Smartwatches combine technology with style
Companies announce their new Smartwatch designs to appeal to consumers
Band Director Tate Fincher shows off his Apple Watch and a student’s Moto 360 for comparison.
October 9, 2015
Move over bracelets and timepieces.
A new accessory is available for your wrist and this one can help you keep track of your appointments, tell you the weather or perform hundreds of other tasks previously associated with smartphones.
So-called “smartwatches” have been on the market for a few years, but the entrance of the Apple Watch to the scene in April has brought a greater level of interest in these kinds of devices.
These watches do more than just tell you the time. These watches are capable of showing you local weather, tracking your physical activity, and managing your upcoming events. They can also display traffic and navigation, communicate with friends through doodles and emoji and even answer questions through Google Now for Android Wear users and Siri for Apple Watch users. Third party apps provide even more features such as keep a to do list on your wrist, control your pc and other devices, keep a shopping list and even help you finance.
However, even with all these features the watches are still in early stages, leaving many consumers wanting more. Junior Xeon Gutierrez said he has ideas on how to improve his Sony Xperia Smartwatch 3.
“It would be nice to do things like get a video notification on the watch when the bell rings, or to make short calls from it,” he said.
These Smart Watches seem to be a priority in the tech world as it seems every major phone manufacturer, including LG, Samsung and Motorola, have designed and released a model of their own and are on board of releasing many more in the near future.
These upcoming watches seem to focus more on the appearance side of things compared to older models. The second generation Moto 360 will now include a chap which makes changing bands much simpler. Pebble will release a new watch, which primarily focuses on the appearance of the watch making it much more fashionable than older pebble watches (Pebble watches run on a separate OS from the Androids’ Wear OS and Apples’ Watch OS but are still functional with both Android and Apple phones).
Samsung will release a new version of their Gear S line which is now round and looks a lot more like an actual watch. As of now Apple hasn’t unveiled any news of releasing a new watch to their lineup, but we could expect a new model to launch in April of 2016, according to reporting by Macworld.
Those who own smartwatches at Akins are excited to see how they will evolve in the coming years. Band Director Tate Fincher, who owns an Apple Watch, said he hopes they become something more than “just an extension of a phone.”
