Smart Watch

Device 2 – Smart Watch

Purpose: A smart watch is like a small mobile device that can be worn on your wrist. These watches are usually connected to the user's mobile device which can receive incoming calls, messages, and notifications. Smart watches can also monitor various different things such as counting how many steps you had in a day, your heartbeat, and monitoring how many calories you burnt using that data. The main purpose of the smart watch is productivity as well as safety. The smart watch allows the user to have a mini phone on their wrist which can boost productivity if trying to look at emails etc. However, it can also act as a safety measure as it can be used as a heartbeat sensor which can identify the user if the heartbeat is too high or too low. The smart watch can also function as a way to solve new or existing problems by using the device in the correct way. In certain occasions the person may not have access to their computer, laptop, or phone meaning that they will not be able to check their messages, emails and even phone calls. Due to the smart watches functions, the person is able to check their messages, receive phone calls and open emails if they are restricted and not having access to other devices which can in theory boost efficiency and productivity. An example of this could be, if a person forgets the phone and their significant other asked to buy milk on the way home, the user can see the message on their watch.

Applications: In this instance, a smart watch can be used as a health and wellbeing device. The watch will be able to monitor various different things such as steps taken, heartbeat and possibly calories burnt based on the data collected, the smart watch can also act as a timer for whenever doing physical activities. Smart watches can also be used in various different environment and increase the productivity or help the business, as an example in retail and commerce, the smart watches can connect to the beacons present in stores and send personalized adverts to the device which would increase the possibility of the person buying an item in the store, in addition the smart watch can also be used in industry, it can be used as a portable device to commutate with colleagues without the requirement to carry a phone or other devices. Lastly, the smart watch can also be used in health and well-being as a monitoring device, due to its sensors present in the smart watch, they can be used to the users advantage to monitor and calculate various data that might be useful to the user during exercise. As an example, the watch is able to track number of steps taken in the day, heartbeat as well as amount of time needing to rest before another exercise etc.

Principles: A heartbeat sensor is present within the watch, it can be worn on the wrist of the user, this sensor will monitor the heartbeat, it will collect and analyse the data to sense if the heartbeat is at a correct level or if it’s not present proceeding to trigger an appropriate action. If the heartbeat is too low or too high it can signal the user with a beep, this can be used when working out or doing other activities. The heartbeat sensor would usually be linked with a cloud data base and upon analysing the data, it will trigger an action if the data is under or above a certain interval. The smart watch also has access to the spectrum of insight, coving the five-phase data flow in real time (in motion, early life, in rest and archive) where data is processed at the point of collection in real time all the way to where archived data is used for modelling and analysis.

Characteristics: The smart watch contains various different characteristics, certain positive certain negative as an example a general characteristic would be a legal consideration based around the smart watch as certain data must be collected about the person and consent must be given by the user to make sure that the data collection process is legal e.g. the user may need to create an account in order to connect the smart watch to their device, this login would usually require name and date of birth that would be considered as sensitive information. Another legal consideration would be recycling, due to smart watches using a lot of technology such as batteries, circuit boards etc., these watches cannot be fully recycled due to certain components being non-recyclable that may affect the environment e.g., Lithium batteries. Smart watches also offer different types of benefits, as an example the smart watches can provide directions without the need of having a phone which can be beneficial to the user if their phone is unavailable at the moment in time.

There are also multiple technical characteristics such as the device being time controlled due to the user being able set an alarm and the watch will sound the alarm when appropriate, another technical characteristic would be location specific triggers due to a motion sensor being present in the watch. A route the user has taken can be shown on the watch due to that characteristic. Another technical characteristic would be the low power consumption that the smart watch provides, on average the battery life span is 7-8 hours which is very impressive considering the small size of the smart watch, this allows the user to enjoy the features longer without the worry of needing to charge the smart watch. Lastly, another technical characteristic is the monitoring to detect events or actions, due to the sensors being present in the smart watch, certain things are always monitored meaning that if a certain threshold is reached a reaction can be given out as an example if the heart rate is way too high, a sound queue can be played to inform the user of the problem.