

While most smartwatch makers will offer the choice of one or two case materials, most will let you swap out the strap attached to it to make it easier to switch between something more formal or better suited to exercising with. Thankfully, things have got a lot better since then and whether it’s the case materials, strap options or even the watch faces, you can start to make them feel a bit better suited to your lifestyle. Smartwatches had a serious image problem when they first started to launch and looked like watches made by tech companies. They can offer an extra day of watch time and sometimes more from spending 15-20 minutes on charge. Smartwatches from Fitbit and Oppo now include fast charging technology to help counter the fact that you’ll need to be charging them regularly. Things like adjusting screen brightness or disabling continuous heart rate monitoring can generally help on that front.

Smartwatches from the likes of Apple, Samsung along with Google’s Wear OS smartwatches will usually require charging every few days, so it’s good to know whether you can disable features that can help to preserve that precious battery life. They’re getting better and if you opt for a hybrid style smartwatch, then you can enjoy weeks and maybe months over the day or two you’ll get on an Apple Watch in comparison. How much do you want to charge your smartwatch?īattery life remains an issue for smartwatches in general. The standard for most smartwatches is a 5ATM water-resistant rating, which deems it safe to be submerged in water up to 50 metres depth and that’s should make it fit for pool swims. If you’re a swimmer, then make sure there’s a suitable water-resistant rating attached to that smartwatch.
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So, look for a smartwatch that gives you the ability to pair additional sensors like chest strap monitors using Bluetooth or ANT+ wireless connectivity and you’ll get much more reliable insights into your effort levels during exercise. Most smartwatches now include heart rate monitors, but wrist-based heart rate monitors across the board are not the most accurate. If you’re looking for a smartwatch that will do the best kind of tracking job, you’ll ideally want something that has GPS built-in, letting you lock onto satellite systems that can accurately track outdoor activity like running and cycling. Pretty much all smartwatches claim to offer the ability to monitor your exercise, meaning you can ditch a fitness app on your phone or a sports watch you might have bought for your smartwatch that can do it all. What makes a smartwatch good for tracking fitness?

You’ll need to factor that you’ll likely need to pay a monthly fee to use it while network providers will usually offer the ability to share your number across phone and smartwatch and offer it as a package.Īlso be mindful that not all phone networks offer the ability to turn on the eSim or mobile connectivity support, so while that smartwatch says it supports it, just make sure the network your phone is tied to does as well. It will also need to offer eSim support, which is essentially a small chip built into the watch to enable that mobile connectivity support. Smartwatches can now be used as standalone devices and work independently from your smartphone to offer features like music streaming, receiving notifications and the ability to make and answer phone calls.įrom a technical perspective, that smartwatch will need to include a microphone and speaker to make that possible. Can your smartwatch be used to make calls without a phone?
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Features like music players and responding to notifications are optimised for users who own Android phones for instance. Many of these smartwatches though won’t offer identical experiences and features across platforms. That includes watches from Fossil, Skagen, Michael Kors and Tag Heuer. There are of course smartwatches that work with multiple phone platforms, so the likes of smartwatches made by Samsung, Fitbit, Huawei and smartwatches that run on Google’s Wear OS software.
