You might be wondering “what does a smartwatch do?” This is an interesting question, especially given the high cost of many smartwatches.
Smartwatches are, at their most basic level, an extension of smartphones. They offer notifications, take calls from your wrist, let you use apps, and tell the time. However, the main advantage of a connected watch is that you wear it almost all the time. Wearers of smartwatches can now connect in a way that has never been possible before.
This still active function has major consequences for the lives of watch users, including their health.
Live a healthier life
Here are 11 ways smartwatches can help you live a healthier life:
1. Follow your steps
Taking 10,000 steps a day is one of the easiest ways to improve your health and increase your activity level. Smartwatches have built-in pedometers, making it easy to check the number of steps you have taken. While the accuracy of these pedometers is questionable, whether you are moving around to achieve your step goal is what matters most.
2. Monitor your sleep
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), more than a third of people in the United States sleep less than 7 hours a night. Not getting enough sleep for an extended period of time can be harmful to the body. When worn at night, smartwatches can monitor sleep patterns. They can tell you how many hours of sleep you get and how many hours of undisturbed sleep you get.
While this sleep data isn’t a substitute for a professional sleep study, it can help you uncover trends and set goals to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep.
3. Keep a diary of your diet and calories
Another feature that health conscious people love about smartwatches is the ability to monitor their diet. Everyone loves to eat, and it’s easy to get sidetracked while doing so. Your wristwatch can give you alerts that will remind you of your fitness goals.
Apps on smart watches can also track and record your calorie consumption. Some even contain preprogrammed data on the number of calories in a serving of a specific meal. Wearing a wristwatch can help you exercise and lose weight safely.
4. Reminders to train
We all know we should exercise, but making it a habit is often the hardest part. Setting exercise reminders is a great approach to converting an idea into a habit. The advantage of a reminder on a smartwatch on a smartphone is that it is harder to ignore.
If you don’t have your phone with you, it’s easy to miss a reminder, but a smartwatch will vibrate on your wrist, alerting you that it’s time to hit the gym.
5. Stopwatches and timers
Timers and stopwatches are very useful for runners, swimmers and cyclists. While this is not a new feature for smartwatches, it has been accessible on digital watches for years. Facer users allow users to take it a step further and use a digital chronograph face on watches like the Apple Watch 6.
6. Act as a safety device
Smartwatches can also be used as a kind of security device. Your wristwatch can serve as a beacon for loved ones and rescuers to find you if necessary. In addition, smartwatches with apps send alerts when the user is inactive for an extended period of time or may have fallen. So, not only do they keep you in shape, but they also ensure your health from a safety point of view.
7. Music streaming
It is easier to work out while listening to music. You might have your favorite songs on your smartphone, but working out with a big phone can be annoying sometimes. Many smartwatches allow you to install a small selection of your favorite music directly into the watch without having to use your smartphone. When used with bluetooth headphones, it provides more convenience and comfort when exercising. While music alone doesn’t specifically improve your health, it can motivate you to exercise.
However, what can be useful for your sanity is to use this feature on your smart watch for meditation or valuable podcasts.
Talking about that…
8. Monitor your mental health
The body and the mind are intimately linked. Wearable devices can tell us about our physical behaviors and mental state by monitoring physical activity. Most portable devices can monitor our sleep patterns and alert us if we are not getting enough rest. Some may even assess our “skin conductance” or the condition of our sweat glands, which is a good indication of activation or stress in the sympathetic nervous system. Wearables can tell us not only if we are exercising, but also if we have reached the end of our rope.
There are many options for what to do with this information. An application can include questions to help contextualize this stress data. Another person can use these signals to suggest mindfulness activities such as meditation and deep breathing.
9. Customize the faces with complications to suit
The ability to customize watch faces is one of the most popular aspects of smartwatches, allowing you to show off your uniqueness. Many smartwatches allow you to add health monitoring functions to the main watch face in addition to colorful and entertaining watch faces. Adding completed steps or goals to the watch display puts health first. The more you see it, the more you will realize how important it is to take charge of your health.
10. Useful data
While smartwatches themselves have limited processing power, they are constantly linked to smartphones, allowing you to sync your health data (sleep, steps, heart rate, etc.). arterial pressure, temperature, etc.) with your phone. To examine the data on your phone, you can use native apps like Apple Health or third-party apps. It helps in understanding your habits and development, as well as in setting future goals.
11. Preventive health measures
By exposing yourself to potential health risks as early as possible, preventative care and early detection of disease are two of the most effective ways to reduce your total health care costs.
According to research, smartwatches improve the diagnosis of certain heart conditions such as atrial fibrillation (AFib) by detecting warning signals early with digital health sensors. Other research suggests that wearable gadgets can detect other illnesses, such as the common cold. Smartwatches like the Apple Watch can monitor heart function as well as other heart health issues using diagnostic data and ECG function, in addition to disease detection. Medical expenses are usually reduced when a disease is discovered and treated early.
Conclusion
Health monitoring was integrated into the first trackers. And the features get more advanced with each new version.
For many people, a tracker like a Fitbit is the way to start. But if you spend a little more money on a smartwatch, there are plenty of other health and fitness features you can get from brands like Garmin and Apple.
Of all, even with the most advanced capabilities, a smartwatch first and foremost depends on one thing: you get the most out of it.
Interesting related article: “What is a smartphone? “