BE WILLED

2013 will be the year of smartwatches as smartphone rivals Samsung and Apple are set to release their respective techy timepieces. This wearable technology cleverly combines the time telling capability and elegant designs of watches with the essential functions of your smartphone. Smartwatch will basically act as a companion of your phone. Through their wireless interconnection, this techy timepiece becomes capable of making calls, receiving texts or emails, and providing notifications and feeds from your social network.

Smartwatch has been around three decades ago, continuously evolved and improved over time, and now the future of chronometer are equipped with features, serving as standalone gadget or as extensions of apps and functionalities of your smartphone. Various smartwatch devices are currently being offered such as, Cookoo, Leikr, Citizen Proximity, Nike+ FuelBand, Sony SmartWatch, and Pebble Watch.

Connectivity of Smartwatch

Most smartwatches serving as peripherals provide services from your phone through Bluetooth connection. Currently, Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology also known as Bluetooth 4.0 is used. Bluetooth 4.0 is the best choice for smartwatches due to its low power usage nature which is required by devices like the smartwatch that frequently connects, monitors, displays and controls information from other devices. Bluetooth 4.0 can provide data rate up to 25Mbps which is a generous bandwidth for Smartwatch. BLE devices also operate with distances ranging from of at least 200 feet to the maximum which depends on specific Bluetooth device.

Bluetooth connection of Sony smartwatch with HTC smartphone

Other smartwatches like Nike’s Sportwatch and Leikr act as standalone gadgets. They possess built-in GPS, brings up to date maps, provides workout and training guides, and monitors your personal health and fitness levels.  These devices use WiFi connection to routers and sensors to display statistics like  run distance and duration,  and equivalent calories burned. Battery life of this devices are shortened when the power draining GPS tracking function is active.

Features and Capabilities of Smartwatch

Smartwatch will smarten up your wrist with the functions, services, and other possibilities it can offer.

Phone’s companion: Pairing this techy timepiece with your smartphone lets you read text messages, e-mail feeds and social network notifications. They also display incoming calls, letting you to accept or reject them by pressing one of its side buttons or its touch screen interface.  Smartwatch also enables remote control of your phone. They can command shutter on your phone’s camera, and set, shuffle or arrange your music playlist.

Health and Fitness Guide: With the use of smartwatch you won’t need to carry a phone while running. Connecting it with WiFi access point will give you GPS and mapping capabilities, keeping you on track while running. While running, it is also possible to know your running duration and distance, burned calories, and heart rate by integrating and syncing your watch with motion sensors

The wearable tech device, Smartwatch combines the time telling capability, and elegant design