Smartwatch
A smartwatch is a portable and wearable computer device in a form of a watch; modern smartwatches provide a local touchscreen interface for daily use, while an associated smartphone app provides management and telemetry, such as long-term biomonitoring. While early models could perform basic tasks such as calculations, digital time telling, translations, and game-playing, smartwatches released since 2015 have more general functionality closer to smartphones, including mobile apps, a mobile operating system, and WiFi/Bluetooth connectivity. Some smartwatches function as portable media players, with FM radio and playback of digital audio and video files via a Bluetooth headset. Some models, called watch phones (or phone watches), have mobile cellular functionality such as making telephone calls.[1][2][3]
This article is about smartwatches generally. For the Sony brand, see Sony SmartWatch.
While internal hardware varies, most have an electronic visual display, either a backlit LCD or an OLED.[4] Some use transflective or electronic paper to consume less power. They are usually powered by a rechargeable lithium-ion battery. Peripheral devices may include digital cameras, thermometers, accelerometers, pedometers, heart rate monitors, altimeters, barometers, Gyroscope, Ambient Light sensor, Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) Sensor, Electrocardiogram (ECG or EKG) Sensor, UV Sensor, compasses, GPS receivers, tiny speakers, and microSD cards, which are recognized as storage devices by many other kinds of computers.
Software may include digital maps, schedulers and personal organizers, calculators, and various kinds of watch faces. The watch may communicate with external devices such as sensors, wireless headsets, or a head-up display. Like other computers, a smartwatch may collect information from internal or external sensors, and it may control or retrieve data from other instruments or computers. It may support wireless technologies such as Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and GPS. For many purposes, a "watch computer" serves as a front end for a remote system such as a smartphone, communicating with the smartphone using various wireless technologies. Smartwatches are advancing, especially in terms of design, battery capacity, and health-related applications.[5]
Health-related applications include those measuring heart rate, SpO2, workouts, etc.
History[edit]
Early years[edit]
The first digital watch, which debuted in 1972, was the Pulsar manufactured by Hamilton Watch Company. "Pulsar" became a brand name which would later be acquired by Seiko in 1978. In 1982, a Pulsar watch (NL C01) was released which could store 24 digits, making it most likely the first watch with user-programmable memory, or "memorybank" watch.[6]
Market and popularity[edit]
Smartwatches have risen in popularity during the 2010s. Today, they are often used as fitness trackers, smartphone entertainment or communication "companions".[93] According to studies from statista revenue in smartwatches are estimated to reach 44.15 billion dollars in 2023 and revenue per year is expected to continue to grow to 62.46 billion by 2028.[94] The top contributors to the market size of market watches include Apple Inc, Fossil Group Inc, Garmin Lt, Google LLC, Huawei Technologies Co, Samsung, and Xiaomi.[95]
Security and other issues[edit]
Tests by UK consumer organization Which? found by detailed testing that ultra-cheap smartwatches and fitness trackers sold online had serious security flaws including excessive data collection, data not stored securely, no way to opt out of data collection, and no security lock function to lock out thieves or other unauthorized users. Typically a watch app might request permission to collect and store "personally identifiable information and personal property information", such as information on passport, transactions, bank balances, and ID cards; the app is unusable if permission is denied. The user cannot know if information is being stored securely, and it cannot be deleted. There is no control over whether the supplier views it or sells it on, for whatever purpose. In many cases data collected is not encrypted when transmitted to the supplier.[100]
Which? did not specifically test functionality of ultra-cheap watches, but while checking security they noticed that some displayed heart rate, blood oxygen measurements, and counted steps while not being worn or moved; they said that this "suggests they are at best inaccurate and at worst useless".[100]
In the UK a Product Security and Telecoms Infrastructure Act was passed in December 2022,[101] effective from 2024. The Act, which should cover smartwatches, specifies security standards which manufacturers, importers and distributors (including online marketplaces) of smart devices must meet.[100]
Social implications and biases[edit]
Due to faults in the design of current smartwatches there have been social biases that have been created favoring certain demographics. For example, smartwatches have more accurate tracking of data for individuals who have lighter skin compared to individuals who have darker skin. This is due to how smartwatches monitor heart rate. An article published by the Healthcare Degree describes the process of how smartwatches monitor heart rate within individuals in which the devices use optical sensors which is a green light to track when there is a loss of blood in your wrist indicating a heart beat. This type of lighting technique is cheaper and simple to use however, because green light has shorter wavelengths it is less able to penetrate melanin that causes darker skin. This causes tracking heart rate for darker skinned individuals less accurate.[102]
Social implications that have arose from the increase in popularity in smartwatches concerns around data collection and data privacy. smartwatches are capable of collecting a lot of data revolving around someone's health such as activity levels, heart rate, sleep patterns, and more to help the consumer with managing their health. This data as well as other personal information from the user is collecting and stored in the cloud that can be access by companies and researchers to be used for many purposes. There have many many cases of the misuse of consumer's personal data. One instance described by an published by The Warren Alpert Medical School involved the company Fitbit faced a lawsuit in 2011 for selling personal health data to advertisers with zero consent from the users.[103] Another breach of security happened when Strava allowed users to share their routes which led to the accidental revealing of several locations military bases throughout the world.[103] These cases along with others have sparked ethical debates about the collecting and sharing of personal data coming from newer generation smartwatches.