This article is in collaboration with Huawei on the new Huawei Watch
I first toyed around with a smartwatch some one to two years ago. It didn’t last though. I ended up having some battery problems after a while so I chucked it away.
Then recently Huawei loaned me their latest smartwatch: The Huawei Watch (I like how they kept the name simple instead of coming up with a serial number or some techy title).
This is not a review of a Huawei Watch. If you want a review you can read a comprehensive one here, although I will share some of my thoughts on the Huawei Watch at the end of this article.
This article instead is about the little understated perks of wearing a smartwatch. What do I mean by “understated”?
Well you see when we’re sold the purpose of smartwatches we’re sold the features of it. I can track my heart rate and steps like a fitness band, I can see notifications, I can ask it for the nearest restaurant and Google would reply me. But how does that really fit into our lifestyle?
Here’s what I found the most useful about a smartwatch.
1) When you’re driving…
You know how when we’re driving and someone calls or messages you. We have this reflex to want to pick up your phone and check who’s calling and sometimes we do succumb to that only to remember that it’s a very dangerous thing to do while driving.
Well with the smartwatch all I gotta do is glance at my watch like I’m looking at the time and I know instantly who’s calling and whether or not it’s urgent for me to stop by the side of the road to answer it.
This is particularly useful at meetings or at the dinner table too. There’s a bit of a social stigma against looking at your phone while you’re at meetings or at dinner with friends. With a smartwatch though you can just take one glance at your wrist and you’ll know why your phone was buzzing.
It also helps that your watch vibrates when you get notifications because now my phone is silent almost all the time so I tend to miss my calls because I don’t feel the vibration in my pocket.
On my wrist though you almost always feel it.
This point of notifications has made a difference for me in my everyday lifestyle.
2) When you’re bored of having the same watch…
The thing about smartwatches especially Android Wear ones is that you can within a matter of a few seconds change your watch face to any of the thousands that you can find online. When you do that, you instantly get the sensation (or joy) or having a new watch.
I’ve had all sorts of different watch faces. Some days I opt for the more sporty looks, some days for the more complicated watch faces but some days I go for the simple ones. Click here for a whole list of watch faces you can get on Android Wear.
If you have the Huawei Watch like I do though, it comes built in with 40 different interchangeable watch faces. All you have to do is just long press the face and you can swap left and right for the different faces. I normally use the classic style faces rather than the too high-tech types. I find it goes with my dressing a little bit better.
3) When you lose your phone…
This happens countless countless times to me. I always lose my phone. Not lose it for an eternity but I leave it somewhere in my home and I forgot where. Was it in my kitchen? My living room? My bedroom?
Shouting normally ensues with me asking everybody in the house including the pet tortoise if they’ve seen my phone.
It doesn’t help that this always happens at the most inconvenient time like just before I’m rushing out to work or to meet someone. I’ve longed for a solution to this beyond just calling my phone because my phone is on silent almost all the time (I keep it on silent so that it doesn’t wake my kids up if they’re sleeping).
Finally Android Wear has one such solution. It’s an app called “Find my phone” where I can just with the push of a button on my watch it will trigger my phone to flash and ring even if it’s on silent.
I can’t begin to tell you how much time this has saved for me.
So far I’m really enjoying having a smartwatch again. If you’re thinking of getting one I think the Huawei Watch is a good candidate. What I like about it is the look and feel.
It doesn’t look like a toy watch or an electronic watch. It looks like a proper watch that you would wear every day. The one I have is awesome because it comes with a silver bracelet so it fits in to your dressing style without looking geeky or sticking out like a sore thumb.
I recently met with Abe from the Philippines who owns the tech blog Yugatech. I noticed that he was wearing a Huawei watch too and when I asked him about it he was raving about it. Raving about how he loves it and how he can’t wear any other watch now.
Compared to my first Android Wear experience one to two years back, I feel that Android Wear has really developed. Sure it still has a long way to go but good user experience isn’t just a software game but a hardware game too. If you get a phone or a watch with crappy hardware then you’re probably gonna get a bad Android experience.
When it comes to watches so far, I feel that the Huawei Watch’s hardware carries Android Wear really well.
Timothy Tiah – Co-Founder of Colony, Kuala Lumpur Co-Working Space