What To Expect From Smartwatches Over The Next Year

There’s been a lot of talk about smartwatches lately with the Apple Watch hype only just dying down and now a bunch of Android wear devices are expected to be announced in the coming months. There’s no doubt that smartwatches have piqued a lot of people’s interests. If you don’t own a watch, they might make you consider one and if you do like watches, this one now shows you your phone’s notifications. Motorola, LG, Samsung, Asus and more have all had their first (and in some cases multiple) go at Android Wear smartwatches. Right now the platform feels a little basic, offering up a far simpler platform than that of the Apple Watch. However, the devices you can buy range from $100-$250 as opposed to the $299-$10,000 you get from the Apple Watch, so you get what you pay for. Which, in Android Wear’s case and what you want a smartwatch to do, might just be enough.

We just mentioned that current smartwatches have quite a few downfalls. Well, there’s no doubt that over the next year or so, we are definitely going to see a huge push in smartwatch technology from the likes of Apple and Google and even Samsung. The operating systems will undoubtedly strengthen along with the hardware that will be running them. We decided to list a few things we think smartwatches will improve upon and, as a result, what to expect from the new mobile technology market over the coming year.

Independence

We’ve already seen Android implement the ability to use your smartwatch with just WiFi, having no use to use your phone’s own connection. However, to get your phone’s notifications and such, it’s still necessary to connect it, via Bluetooth, to your favourite mobile device. Over the next year, however, we definitely expect to see smartwatches become far more independent from their mothership of the smartphone.

With the release of more native applications for the Apple Watch, we expect it to become a thing where you can start receiving notifications independent from your smartphone on your watch. This would mean you wouldn’t have to worry about the connection between the two devices and you’d be able to leave the house with just your smartwatch. Obviously the interactivity on watches will have to improve a little first with the only real answer right now being voice or a little bit of drawing.

More Battery

A lot of people have questioned why we have phones that can arguably last nearly two days now (Note, Sony Xperia Z3 and such) and they are far more powerful and do many more things than our watches do, but our watches can only just last a day. Yes, you could argue size. But at the same time, you could argue just how much less they do than our phones.

Over the next year, in smartwatch technology, we expect to see smart watches easily break the one-day barrier and possibly look to work on getting a week’s battery. The relatively small company Pebble have created the Pebble Time Steel that lasts up to 10 days. Admittedly the screen technology and power aren’t anywhere on the levels of the latest Android smartwatches or Apple Watch, but it’s still possible. There’s no doubt that it would be nice to have a smartwatch that lasted a week, even a few days. In the next year or so, we should expect to start seeing this.

Do More

Right now, a lot of people’s opinion on smartwatches is “why would I buy something that costs almost as much as my phone, to do something my phone already does but on a smaller screen?” Admittedly, we feel these people are missing the point of a smartwatch. To do things on your wrist is far easier and snappier than pulling out your phone and doing them. In addition, everything said the same about the iPad, obviously referring to it as just being a big iPod Touch.

However, these sceptics do have a fairly reasonable point. The iPad has come into its own with the applications developed for it that have brought out a more convenient, responsive and logical answer to a lot of questions the tiny screen of a smartphone or the trackpad or a computer can’t answer. The smartwatch hasn’t yet found this. Yes, you can use it to unlock your car, or turn on your stereo or book you into a hotel. But there’s not really an application out there yet that the smartwatch is best at. There’s no application you can download that will convince people to buy the watch. This is something we expect to be a big push for. Especially from the likes of Apple and Google.