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The perfect design, features and durability
As we mark the beginning of a new era in wearable devices, the smartwatch rat race has well and truly begun.
From early Kickstarter projects to visceral time pieces by leading tech powerhouses, it's an open fight with everyone trying to architect the perfect solution to a consumer demand which is near impossible to define or establish.
Some are building watches that serve as a digital companion to smartphones. Other smartwatch makers find that whole idea irritating and quite off-putting. Instead, they want a cool fashion accessory that's still modest in its pricing, tells the time (obviously) and has a built-in fitness tracker, with an option to tie in to third-party apps as well.
Design, UI, battery life, class of apps, features, functionality and pricing are all factors to be heavily considered when purchasing the next wrist candy. With so many players in the field and everyone seemingly doing one or two things really well, we asked ourselves, what would make the ultimate smartwatch?
In a fun experiment, we've taken a look at the current smartwatches on the market right now and picked the best features from each to see if we could create our own perfect smartwatch. Of course this device will never come to be, but a tech site can dream, right?
Design
From where we stand, a smartwatch should look like a watch. It needs to feel like one and behave like one. What we don't want is an overblown bulky plastic piece made with cheap material taking up precious wrist real estate (and making our friends turn away with an "I don't know this person" look).
Fortunately, all the current smartwatches look the part and, depending on your specific tastes, there's one for just about every style/all tastes out there.
But for our money, the Moto 360 is by far the most stylish and sleekest smartwatch on market right now.
Its luxurious look and comfortable form factor is exactly what we feel a contemporary smartwatch should look like.
Sporting a stainless shell, which comes in both silver and black, it boasts a stunning 1.65-inch circular display, weighing in just 1.7 ounces.
While the disappointments centering around the poor battery life might be a deal breaker for many, the hardware team at Motorola have done an impressive job in crafting this elegant timepiece, which more than makes up for the lame battery life.
Features
It's been intriguing to see the journey smartwatch companies have taken to tell their story to the public. But there's a common theme running through most big-time smartwatches' narratives: fitness.
Apple has focused much of its Apple Watch efforts on fitness and it stands head and shoulders above the competition in terms of what it offers for gym rats and fitness fanatics. Barring a GPS tracker, Apple has covered every corner within the health and fitness sector and its hard to see anyone bettering it.
Android Wear and Pebble both offer third-party fitness apps such as Fitbit, Nike Fuel and Jawbone, plus many more.
Fitness is an untapped market for consumers and a huge unique selling point for manufacturers. For years, major sports companies like Nike and Adidas have failed to capitalize in creating sport watches or sports bands without making much of a dent, despite numerous attempts, so it's good to see the first generation of smartwatches come with an impressive set of fitness features and apps.
Notifications are an important feature to any smartwatch user, and controlling the amount you receive and monitoring them seamlessly are arguably the most important functions of a smartwatch. Users simply don't want to be interrupted every second with an insignificant notification, and we'd like to have the option to switch them on and off with minimum fuss.
Android Wear and Pebble have done commendable jobs in providing notification settings on the watch which are easy to use and enable users to customize what they would like to receive. Notifications on the Apple Watch can only be controlled by your iPhone which could be an issue for consumers. Having to pull your phone out every time to disable Tweets can become tiresome.
A feature that doesn't get much mention during smartphone discussions is music.
To have the ability to pair Bluetooth headphones to your watch and play your favorite tracks is an underrated gem. With podcasts, radio and third party streaming apps such as Spotify all available as well, it means the experience is greatly enhanced. If this can be done without eating into the battery then even better.
Combine that with any of the numerous fitness apps and you've got a pretty awesome work out audio kit. No need to lug your phone or MP3 player and no more tangled wires.
This is where Apple really excels and provides great value.
Durability
Smartwatches are expensive. Purchasing a case to prevent damage from wear and tear like you can for phones and tablets is possible, but who wants to wrap their sleek smartwatch in a bulk-adding case? Still, the last thing we want is to have to go back to the retailer asking for a replacement because of a cracked screen or broken strap (believe me, this will happen).
What we want is something robust and durable that has the capacity to go the distance.
Some watches might promote themselves as water resistant but very are genuinely water proof.
The Pebble Time is one such wearable that you can actually go swimming with, while the Sony Smartwatch 3 is the most durable Android Wear device. So much so, that you are able to use it under water continuously for 30 minutes.
If we had to choose though, we'd say the Sony Smartwatch 3 wins out with durability. You can't go wrong with the Pebble Time either, though, proving some smartwatches are getting the durability piece right.
The perfect battery life, apps and price
Battery life
A problem that's been difficult to solve for many manufacturers thus far and a pain point for consumers is the lack of a decent battery life on smartwatches. It can really spoil the experience of any device, but especially something you have to - and want to - wear and use all day long.
Engineering a battery to be baked in to a small device is no easy feat, but that doesn't mean we should settle for something less. And there are watches on the market that do offer exceptional battery life.
Case in point: Activité by Withings prides itself with a staggering eight month battery life. Not only that, they throw in an extra battery when the eight months are up. No charging docks here.
The next best battery life belongs to the Pebble Steel, which can last up to a week. It's hard to beat eight months though, so the Activité takes this crown.
Apps
When choosing a smartwatch, your decision ultimately comes down to what smartphone you own.
Obviously, the Apple Watch will only work with iPhone and Android Wear watches only with Android. The battle for ecosystem supremacy between Apple and Google means your choice could be limited.
Only if there was a smartwatch that work with both … wait, the Pebble does!
Pebble smartwatch is compatible with iOS and Android and will be launching its own App store very soon.
The Apple Watch and Android Wear smartwatches are fairly strong when it comes apps, be it the pre-installed apps or third party. Apple Watch and Android Wear both have over 3,000, while the Pebble has over 1,000.
What's more, the developer community will give both ecosystems the app advantage compared to, say, Pebble or Windows.
But because the Pebble is compatible with iOS and Android, it lets more users in, no matter what smartphone is in their pockets.
However it does come a caveat. Apple Watch runs Watch OS alongside iOS and apps require data to be pulled of a connected iPhone, not the watch itself, which means there's a visible lag when loading apps, but as a whole the class of apps currently available are impressive and more than meet our needs.
Android Wear's watch faces are great fun and the Pebble Watch has a lead on the two with its iOS and Android compatibility.
A difficult one to call but we think the the Apple Watch just shades with its impressive class of pre-installed apps.
Price
Its difficult to establish what would be considered a reasonable price for a smartwatch.
Hovering around the $230 (about £152, AU$293) mark seems like a good bet and great value for money.
Apple charging a luxury product for $17,000 (£13,500, AU$24,000) seems great business sense from the companies point of view but for consumers, purchasing the Sports version for $349 (£299, AU$499) containing the same features makes much more business sense.
The prices for Android Wear watches range around $250 (about £165, AU$319). The popular Moto 360 is priced at $249 (£200, AU$328) and have are now cheaper in the States for the basic straps, while the Samsung Gear Live is $260.
Final thoughts
Let's recap: our ultimate smartwatch would have the design of the Moto 360, the apps of the Apple Watch and the compatibility of Pebble.
Battery life will always be an issue for the perfect smartwatch but it seems Withings and once again, Pebble have a good handle on it - however neither watch have that lovely display we'd all like.
Features are also a department where one watch brand will have it and another is sorely lacking. Google, Pebble, Samsung and Apple have a nice array of fitness and notification systems, but none have the killer feature to make their smartwatches truly stand out.
Like we said before, this watch will never be made, but who knows? Perhaps smartwatch makers will be inspired to improve the parts of their smartwacthes that are lacking and celebrate the parts we found exemplary. It's still a new area and we're seeing better and better wearables every year.
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