How to pick a perfect Smartwatch India 2023

You might be thinking there are 2 types of smartwatch segment: Smartwatch and Smartband.

But that is not the truth, apart from these, smartwatches have other categories too.

1. General-purpose smartwatch: These smartwatches are used as daily drivers. Offers Fitness, Notifications, GPS, Remote phone options, and a few other options on your wrist. But these are not made to do a specific task like fitness or satellite tracking and that’s why they are called General purpose watches. Ex. Apple/Samsung watches.
2. Fitness Focused: The main purpose of these watches is to track daily fitness and record overall health data. It can help you check your Heart rate, Sleep quality, Blood Oxygen stats. These are also capable of offering a few mobile notifications too. Ex. Fitbit/Garmin.
3. GPS Watches: These watches are made for travelers for navigation and routing purposes. With the help of Global positioning, it helps them find their way.
4. Hybrid Smartwatch: These watches may look like a classical watch but they are packed with all the smartwatch features. Ex. TicWatch3/Casio watch.
5. Budget Watches/Fitness Bands: These are general-purpose watches/bands with limited functionalities. Offers nearly accurate fitness tracking, phone notifications, some remote operations like camera, music control, remote calling, and find my phone-like options. *The market is flooded with only these kinds of bands and smartwatches.

I hope, now you have an idea what kind of smartwatch you are looking for and “how to pick a perfect smartwatch”. But it’s not over here. Without knowing the features and functionality you won’t be able to choose the perfect watch.

so “Picture Abhi Baki hai mere dost”, above things are not enough to judge a watch, those are just a few aesthetics-related things, Now let’s go deeper.

Now you are getting thought to kill me, like what Mayank, seriously. Is it going to impact my watch experience?

Stop writing these lengthy “Gyan wale articles”, hahaha

But my dear this is the truth, “Jo dikhta hai wohi bikta h” in English “what sells is sold”. Now let me explain how.

Answer me a question first: To run your watch for a longer time, what do you need? Of course a charger. Seriously, Poor joke.

You need a longer battery, and a longer battery can only be achieved by a low battery-consuming screen.  Now you question me, why just screen? Because all the other components than the screen used to build your smartwatch consume only 30 to 40% of the total battery charge. Because they are small in size and do not radiate as much energy (light/heat) as your screen does.

I’m not going very deep but give you a general idea about displays. And then you will understand displays better.

1. LCD: This is known as Liquid Crystal Display, this display works on light modulating properties of liquid crystals which are sandwiched between 2 glass layers. These produce average picture quality with low color contrast and sharpness. This display type consumes the most power as compared to other display types.

2. LED: You might have heard this term being used with mobile phones and TV displays and with light bulbs too. Basically, this display type uses many small Light Emitting Diodes to form a visual on the screen. This offers better colors, high brightness, good image quality while consuming less power.
3. OLED: OLED is an Organic LED display. They may sound like LED displays but these can produce deep blacks, best contrast, and picture quality. These displays use less battery and offer longer watch usage.

4. AMOLED: AMOLED is a type of enhanced OLED display. And named Active Matrix OLED. Where each and every pixel is controlled by a separate controller. Hence these displays offer Always On Display features too. So if you are looking for “AOD” consider this display type with your watch. These are the best among all the display types.

So these are the most popular display options in the market used with Smartwatches. Now let’s move towards the fitness sensors and their types.

4. Fitness sensors

Sensors are the most important part of any electronic device to perform reactions based on different actions. Like showing a high heart rate alert when you are running fast.

There are the following types of sensors that can be present on your watch, depending upon watch type, size, and price segment.

1. Heart Rate Sensor: This is a very basic sensor that is available on each and every smartwatch today. Basically, it detects your heart rate with the help of light being absorbed by the circulating blood.
2. SPO2 sensor: After CoVid this sensor is in very high demand. It detects the oxygen level of the pulsating blood and alerts you when lower than a certain level.
3. GPS sensor: This sensor is being used to track your location records during various exercise modes like outdoor running, cycling, etc. There are two kinds of GPS being used on smartwatches. 1. Assisted: means it uses the phone’s GPS to track. 2. Dedicated: this means the watch has its own standalone GPS sensor on the motherboard to track location. It is very useful in those conditions when you don’t want to carry your phone on outdoor sports.
4. Pedometer: After the Heart rate and SPO2 sensors, this is also a must-have sensor on a smartwatch. It helps you track down your footsteps accurately and reminds you regarding daily walking goals and distance covered in different sports modes.
5. ECG: It is known as an electrocardiogram, and is used to check your heart’s rhythm and electrical activities. This sensor comes under the premium segment and is offered by a few limited brands like Samsung and Apple, etc.
6. Temperature sensor: This is a newly introduced sensor after the CoVid. Basically, this sensor gives details about your body’s skin temperature. And this can also alarm you about unusual or high temperatures.
7. Sleep monitoring: This is not a standalone sensor, rather a mixture of HR, SPO2, and Gyroscope (pedometer) sensors. All these sensors detect body movements, REM, deep sleep, light sleep information based on body movements during sleep. While SPO2 and HR measure your pulse rate and Oxygen levels to alarm you if required.

Note: All these sensors are not very accurate and can’t be used for medical purposes. These can only deliver you reference data, for accuracy you always need to visit a doctor.

Now I have covered all the technical data which is very important to look at when you are thinking “How to pick a perfect smartwatch?”

Now here are a few more points that also affect overall smartwatch performance.