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Google Reportedly Making a Smartwatch, Too
judgecorp writes "With Samsung and (reportedly) Apple already making smartwatches, Google has now joined the party, according to a (paywalled) report in the Financial Times. The Google Watch is apparently being made by the Android group, and could have some synergy with Google's other wearable tech — the Glass spectacles. The distinctive thing in Google's patent seems to be having two displays — one for public data and a flip-up one for more private stuff."
I'm trying to grok the distinction between a phone and a watch that makes a phone a legitimate tool and a watch idiotic. Obviously, if the weight or battery life is sufficiently poor, there's a real problem for a watch, but other than that, what's the difference?
I can think of lots of applications for a device attached to your body, and telling time is far down on that list.
(Since I work mostly within view of computers I haven't worn a watch in my professional life ever. Nowadays with smartphones, the need is even less.)
Can bone conduction work with a watch-like device? You could hear your phone ring without disturbing anyone else, and if you could identify the ringtone you could tell how important the call is.
Would body measurements be useful? Heartbeat, temperature and blood oxygenation seem obvious. Would it help your doctor rule out certain diseases to know the characteristics of the fever - spiky/continuous, low/high level, exact date of onset?
Could the device make fitness measurements? Tell how much exercise you're getting per week, let you know when to get out more and which type of exercise best meets your goals?
If there's an embedded accelerometer, can the instrument detect tossing/turning at night? With the blood oxygenation, could it detect sleep apnea? Snoring? Other sleep disorders?
Could the device detect dust levels in the manner of a [non-radioactive] smoke detector? Would this be useful for people to monitor their allergies?
I once worked with a scientist at Berman Gund laboratories (Boston) who was amazed [at the time] that you could put a microprocessor on a lanyard connected to a light sensor mounted on the patient's eyeglasses. He wanted to see if the progression of Retinitis Pigmentosa correlated with the amount of light entering the patient's eyes.
Light sensors are now cheap and tiny.
Does the amount of light in a user's environment correlate with depression? With SAD? Does fluorescent light correlate with depression? Does brightness matter or total daily duration?
Will it have a GPS receiver? Could it display an arrow and distance information?
Lots of applications here. Telling time is almost an afterthought.