1. Do you truly need a smartwatch in the first place?

Personalize Answers.

2. What do smartwatches do, exactly?

Many things: they can track your sleep, optimize your fitness regimen, alert you to incoming calls and messages,
track your location on a map, and much, much more. However, a larger existential question must be addressed here:
Do you need any of this shit in your life?

All this information is available on your phone, which means it’s available to you pretty much all the time. But maybe
having fitness tracking alone is worth having Apple own even more real estate on your body. If the answer is a
resounding (or even, a desultory) “yes,” then read on. If not — if the entire idea of further connecting yourself to the
Cloud makes your skin crawl, well then, reach back for your Timex, Rolex, or other “-ex,” as the case may be, and
wrap one of those geeky plastic sleeves around your arm while you run or bike to tote your smartphone.

3. How do smartwatches measure heart rate?

There are plenty of sensors in a smartwatch and one of the most common ones is PPG or Photoplethysmography. It
works by shining an LED light into the skin and measuring the changes in blood flow with each heartbeat. The
smartwatch then uses an algorithm to calculate how many times the heart beats each minute.

Some smartwatches also use a different type of sensor, ECG or Electrocardiography. These are more accurate than
PPG sensors. It measures the electrical activity of your heart to calculate the heart rate. Many smartwatches use a
combination of PPG and ECG to improve accuracy.

4. How do smartwatches track steps and activities?

Smartwatches often use a combination of different sensors depending on the scenario to track steps and activities.
Generally, it uses a combination of accelerometers to detect changes in motion such as steps taken, distance
travelled and calories burned. GPS is used to track outdoor activities including running, walking, and cycling. It is also
used to provide more accurate distance and speed data.

5. How best to use a smartwatch with your smartphone?

1. Customise your fitness dashboard to your liking

The wearables all come with a dedicated smartphone app. You log in on the app with all your information. Once your
app is hooked to the tracker, you can see all the physical activities related data listed out in an easy-to-understand
format. One can customise the listed data to show what’s more important for you.

2. Smart way to wear your fitness tracker or smartwatch

It is recommended to wear a fitness tracker or smartwatch on the less dominant arm. Say you do most of your work
with your right arm. If you wear the fitness tracker on the right arm and forget to remove it post-workout, then your
fitness tracker will record incorrect data for any movement you do.

Also, having a smartwatch on while doing your everyday work with the dominant arm you carry the risk of breaking
the device. Hence, you should wear the fitness tracker on the less dominant arm.
3. Charging schedule for your wearables
A fitness tracker or smartwatch running out of battery can derail your daily schedule. Many folks wear smartwatches
even after exercising to check emails, make calls, and use other apps. If you don’t track sleeping patterns at night,
then you can charge your phone during the night. For folks who track sleep at night, they can charge the wearable
during the day when it is of no use.

5 features on your smartwatch you should know about

Find your phone: In our hectic lives, there could be times when you might have misplaced your phone. But instead of
panicking and checking every nook and corner manually, there’s a far easier way to search for the phone. All you
have to do is tap on your smartwatch and it rings your smartphone even if it’s on silent mode. Furthermore, if the
wristwatch senses that you have misplaced your phone, it will prompt you to download the respective Find My app
to retrieve it.

Help you find things: Besides phones, many of us tend to misplace our keys and devices such as earphones, and so
on. Again, a smartwatch can come to our help. There are several wristwatch programs that enable you to use
trackers to link your vehicle keys, smartphones, and other electrical items to your smartwatch and find them
anytime you want.

Making calls: A smartwatch’s list of features includes the ability to answer calls without taking out the phone from
the pocket. Anyone may make and receive calls and messages directly from the smartwatch by installing a SIM card.
This is ideal for times when you don’t want to have your phone with you, such as during class or when you are out
for a jog.

6. How to protect the screen of a smartwatch?

Timely reminders: Voice assistants not only do your bidding but can also send timely reminders for things like
exercising, switching off electronic gadgets or taking medications. All you have to do is set a reminder on the
smartphone app such as “switch off the stove before bed,” “take diabetic medications at 8:00 PM,” and so on.

Sleep Tracking: Track your sleep cycles, and other sleep-related metrics to get a better understanding of your overall
sleep quality. Getting adequate sleep during the day is critical for our bodies to reset and replenish energy for the
next day’s duties. A smartwatch can monitor your sleep cycle, and sleep quality, record various stages of sleep, and
also tell you how many times your sleep was disrupted.

Drive around with your smartwatch

While driving around an unknown area, you have to constantly stop the car to ask people for directions. Many think
watching maps on smartphones is a hassle. With a smartwatch, powered by the phone’s GPS, you can now find your
way to any place around the world. The smartwatch offers you turn-by-turn navigation while driving.

Get your notifications on the wearable device

You can allow alerts from different apps on your wearables. This way, you will not miss any important work mail or
SMS. For instance, when you’re in the middle of an important task and don’t want to be bothered by you
smartphone, you can simply glance at the notifications on your wearable. You can also transfer your reminders over
to the watch and work on your task without distractions.
 7. How do smartwatches make calls and send texts?

Most smartwatches after syncing with your phone are able to make calls and send texts by using the internet. Your
smartwatch needs to be connected to your phone either through Bluetooth or through a mobile network. You need
to have a dialler and message app on your smartwatch.

Smartwatches with built-in cellular or LTE connectivity work standalone and can be used to dial due to inherent
cellular connectivity.

8. Can smartwatches play games?

Yes! Smartwatches can play games. Both smartwatches that use either Android-based wear OS or Apple watch OS
can run a handful of games. These are obviously limited due to the compact display of real estate. These games are
fairly basic in nature and are mostly 2-D games.

9. Are smartwatches safe?

Yes, smartwatches are perfectly safe. In fact, they are a great companion device for your smartphone and a nifty
health tracking device that can tell you crucial information about your health vitals including heart rate, BP, calories,
and more.

Many modern-day smartwatches also have life-saving features such as fall detection or crash detection. They also
have other features for outdoor activities that can potentially save your life in certain situations. There are built-in
back trekking features for trekking, SOS when you are lost and can’t find any cellular connectivity.

10. Is health data accurate?

Generally, the data related to your activities such as the steps you walked are more or less accurate. However, with
more complex data where your smartwatch needs to be extrapolated, it becomes a little dicey. For instance, it is
known that the calories burned counter is not really accurate. Some are more inaccurate than others.

Other health-related data such as sleep cycles are also accurate only to a certain degree. The same goes for heart
rate and blood pressure monitoring. These are still not reliable and accurate to the point that they can be used for a
clinical diagnosis. Having said that, it is still a great companion device to give you an estimate of trends in relation to
your health and body rather than accurate statistics.

How do smartwatches calculate calories burned?

To give you an estimate of how many calories you’ve burned, a smartwatch first needs to detect and track your steps
and other activities. For this, it uses a combination of sensors such as a 3-axis accelerometer and GPS combined with
user input and machine learning algorithms.

Now on top of this, your smartwatch constantly tracks your movements. Combined with heart rate data with
information about the user’s height, gender, and weight, a smartwatch can provide an estimate of calories burned
during physical activity. However, it should be noted that these numbers should be taken with a pinch of salt as they
are known to be not really accurate. But gradually, these are improving.
 11. Can smartwatches be used without a phone?

Yes, you can use both a non-cellular as well as cellular smartwatch without a smartphone. But there are caveats that
need to be aware of. Firstly, most of the features on a smartwatch are functional as long as it is connected to a
stable Internet source.

You need to connect to the source of Wi-Fi or you need to have built-in cellular connectivity to function
independently of a phone. For this, you should have a separate smartwatch data plan.