We can never get enough of smartwatches. Even though every new release excites us with sleek designs, new fitness sensors, and other fancy functions, we still crave for more smartwatch features. And, it’s a good sign.
Why? If we didn’t long for sensors, we couldn’t be getting the fitness trackers we have today. As our wish list grows so are the benefits of smartwatches. From capturing moments to custom watch faces, there’s even more on the horizon .
The Current State of Smartwatch Features
Smartwatches were born as a simple extension of your phones. They were supposed to help you decide whether to take your phone out of the pocket or save the trouble for later. This early notification function is still the most widely used smartwatch feature today.
Fast forward today, now they’re able to truly improve your life way beyond notifications. Smartwatch features have come a long way from where they began. You can start your daily workout, plan meetings, meet with your friends, set reminders, and even track your sleeping cycles with a smartwatch. However, smartwatches couldn’t replace smartphones completely, at least not yet.
The market has even produced standalone models with which you can make phone calls and do other basic smartphone stuff. But these standalone watches aren’t ready to put smartphones in the bin yet. Besides, most of us would like to have smartwatches as a median – more than just a simple extension, but not quite a smartphone replacement.
What does it mean?
We need to have the right features, not all of them. So, we have compiled a list of 5 features we wish existed on smartwatches. And believe us when we say there’s a chance for you to experience all of them in the near future. Now, let’s buckle up for your dream ride.
5 Smartwatch Features We Wish Existed
Feature No.1 – Smart Insights
As we all know smartwatches are capable of monitoring and reporting down the numbers. From your heartbeat to average running speed, you’ll have all the metrics right on your wrist. But, what they lack is insights.
We need to know what the numbers actually mean to us: should I increase my running speed? Is my age/BMI normal? Should I get more or less sleep?
For instance, Apple Watch 3 offers an impressive heart rate tracker. It shows you beats per minute, heart rate while resting and running, etc. But, it would be great if it provides what they mean to us and how can we improve the metrics.
Feature No.2 – Better Voice Assistant
Granted, voice assistants are becoming better than ever. And, with the recent updates, they can do more than we can imagine. However, we still think there’s a lot of room for improvement.
When we say improvement, we didn’t mean the complex chipset upgrades. A simple microphone/listening update might help you convey your messages to Siri and Google Assistant more clearly. In fact, one of a few complaints in Apple watches has to do with Siri as it can’t interpret the comment from the users (sometimes).
Besides, they need to evolve into a friend we talk to every now and then. What’s special today, suggest me a restaurant near my location, etc. would make them invaluable.
Feature No.3 – Longer Battery Life
It’s probably one of the most requested features to any smartwatch makers. Although smartwatches wouldn’t be able to beat fitness trackers and analog watches, they need to improve and should last longer than a day or two.
Most smartwatches will die in a day when you utilize LTE and other advanced connectivity features. You’ll end up charging your watch every night. Of course, we know the limitation increasing the battery capacity without sacrificing sleek watch designs. Maybe smartwatches can take cues from Hybrid watches on how to offer a long battery life while keeping the watch smart. .
Feature No.4 – Advanced Health Trackers
Health trackers make the smartwatch desirable. People who buy smartwatches generally prefer to have all the fitness features embedded within. After all, who likes to switch from fitness tracker to smartwatch every morning.
With the advent of micro-chipsets, smartwatches have come a long way from basic meter trackers. But, as you have guessed, health trackers outperform smartwatches in fitness tracking . Some offer insights into your sleep cycles, guided breathing sessions, and, personalized dynamic coaching.
To truly become a device we can’t live without, smartwatches will need to provide much more personalized health tracking and actionable insights.
Feature No.5 – Third-Party Integration
The limitation with 3rd party integration has been an issue with almost all the smartwatches. They only allow you to play with a handful of first-party applications and watch faces. While it is safe to cut off the third-parties, we need to embrace at least a few well-known sources.
For instance, we’ve been looking for custom watch faces and Spotify music syncs on Apple Watch series for the last few years. Sometimes, we would like to stream Spotify, Pandora too, not just iTunes.
Conclusion
Smartwatches are advancing at their own pace. We can’t force our wish list onto the industry. But, we believe these features might be the ones you would be seeing in the future upgrades. After all, they aren’t dreamy concepts but rather an improved version of what’s currently on offer.
What’s missing in the list for you? What are your favorite smartwatch features that you wish actually existed? ? Let us know in the comments below.
