A smartwatch is more than a digital version of your classic watches. It has a rechargeable battery, a good screen, some sensors to track your general health data, and of course many customization options. These watches can be used as fitness trackers, notification screens, quick phone settings, payments, map navigation, and more.
Smartwatches are currently one of the most sought-after products. There are a variety of wearables that we now call smartwatches. Ideally, it’s a wearable timepiece that can also monitor your fitness, display notifications, and take calls from your phone. Nowadays, smartwatches come in all shapes, sizes, and price ranges.
Aim of Buying Smart Watch
The purpose of buying a smart watch should always be very clear, so buy your smart watch by keeping your priority in mind and get the best one.
Workout
If you want to buy a smartwatch for your workout and fitness, you should pay more attention to pedometer, calorie consumption calculator, heart rate monitor, music applications and so on. You should pay your concern a little more as you need these applications more with it, you will get your smart watch worth more.
Business Use
There are many people who buy smart watch for there office purpose. so when you do this, you need to have some of the basic applications. an office boss as well as an employee always lacks time. so if you are, you should choose a watch that should have features like call reminders, task reminders, email, calendar, notes, map, Google or apple help, etc.
For Swimming
If you are a swimmer, besides the above app that measures heart rate, calculates calories burned, measures oxygen intake, etc., you should also pay attention to a good timer and waterproof technology, because waterproof technology and timer are the most important things a swimmer needs in his smartwatch.
Things to Check Before Buying a Smartwatch
A smartwatch includes aspects like display, design, functions, connectivity and more. And not every smartwatch is worth buying. Here are nine important things to look for before buying a smartwatch.
Build Quality
A good inexpensive smartwatch should have a solid build quality. From the moment you hold the watch in your hand, it should not feel like a cheap product. Wobbly or spongy buttons, loose straps, an inferior display with large bezels are elements you should avoid. Look for a sturdy metal or hard plastic frame and dial to improve the quality.
For better aesthetics, look for a smartwatch that has minimal bezels, even if the display is not very large. This will ensure that your watch looks good, regardless of whether you have an analog or digital dial later on. Other features worth investing in include an AMOLED display that shows better colors and interchangeable straps that allow you to change the strap if the current one is damaged.
Smartwatch Design
The first thing you notice when you receive the smartwatch is its design. Brands usually show fancy renders and pictures, which usually do not reflect how the smartwatch looks in reality. The smartwatch may look high-end and elegant in the online offer, but it looks completely different in reality. Therefore, it is important to check the real pictures of the watch from photo and video reviews posted by other users online.
OLED vs. LCD Display
Most smartwatches use a color LCD or AMOLED display, which can show photos, apps and other content in richer colors and is usually brighter. The downside is shorter battery life, although smartwatch manufacturers are improving the efficiency of the devices. Some will last several days, if not weeks, but you should opt for a black and white display if you want the longest endurance.
Cheaper smartwatches offer crisp OLED displays instead of LCD displays for a slimmer design. Apple developed its first OLED display to make the first-generation Apple Watch as thin as possible. However, it should be noted that Samsung developed the first ever OLED smartwatch in 2013 with the Galaxy Gear.
Water-Resistance
Some smartwatches even have a military rating, which means that they have been tested for the extreme situations that the military would expect. In addition, smartwatches with an IPXX rating are protected against dust and immersion in water for a certain depth and time. This means they are protected from splashes and rain, and can be worn for short periods of time while swimming.
Typically, smartwatches are offered with 3-ATM or 5-ATM and IP67 or IP68 water resistance ratings. IP67 protection means that a smartwatch is waterproof up to 1 meter for 30 minutes. IP68 is 1.5 meters for 30 minutes or more, depending on the product. The 3-ATM or 5-ATM rating means that the smartwatch is waterproof up to 30 meters or 50 meters. Many expensive smartwatches like the Galaxy Watch 4 have both the IP68 and 5-ATM water resistance ratings.
OS and App Selection
Before you start choosing apps, you need to decide which smartwatch operating system you want to go with. If you own an iPhone that runs iOS, you can choose any smartwatch, but you’ll have the best compatibility with the Apple Watch series. And if you own an Android smartphone, you can opt for any smartwatch except for the Apple Watch, as it is not compatible with Android.
A smartwatch can be a pretty small device, but it has the ability to run thousands of apps designed for it. You can find apps like WhatsApp and Uber that have been customized for smartwatch platforms. The Apple Watch supports many popular apps, and Samsung seems to be riding the wave with its own Tizen OS. Even Google has Wear OS, which supports many of the apps optimized for smartwatches. Therefore, you should buy a watch that has support for many of the apps you use on a daily basis.
Battery Life & Charging
Battery life is another important factor in smartwatches that varies from model to model. Some smartwatches claim to offer more than a month of battery life, while others barely last a day or two. Before you buy a smartwatch, you should pay attention to the battery performance claimed by the brand. It affects the daily use of a smartwatch and depends on your usage pattern.
The Apple Watch, for example, offers about a day’s battery life with normal use, but people buy it for the features it offers. The battery life quoted by smartwatch manufacturers is under ideal conditions. And there is a possibility that you may not last the hours specified by the brand. If the packaging states a battery life of 15 days, you can assume that the watch will last about 7-10 days in normal use.
Charging a smartwatch usually takes about 1.5 to 2 hours. While this is not a deal breaker for most users, those who care should know how long the watch they are about to buy will take to charge. However, fast charging is not yet possible for smartwatches.
Communication
Any smartwatch under consideration will send call, text, and app notifications to your wrist. Call and text notifications are self-explanatory, but if they mean a lot to you, consider a watch with LTE. They’re more expensive than their Wi-Fi-based counterparts, but the data connection allows the smartwatch to answer and receive calls and do the same with text messages without your phone being nearby. App notifications can be sent directly to your wrist to see if you really need your phone right now.
Built-in GPS
Smartwatches also have a handy feature called GPS. This allows the watch to track your location and provide better and more accurate data on your steps, calories burned, distance, etc.
There are two types of GPS in smartwatches: built-in GPS and connected GPS. The built-in GPS smartwatch has a special sensor integrated into the watch. The connected GPS smartwatch, on the other hand, uses your phone’s GPS to determine your location.
NFC
Many smartwatches also have features like NFC that let you pay without taking your wallet with you. All you have to do is store your credit or debit card details and you can hold your smartwatch up to an NFC reader to pay for a coffee or sandwich at a coffee shop. It’s important to note that different watches use different payment methods: Apple watches use Apple Pay, Wear OS devices use Google Pay, while Fitbit and Garmin smartwatches have their own versions called Fitbit Pay and Garmin Pay.
Compatibility
Before choosing a device, you should check if your current ecosystem is compatible. For example, Apple Watches are reserved for iOS users only, while the Samsung Galaxy Watch 4 leaves iOS users out in the cold. The last thing you want to do is buy a smartwatch that can’t sync.
Once you know if a device is even a possibility in terms of compatibility, you should check how much integration you expect. Sticking with your current ecosystem will often provide the best user experience. On the other hand, devices from companies like Garmin and Fitbit work with many ecosystems.
Fitness sensors
Sensors are the most important part of any electronic device to provide responses to various actions. For example, they indicate a high heart rate when you run fast. There are the following types of sensors that can be present in your watch, depending on the type of watch, size and price segment.
- Heart Rate Sensor
This is a very simple sensor that is present on every smartwatch today. Basically, it detects your heart rate using light that is absorbed by the circulating blood.
- Pedometer
After the heart rate sensor and the SPO2 sensor, this is also an essential sensor for a smartwatch. It helps you accurately track your steps and reminds you of your daily running goals and distance traveled in various sports modes.
- Temperature sensor
This is a newly introduced sensor after the Covid. Basically, this sensor gives details about your body’s skin temperature. And it can also alert you when the temperature is unusual or high.
- Sleep monitoring
It is not a standalone sensor, but a mixture of HR, SPO2 and gyroscope (pedometer) sensors. All these sensors detect body movements, REM, deep sleep and light sleep information based on body movements during sleep. SPO2 and HR measure your pulse rate and oxygen level to alert you when needed.
- ECG
It is known as electrocardiogram and is used to check the rhythm and electrical activities of your heart. This sensor belongs to the premium segment and is offered by a few brands like Samsung and Apple, etc.
- SPO2 sensor
According to Covid, this sensor is in high demand. It detects the oxygen content of the pulsating blood and warns you when it falls below a certain level.
Accurate Tracking Results
All smartwatches boast of features like 24×7 heart rate measurement, blood oxygen measurement, and other fitness-related data. But there’s no point if the smartwatch you buy doesn’t provide accurate results. Always look for detailed online reviews of smartwatches where people have pointed out how accurate or inaccurate the recording is on different smartwatches.
Connectivity
Most popular smartwatches today offer connectivity features like Bluetooth, Wi-Fi and integrated GPS. Some of the more expensive models also offer an optional LTE cellular connection, where you can configure an eSIM in parallel with your original SIM card.
A smartwatch that has both GPS and cellular connectivity can also be used without a connection to a smartphone. This means you can use the smartwatch to go for a walk and run, make phone calls, or navigate with the built-in GPS instead of relying on the smartphone. Of course, these functions take their toll on the battery.
Touchscreen v/s Touchless
Opting for a touchscreen on your smartwatch seems like a no-brainer. But it can be difficult to select items on a smaller touch display, and some of the gesture-based interfaces are not intuitive. Wear OS does a good job of displaying card-based notifications that you can easily clear with a swipe gesture, but it takes a lot of swiping to get to other apps and options within apps. However, you can switch between cards with a flick of your wrist.
Apple has opted for a combination of a touch display, digital crown and side button on the right side of the Apple Watch. The crown lets you quickly zoom or scroll content, and the display uses Force Touch, which can distinguish between taps and long presses. Pressing the side button takes you to your dock with frequently used apps.
Price
The best smartwatches usually cost between $300 and $400. Compared to inexpensive smartwatches that cost between $100 and $250, these more expensive devices have advanced fitness, music, and communication features. They also often have extras such as built-in GPS, music storage and NFC, which is usually not the case with inexpensive devices.
Some companies make dedicated fitness watches: these can easily cost over $500 and we would only recommend them to serious athletes. Luxury smartwatches from brands like TAG Heuer and Hublot can also reach sky-high prices, but we wouldn’t endorse any of them. These devices can cost more than $1,000, and you’re usually not paying much more than a brand name and an unnecessarily exotic selection of materials.
Conclusion
Buying a smartwatch from a well-known brand can provide a better user experience than buying a new or generic brand. You can also rely on other aspects when deciding to purchase a smartwatch. Smartwatches are wrist computers with additional functions beyond timekeeping. Many smartwatches also have a stopwatch. It is comparable to most smartwatches and smartwatch stopwatches. However, it is only designed to be used without a smartphone.
