Looking to buy a new smartwatch but you could not decide on which to buy. Here is a complete guide to make your best choice. The smartwatch market is extensively growing as more and more manufacturers are jumping into it. Some of the top players in market are Apple, Samsung, Motorola, Asus, Huawei, LG, Pebble, Fossil, Tag Heuer, Casio, Titan and the list continues. The features and design vary a lot among these smartwatches.
Some smartwatches work independently of the smartphones but some require them. Most of them have built-in feature to track your health using the accelerometers, barometers or heart rate monitor. Some have the touch and some don’t. You can receive calls, check and reply messages etc while some don’t have either one or both feature. As usual we will first plan on few things first, check them out below.
Budget
Lets first decide the budget we have in mind. The range varies a lot depending on features and brand. If budget is not a constraint, exclude this factor.
Compatible Platform
Smartphone compatibility is a very important factor – Buy a smartwatch which is compatible to your smartphone. Some smartwatch only supports or is compatible to a specific platform only. For example the apple watch only supports apple iPhone. Some smartwatch platforms are Apple’s WatchOS, Android Wear, Pebble OS, Samsung’s Tizen and Microsoft’s Band. Pebble watches use their own platform OS but supports both Android and IOS. Samsung’s (Tizen) wear / Android Wear supports both Android and IOS.
Display
The display of smartwatches are different like smartphones they are mostly LCD, AMOLED, E-paper display. E-paper display consumes less battery and are easier on eyes. You can watch photos in rich and bright colors on Apple watch. Some smartwatches goes to sleep and you need to wake up to check the time.
Touch or buttons
Smartwatches comes with touch or physical buttons. Both have their own merits and demerits and it depends on personal preference too. A touch device is easier to navigate then physical buttons as the later may require a lot of scroll or pushing. While on the other hand touch a small device is sometimes difficult. On an Android wear we have cards and we need to scroll or swipe to get the desired app. An apple watch have both touch and physical button (Crown). Using the crown you can scroll and zoom apps and then tap or force touch to do things.