Ask Slashdot: What Features Belong In a 'Smartwatch'?

Nerval's Lobster writes "If the rumors are true, and Apple is indeed hard at work on a newfangled timepiece (dubbed the 'iWatch'), what unique features could such a device offer a public already overloaded with all sorts of handheld devices? Answer that question, and you're perhaps one step closer to figuring out why Apple — again, if the rumors are true — decided to devote millions of dollars and the precious hours of some very smart people in the effort. This article suggests voice control (via Siri), biometrics, mobile payments, and other possible features, but there must be loads of others that someone could think up."

Comments

Time?

[addie]

Hopefully the ability to accurately tell time. But with the way phones these days work at making calls, I won't hold out much hope.

The whole idea of an iWatch just gives me a headache.

Re:Time?

[JustOK]

You're wearing it wrong.

Re:Time?

[gstoddart]

All I know is that the reported iPhone time is generally anywhere from a couple of seconds to over a minute off the time reported from an NTP-synced computer.

I can't speak to an iPhone, but I know my cell phone takes its time from the actual carrier.

So it's well within the bounds of reason that yours is doing the same -- and if your carrier is using a clock which is slightly different from your NTP-synced computer, that could account for the drift.

One of the things that's really nice about that, is when I travel it picks up local time and I don't need to set it.

And, slightly more on topic ... I'm clearly not the target market for this product. I can't figure out why I'd want a voice activated watch, or biometrics, or mobile payments on my watch. Then again, I wouldn't want those features on my cell phone either. This just feels like one of those technology for the sake of it products.

I'm sure there's features a lot of people will say are the coolest ever and be willing to plunk down money for it. Me, I prefer a device meant to do one thing well instead of 10 things half-assed -- which is why I own actual cameras, music players, and GPS nav units instead of something which kinda does most of those things.

It's cool in a Dick Tracy kind of way, but I prefer my watches to just be watches.

Of course, I'm sure "hey baby, want to see my iWatch" would be an awesome pickup line. So there is that. ;-)

But, as much as I absolutely hate the term, the iWatch and iPhone combo seems like it would be a flashing sign that says "hipster douchebag".

Re:Time?

[Obfuscant]

Sony came out with this kind of thing several years ago for the Ericsson phones, called Liveview. It was basically a remote display for the phone using bluetooth. I bought one assuming it would work on Android phones in general, and of course it didn't.

It was supposed to support things like Facebook and show you email alerts, along with being a basic watch. It came with a watchband and a clip housing, one of which (I forget which) completely covered the USB charging port and you had to pop it out to plug it in. It was almost working as a watch, but the limited button UI was a mess and difficult to remember/use.

Interesting concept, poor implementation.

What is most important is that it show the time (synced to the local phone network so it is accurate). Second would be incoming SMS/email (so you don't have to pull a phone out of your pocket to get messages.) Music player control. It has to have an inductive charger plus a standard USB, so you can recharge it away from home or just drop it on the charging pad at night when you aren't.

Re:Time?

[Anonymous Coward]

You must mumble, because I don't have a problem whenever I've asked Siri the time.

That's so odd. When I ask "Siri, do you have the time?" I always get "Not for a man like you."

Re:Time?

[dintech]

Considering their track record with DST changes affecting alarms, especially around iOS updates, I don't trust Apple to make a timepiece you can rely on.

Re:Time?

[Rude Turnip]

I have a phone for telling time. I'd want a watch that does something different.

Re:Time?

[Snotnose]

I can't speak to an iPhone, but I know my cell phone takes its time from the actual carrier.

If you have CDMA your phone needs to be within something like 10 milliseconds of the carrier's time. I imagine GSM has similar requirements.

Re:Time?

[alen]

Take a look at Nike fuelband and pebble smartwatch

It's a watch, biking computer, biometric device, you use it while working out, etc

It's for people who do more than sit in front of computer screens all day and night

Re:Time?

[JonBoy47]

Or here: http://manuals.info.apple.com/en_US/iphone_user_guide.pdf From pg. 138: "Set whether iPhone updates the date and time automatically: Go to Settings > General > Date & Time, then turn Set Automatically on or off. If you set iPhone to update the time automatically, it gets the correct time over the cellular network and updates it for the time zone you’re in. Some carriers don’t support network time, so in some areas iPhone may not be able to automatically determine the local time.

Re:Time?

[dgatwood]

The time stamp used in CDMA packets doesn't have anything to do with the OS-level system clock. You certainly could synchronize the system clock to a time value provided by the cellular chipset, but there's no inherent reason that you must do so. The time being shown on the phone's screen could say 3:00 last year and it still wouldn't affect telephony. :-)

Re:Time?

[c 0xFF]

And therefore you manage it yourself.

The problem is if you trust your watch to do the right thing, but then it turns around and messes up. That's worse than just doing it yourself.

working GPS and maps....

[who_stole_my_kidneys]

it should work better than a compass , If im in the woods it should be able to tell me where i am and how to get home if Im lost. and a incredibly long battery life.

Chemical sensors

[i kan reed]

I would love sciency things like being able to determine ozone levels, pH of the air, nitrogen/oxygen mix, alcohol detection. But that's why I'm not in charge of choosing sensors for phones.

Bluetooth!

[bobthesungeek76036]

Everything is better with Bluetooth!

Companion handset

[Lije Baley]

A good smart watch needs a bluetooth handset that looks like an ordinary cell phone. You could use it for voice calls, so as not to look like "that dork talking into his Dick Tracy wrist phone".
But I suppose people talking to their wrists would at least be slightly less annoying than the bluetooth earpiece people who are indistinguishable from the mentally ill when encountered on a city sidewalk.

Re:Companion handset

[hawguy]

Has something been done to reduce bluetooth device power consumption? Otherwise it's going to make for a large, geeky watch.

Any watch with a screen large enough and bright enough to be useful is going to be a large, geeky watch with short battery life.

How about a SPY WATCH?

[dav1dc]

How about some James Bond-esc features, like a: laser cutter, knife, garrote wire, etc. ??

^_^

I want my Dick Tracy watch

[Earl The Squirrel]

I want a souped up Dick Tracy watch... with not just a speaker, but video... like this

A battery that doesn't suck.

[dclozier]

Maybe I could live with charging it weekly but on a daily basis? forget it.

Re:A battery that doesn't suck.

[Xphile101361]

Thinking too small. My body generates heat, the watch is attached to my body. Heat can be turned into energy. I want this to suck the heat from my body (much like my soul) and charge itself.

Re:A battery that doesn't suck.

[hawguy]

Thinking too small. My body generates heat, the watch is attached to my body. Heat can be turned into energy. I want this to suck the heat from my body (much like my soul) and charge itself.

The problem is temperature differential -- you only have about 15 degrees C different between body temperature and room temperature, plus there's not much surface area to collect heat, nor much opportunity to build an effective heatsink to dissipate it. And if you go outside on a warm day or wear a jacket over your arm, then most or all of the temperature differential is gone.

You might be able to power an old-school LCD display watch with that little power, but not a smart-phone-in-a-watch.

Has to last longer than a smartphone

[93 Escort Wagon]

If I have to charge a watch every day, I'm not going to be using one.

I stopped wearing a watch when I started carrying a cellphone, so I'm not 100% sure I'd use one of these smart watches anyway - but I must admit some of the ideas I occasionally hear floating around this idea do intrigue me. However the existing smart watches don't impress me at all - not really enough bang for the buck.

eInk

[Anonymous Coward]

I think an e-Ink screen is an absolute must. You'll be looking at your watch often in broad sunlight, and with e-Ink, the screen could be on all the time and not take much power when it's idling.

Re:eInk

[Anubis IV]

Focus on features instead of implementation. What you want is a watch that can be read in the sun and uses as little power as possible. eInk does that decently well, but it also has to refresh in a rather distracting way (which is what's kept me from supporting devices like the CST-01 on Kickstarter). For a company as design-driven as Apple, I'd hope that they'd start with a feature and figure out how to make the technology work how they want (including inventing new technology when necessary), rather than starting with a technology and going from there, as you have.

NTP

[RandomFactor]

I mean really, it is a time piece after all...

It's not standalone

[Bogtha]

A smart watch only really makes sense as a convenient interface to a more powerful machine. The features important to it are therefore input and output, along with a connection to your phone. So a display, a microphone, and a button are the obvious ones. A smart watch will probably have fewer features than a non-smart watch.

Re:It's not standalone

[thammoud]

I wonder what you need to do on a plane.

Multiple devices

[gmuslera]

A separate bluetooth headset should take care of the phone interaction. I would put sensors there (at very least, for pulse), as a small screeen for displaying fast information (time, weather, notifications, playlist controls, etc, and a "remote desktop" for your real phone, that could be big enough to not have it always in your hand.

Phones are getting big, maybe splitting the interaction with several separate devices could be the way (and yes, something similar to Google Glass could be in the kitchen too)

Medical uses

[Okian Warrior]

How about a self-contained package which holds all of the wearer's medical records? (Yes, sort out the security issues first.)

How about continuous monitoring of heart rate, blood oxygenation, and temperature?

Rather than go to the doctor "with a fever", the doctor could tell if the fever was low-grade, "spiky", how long it has been going on, &c. Perhaps the specific fever character could be used to disambiguate between certain diseases. A patient could tell if the fever was only certain times of the day (allergic to something at work?) or in certain places.

Blood-oxygenation monitoring and heartrate could be used to diagnose sleep apnea, tell how much exercise the person is getting. Motion monitoring could diagnose sleep disorders.

iFisting

[Hognoxious]

Apple fanboi 1: take your ring off, it's scratching my bunghole!
Apple fanboi 2: I'm not wearing a ring.
Apple fanboi 1: OK, take your watch off!

Re:iFisting

[Dishevel]

My idea of a "Smart Watch" would be one that
A) Tells the time.
B) Just big enough to see the time easily.
C) Stopwatch function.
D) Able to see it in the dark.
E) WTF? Nothing else.

Fucking Apple.

microUSB mass storage

[fermion]

Although I understand and support Apple's dock connector(historically USB was unreliable and slow, so a combined USB firewire port was great for many of us) USB is sufficient now, and the proprietary connector seems a bit outdated. I would hope that Apple would put a simple micro USB. It wold be a good mass storage device.

Re:The ability to run any app you want

[gstoddart]

So the ultimate killer feature would be the ability to use any app from any source, without restriction.

I think we all know the iWatch, if it ever exists, won't do that.

Of course, no other device does this now, so you're kind putting a high bar for Apple.

Would a Microsoft phone/watch/OS run stuff from Android, Apple, mainframes and the old Amiga? All without restriction? Would an Android watch let you run Windows and iOS apps? You could wait for the Linux watch, but it would be hard to find drivers for it and the only place to get help would be an IRC chatroom where everybody says "RTFM n00b".

What you're asking for doesn't exist now, so why should it exist as a watch?

But, fear not -- everybody else will wait and see if Apple succeeds with this, then come out with the inevitable "me too" products, each with their own warts and features. They'll all specifically exclude each other's software, and only work with their own phones.

The Microsoft watch will need to be rebooted weekly, the Linux watch will run forever but with ugly fonts, and the Android watch will be smug in the fact that it's neither Microsoft nor Apple, but the carriers will customize it and refuse to release updates for it. ;-)

Software freedom philosophies notwithstanding, entities like Microsoft and Apple are never going to play nicely by design. They're competing, and that doesn't make for a situation where the consumer gets to choose "all of the above".

None

[Coward Anonymous]

I stopped wearing a watch over a decade ago (years before I had a mobile phone) and have never missed it. There are so many clocks around most of us there is no need for a watch.

I for one hope I won't be forced to wear one again in a world requiring them for payments.

Re:Small display + Siri is the key

[nospam007]

" But with Siri -- especially as Siri improves -- you don't need any buttons at all."

Talk to the hand.

Great.

Instantly readable display

[Goonie]

The only point of a device like this is that it gives you a UI that doesn't require fishing through a pocket or handbag. However, pretty much all smart watches have foundered because the screens couldn't display enough useful information beyond the time, and the buttons were too small and fiddly to be convenient. Is there enough useful information that you don't want to fish out your smartphone for that you'd be prepared to get one of these? I dunno. Short messages (SMS, Twitter), appointment notifications, some of the location specific stuff proposed on the Google Goggles video maybe. And it's a bit less creepy than Google Goggles, too.

I have one already

[BetaDays]

I have a Motoactv that is now defunct, thanks to Google only wanting the patents off of Motorola. It's a great device it's an MP3 player, exercise tracker that ties into a heart rate monitor or cadence sensor for biking, displays calories burned and number of steps taken in a day, It's got golf courses on it so you can see the distance stuff needed to play and keep your scores (I don't play golf), it has a GPS to show your route (wish it was more interactive on what you can do other than just see your you just ran) and the statistics that it keeps for your workouts. When tired into the website (it also has a android app) I can see exactly where I was on a map and show what my heart rate was, what song I was listening to at that moment, speed of my run, elevation of where I was. It tells time to. But it doesn't have an alarm clock also it doesn't vibrate, during workouts there is a coach that gives you information it's an electronic voice (a nice female sounding voice) , The device allows you to also race yourself with tones of if your running better or slower against your last workout. It's Bluetooth enabled so you can use Bluetooth headphones and also for notifications from the phone - weather, facebook, etc. Also has the ability to have a corded headphones if you want and you can then also use it as a radio. It's water resistant so a run in the rain is not a problem, wish it was water proof. Also it has to be charged every day. I really love it. I'm just said that once it dies I will not be able to get a replacement, although there are other ones that are out there that have gps and tie into online exercise communities they don't have an mp3 player built in. I do wish the battery lasted longer but when I'm not running I'm sitting at my computer so I let it charge then.
https://motoactv.com
Google if you read this please don't kill this device I would love to buy a version 2 when the battery dies. Oh the battery is not replaceable either.

It should replace other items

[roc97007]

A smart watch should replace one or more devices I'm required to carry with me, not add to the geek loadout. For instance, if it can do the things my phone currently can do, including provide hotspot for tablet or laptop, and do it well enough that my phone can stay home, then it would be a sought after item. (For me at least.) Bonus points if it has well-integrated, easy to use 2 way TV capability, as I've wanted to own a Dick Tracy watch since I was a kid. But if it's just a bluetooth appliance that talks to other devices that I also must carry, then fail.

What I suspect we will actually see is a device that interacts with your ipod and iphone and ipad and ilaptop and doesn't provide any unique capabilities or information. It'll be an alpha-geek toy of limited usefulness but supreme bragging rights. Yawn. Just another reason for me to steer clear of the Apple store on launch day.

Capacity to Find Cell Phone

[LionKimbro]

One of the biggest advantage of a watch, is that it is practically ALWAYS on your body.

So it should have a virtual button somewhere, to ** ring your cell phone ** for you, so that you can find it.