Smartwatches contain a lot of sensors like accelerometers, pedometers, heart rate monitors, altimeters, barometers, compasses, GPS receivers, etc. that keep track of our health and safety. We have also covered the benefits of smartwatches in one of our post. Some of the Pros and Cons of having a Smartwatch can be:

Pros of Smartwatch:

A fitness tracker on your wrist

A smartwatch keeps track of the health status of kids. Most of the smartwatches have step counter, Monitor heart rate, Blood Pressure monitoring. Some of the latest watches have inbuilt sensors that can sense out workout throughout the day while in a gym, swimming, walking, running, etc. and can analyze calories burned accordingly.

Calls and Notifications on the fingertips

Now, you don’t have to take your phone out for every notification alert pinging on your phone. Every notification and calls notification is available on your smartwatch; you can pick a call or reply to a message with full ease without even touching your smartphone.

Safety Companion for kids

Inbuilt GPS in smartwatches helps to keep track of kids’ activities and location that maintains the safety of kids on the one hand and removes the stress of parents on the other. You can also do 2-way calling as well as messaging in some of the smartwatches. Most of the smartwatches also have an SOS button to be used during an emergency. The SOS button is used to send a custom message with your live location to predefined contacts.

A trendy accessory for the fashion

Smartwatches look elegant and cool, so there won’t be any excuse from kids for not wearing it. Heaps of design and color of smartwatches are available in the market to choose the best match for your kid. You can even buy straps of different colors and change them daily to get a new look every day. The best thing about these watches is that we can change the design of the clock with different themes as we like.

Connectivity is not a problem anymore

The advancement of smartwatches has gone so far that now you can use the internet on the watch with the best connection that suits you the most and is economical. The connections can be inserting a Sim or using a Wi-Fi available near. Some smartwatches even have a subscription feature in which there is a plan per month. This facility is available in more than 120 countries without any roaming charges.

Entertainment Apps control without a smartphone

Smartwatches support many android apps that can be used on the watch itself. You can control music or create a playlist as you desired and then queue according to your likes. If you have a subscription of apps like Spotify, YouTube music, etc. then you can install these apps on your phone and can control then with your smartwatch with ease and flexibility.

Cons of Smartwatch:

Out of the budget!

The smartwatches are an asset, or you can say a solution to a lot of problems indeed, but it’s also true that they are expensive and don’t fit in the budget of every parent. If we think about it practically, these watches cost almost half the price of the phone as well as have limited features as compared to a smartphone.

Battery Drainage very fast!

Due to the small and portable design, the area to fit in the battery is not enough. The batteries used in these watches are of a significantly less fraction of milli-amperes compared to the battery of smartphones. This results in short battery life, and it’s really hectic to charge your smartwatch every day.

More Distraction during work

When we use our smartphone, we don’t look at every notification that gets a ping on our device, which is a little help to concentrate on our work. Still, a smartwatch is right on our wrist due to which it’s normal to see every single notification that came, and most of the time, we may leave the work and start using our phone again.

Usability for daily tasks

The size of the dial of the smartwatch is too small that it creates frustration while using it, especially when you are sending a message to someone. Even after facing such issues, the technology is running ahead so desperately that your watch will become outdated in no time.

Average Camera 

The camera used with smartwatches is not up to the mark. You will only use such cameras when you don’t have access to your phone, or else you’ll always use the camera of your smartphone. They don’t even work when used during low light conditions. The pictures you’ll get will be grainy and not sharp in low light.

However, this new development has caused some of us to think that this is too much. I mean, where do we stop? Where does it end? Is this even necessary? The hallmark of a good manufacturer is to provide something that the consumer never knew they needed. It seems they were right as the world has fully embraced the concept of wearing a little computer on their wrist. But is this new move truly without any risk? We decided to find out…

The Biological Risk

Wearing something 24/7 does have its own dangers. Smartwatches and Fitbits stay on our wrists all day dwelling in the dirt and sweat that we ourselves are subjected to. And as a result, they start becoming a nice haven for microorganisms.

The Biology department of Rollins College conducted a survey and a series of tests.

They found that a large majority of these smartwatches had strains of the bacteria Staphylococcus. This is an infectious organism and can spread from person to person. The bacterium causes boils and blisters in the affected individual. And once this gets into the body it can cause food poisoning, stomach aches, and vomiting. It can also turn deadly if it reaches and contaminates the bloodstream. Another piece of info worth noting is that a few strains of Staphylococcus have adapted to the use of modern antibiotics and do not respond to treatment. Furthermore, the tests also revealed that some of the watches had strains of E.coli. Though most species of E.coli are harmless, some of them can cause severe bloody diarrhea and abdominal cramps.

Allergies

Another interesting piece of news is that over 10,000 people have complained to the “Consumer Product Safety Commission” in the United States claiming that their smartwatches are giving them rashes. This was even acknowledged by the manufacturer Fitbit who recalled a million units of their product and provided replacements. The company claimed that the adhesive that they had used in the strap had caused allergic reactions in their sensitive customers. Much like how the metal Nickle causes some people’s skin to turn green.

Electrical Shocks

Hundreds of people claim that their smartwatches have shocked them. This is especially dangerous with people living with prosthetics that use electronics in them- like pacemakers and hearing aids. Chris nelson is one such user who claims that his smartwatch shocked him, Lauren Reese is another smartwatch user who suffered burns from wearing her smartwatch.

People have commented that it is safer to wear fit bits on one’s leg as it is a bit farther from the heart.

The Radiation

Anytime that you are communicating with a piece of technology wirelessly you are in the presence of Radio waves. Some people are more sensitive to them than others with 3-5% of us very sensitive to Electromagnetic waves. In 2007 the scientific panel “BioInitiative Working Group” recommended that for a radio frequency to be safe it needs to be around 100-1000 microwatts, and less than 10 microwatts in areas where you sleep.  However independent testers have revealed that certain Bluetooth-enabled products can produce around 8000 microwatts when they are being used.

Smartwatches these days all come with heart-rate monitors. Users have reported developing red marks where the sensors make contact with the skin. These monitors record blood flow by flashing an infrared light over your skin constantly. What is more, hundreds of users have reported that their smartwatches are burning them. It is shown that smartwatches produce 2.4GHz of radiation which is around the same as that of a weak microwave. But a smartwatch is a lot closer to our skin and stays there for a significantly longer duration.  The choice is simple really. There will always be a significant amount of radiation around us at all times. If you wanted to make that little difference in your life and get rid of the smartwatch then it is your choice.

Privacy concerns

Smartwatches are devices that know how many steps you have taken in a day, they know where you are at any given time and they know details of your body that are alien to even yourself, and we have not even scratched the surface of what these devices are capable of.

With so much data being produced and given away the idea of privacy is almost nonexistent. It has been so ever since the introduction of the smartphone. However, giving the internet access to details such as your blood pressure seems a bit too sketchy.

With this information a hacker can know when you wake up, where you go to work, the route you take in your morning jog, and much much more. These wearables are telling the world your most intimate and personal data.

The Problem of Self-Diagnosis

This has been a growing concern ever since people got access to heart rate monitors and ECGs in their smartwatches. A person’s heartbeat can differ from time to time depending on the external factors that he or she is in the immediate vicinity of.  People start panicking when their watch shows that something is irregular in their heartbeat and make an appointment with a specialist. Which prevents the specialist from seeing another patient who might actually need help.

In Conclusion

A worker at Apple once said that they made smartwatches for lazy people who were too lazy to pick up their phones. In this new age, people fail to realize that we lived very fulfilling lives even before smartwatches. People lived very happily without having access or knowing about these readings. In the end, it is not the gadget that makes your life easier, we only assume it makes our life easier.