Introduction

A smartwatch is a computing device that resembles a wristwatch and is attached to a band worn around your wrist. In the last century, the wristwatch replaced the pocket watch as a more convenient device to get at time information quickly (Darmwal, 2015). Thus, it is no surprise smartwatches are the most popular and useful type of wearable devices, with hundreds of affordable models already available in the marketplace. Smart watches have been used to support health in everyday living by self-monitoring of personal activity, obtaining feedback based on activity measures, identifying patterns of behavior, and supporting bi-directional communication with health care providers and family members. In this paper, I gave an overview of popular smartwatches and selected apps, evaluated the effectiveness of using smartwatches to improve health and wellness, and discussed some of the social, security, and ethical issues involved.

Background

The first digital watch was the Hamilton Pulsar P1(Kim, K. J., & Shin, D., 2015). This watch was created by Seiko, a Japanese company, and was the very first digital watch to reach the market. In May 2012, the Pebble, one of the first companies manufacturing smartwatches, had one of the most successful campaigns in the history of crowd funding at the time. They raised more than 10 million dollars in 30 days to fund the development. The Pebble story is evidence of a huge market demand for such technology (Price, 2014).

Hamilton Pulsar P1, first digital watch. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsar_(watch)