wearables became: pedometers. Perhaps ones with heart rate trackers and second screens promising the delivery of texts one second sooner, but pedometers all the same.

“There aren’t, however, any attributable health benefits to steps. They’re just a number—a number you can use to compete with friends, but which most scientists agree is fairly meaningless.”

If as promised, Motiv’s ring (currently on presale for $199) uses bluetooth to relay active minutes to your phone—a metric even the World Health Organization agrees can help decrease the chance of heart disease, diabetes and some forms of cancer. Want to live long enough to see a Democratic Supreme Court? The ideal number is 150 minutes/week for most adults.

WHICH LEADS to our final question: If wrist-based wearables suck so much, why do groundbreaking companies keeping making them?

“They’re not innovative; they think in the box,” Strasser proclaims. “They see a competitor sell a lot of something and think, ‘Ok, that’s cool. Let’s make our own version with one additional feature.’”

What we end up with, he says, is a lot of X+1 or X+2, when what we really want is Y—an entirely new device.

“If you’re going to disrupt a market, especially a saturated one, your product better be novel,” Strasser finishes. “Just remember MP3 players, which a lot of people considered fully-charted territory in the early 2000’s… Then Apple came along with the iPod and it was like nothing else had ever existed—because they were different.”

But Strasser’s shiniest pearl of wisdom?

“Motiv solved a personal problem of mine, but you can’t just solve your own problems. You have no idea how many Fortune 100 CEOs have approached me with the idea for a product without any consideration to whether [the issue] extends beyond them. Great products often come from personal stories, but that story needs to be widespread.”