Hardware Features of Selected Smartwatches

Using wireless communications links (Wi-Fi or Bluetooth), smartwatches connect to a smartphone, host system, or the Internet. Wi-Fi is a short range (typically hundreds of feet) system that typically covers the network operators own property, and is often used by end users like us to access our own home or school network. Bluetooth is primary used for very short distance (limited to 33 feet) connection such as between a computer and its peripheral devices like keyboard, mouse, phones, and printers. While both being wireless technologies, Bluetooth connects special purpose device over very short distance, such as between a cellphone and its wireless headphones or a paired smartwatch; in contrast, Wi-Fi provides faster data transfer rates thus is used for more general purpose connections between computers and networks (Steinberg, 2015).

I compared 4 popular smartwatches that use different operating systems: Apple Watch Series 2, Samsung Gear S3, Huawei Watch, and Pebble 2 (Table 1). I also compared the processor, RAM, storage, battery life, and some other hardware features based on published data (Carte, 2016).

Different smartwatches run on different operating systems. Android Wear, which operates the Huawei Watch, is the most common operating system among smartwatches and it’s compatible with both iPhone and Android smartphones. Apple Watch uses Apple Watch OS and is only compatible with iPhone. Samsung and Pebble have their own operating systems for their smartwatches: Samsung Gear S3 uses Tizen, and Pebble 2 uses Pebble Firmware.

Not all manufactures disclose the speed of their processors, which reflect the overall performance of the smartwatches. The faster the processors’ speed, the faster the watch, and the more quickly it is able to complete a function the user requested. Most of the smartwatches have a speed slightly over 1 GHz.

RAM, or random access memory, is used by the smartwatches to multitask and handle several operations at once, such as counting steps while playing music. The larger the amount of memory, the better the smartwatch is at handling multiple tasks at once. Most smartwatches have an average of 512 MB of RAM, which is slow compared to smartphones with 3GB of RAM on average. Apple Watch has 1000 MB RAM, while Pebble only has 0.256 MB of RAM. The smaller RAM in smartwatches means that they can only handle simpler operations and run operations more slowly compared to the smartphones.

The average storage capacity for a smartwatch is 4GB. But, for smartwatches, the amount of storage isn’t critical because most information is pushed to the smartphone. Apple Watch Series 2 has 8 GB of storage capacity, while Pebble 2 can hold only 0.01 GB of data.

One of the biggest issues with smartwatches is that the batteries within them don’t last long before we have to recharge them. The average battery life is about 1 to 2 days at most. For the Apple Watch Series 2 and Huawei Watch the battery life only last for 1.5 days. For the Samsung Gear S3 the battery life last for 3 days. Pebble 2 battery life lasts the longest with 10 days. Pebble 2 has very small RAM and storage space, suggesting that it’s not designed to provide many sophisticated functions. As a result, its battery can power it for longer period of time. In contrast, smartwatches provide many sophisticated apps and multimedia functions require faster processor, more RAM and greater storage space, therefore more batter power to operate would have reduced battery life.

Smart watches are an emerging technology. The technical challenges include constraints due to smaller screen size resulting in more restricted input/output, and their smaller room for hardware resulting in weaker computing capability, as well as more limited battery capacity.