There are a plethora of smartwatches, wearables, and fitness trackers on the market. They all offer their own distinct sets of features and benefits. Some have highly desirable features, while others don’t – something may have been sacrificed to make way for better functionality.
For example, the Pebble smartwatches do not include a touchscreen display. Instead, they offer physical controls through side-mounted buttons. Does that mean the Pebble is a worse choice than say the Moto 360? Not at all, it just means you have to pay attention to what features are offered, and which you absolutely want.
With that in mind, we thought it would be a good idea to look at five features that should be on every potential smartwatch owner’s mind. In other words, if the watch you’re looking at doesn’t have one of these features, then you should probably move on.
If you find something lacking with the device you’re planning on buying then you’ll need to assess whether or not the omission is going to change your mind. With this list, you should be able to do that pretty quickly, even if you don’t have prior knowledge of smartwatches.
5 Features Your Smartwatch Must Have
Every smartwatch is going to be different, and that’s okay. However, if the watch you’re looking at is missing one of these crucial features, you might want to choose another model or wait for something better.
1. Allow Voice Commands
Smartwatch displays are small, and that means all the onscreen elements are also small. If you’re trying to type a message — even a short one — on a smartwatch screen, you can forget about accuracy, especially if you have larger-sized fingers. On devices like the Pebble that use physical controls, navigating the UI can be cumbersome at times. That’s not to say that the experience is poor all around, but it can certainly get frustrating if you’re trying to use your smartwatch in the same way you do your smartphone.
That’s why any smartwatch you purchase should include some kind of voice command support. Whether it be through Google Now, Siri, or something like Cortana. It doesn’t matter, the feature should be there. With some devices you need a connected smartphone to use the voice commands, and that’s okay, as long as it’s possible.
Why? Because it’s so much easier to dictate a command to a microphone than it is to navigate a UI, menus, or type out messages. Of course, one could easily make the argument that the voice dictation support needs to be accurate, and that’s true, but most technologies these days are up to par.
If your smartwatch doesn’t include voice command support, you’re going to be spending a lot of time tapping your wrist, or playing with the buttons to get to where you need to be.
2. Media Playback and Wireless Headphone Support
Okay, so this one might include two separate features, but they go hand-in-hand as one. Chances are, you’ll want to listen to music that’s either streamed or stored locally on your smartwatch — most likely while you’re out for a run or a similar activity. The problem is, you don’t want the smartwatch to be blaring music out of a speaker, and you don’t want to have to plug headphones or earbuds into the watch itself. That’s where the wireless headphone support comes into play, preferably via Bluetooth.
It seems like an unnecessary feature to have in a watch, but if you’re going the “smart” route then you’ll definitely want to make sure you’re getting some kind of media playback support, if only to listen or watch the content that friends and family send to you.
3. Some Level of Customization
Aside from choosing the make and model of your smartwatch — the Apple Watch has several different versions — you’ll want to be able to personalize it. At first this might not seem like anything, but when you start noticing that you’d like your watch to do certain things, or look a certain way, this will become more prominent.
In terms of customization, there are many ways this might be available.
It could mean you’re free to download and install apps, choose digital watchfaces and acquire new ones, install custom wristbands or swap between those available, or install new launchers to change the UI. With personalization features like this it means that no two smartwatches will ever be the same, even if they look it on the outside.
Most smartwatches come bundled with several different digital watchfaces to choose from so you can change the look of the main display. However, there are some watches that include access to a marketplace or portal where you can download more. Pebble, for example, has mobile apps for iOS and Android that allow you to download and install new watchfaces and watch apps.
4. Productivity Boosters
You’ll be wearing the watch on your wrist — and on your person — pretty much all the time. That means it should be a productivity booster, as opposed to distracting you and taking away from your time. It should enable you to get in and out, doing the kinds of things you might do from a smartphone with a quick glance. For instance, the watch should synchronize your schedule and calendar and allow you to quickly checkup on appointments, events, and activities.
You should be able to record and playback voice memos, checkup on calendar appointments and events, upcoming business meetings, and even messages and email.
Let’s say you’re sitting at a dinner table with some friends. You should be able to glance down at your watch quickly, check any notifications you might have missed, respond if necessary, and then get right back to the moment at hand. No one wants to spend the majority of their day fiddling with another device attached to their wrist, so make sure the watch you choose will boost your productivity.
5. Basic Health Tracking
If you’re going to own a smartwatch, it doesn’t make sense to buy a fitness tracker as a secondary device — unless your watch doesn’t offer basic health tracking. Even then it seems kind of ridiculous to have to manage multiple wearable devices, when you probably already manage multiple mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops and more.
Basic health tracking support includes a caloric calculator, heart-rate monitor, pedometer, and movement tracker (accelerometer and gyroscope). The watch you choose may — or may not — have all of these features.
You’ll come to find that a lot of modern smartwatches lack a heart-rate monitor, and the ones that do have one are not that accurate. That’s okay. Just make sure the watch you choose tracks the information you’d like to be aware of. If you want to know your steps, make sure the watch has a pedometer feature to calculate steps taken.
Smartwatch Must Have Features In a Nutshell
That’s it for now. Believe it or not, there are many smartwatches that include even more features than this. That said, these are the things you should absolutely look for when you’re picking out a new watch to buy.
Are there any smartwatch must have features that you look for that aren’t listed here? If you had to create a list of your own, what would you include?