If you own a smartwatch, you would know that the benefits of a smartwatch are multiple and varied. It is like a smaller version of your phone. You do not have to take a phone out of your bag and check your notifications or make calls via Bluetooth. You can make and receive calls on your smartwatch, get notifications, emails or messages. Not able to locate your phone or key? Let your smartwatch help you. You can track your heart rate and your blood pressure. It also may help you monitor your sleep cycles and hence give you a general insight into your health and well-being. 

Are Smart Watches Safe To Wear All The Time?

Your smartwatch can be your companion in your hobbies and your ultimate aid in helping you keep a track of your fitness goals and monitor your daily milestones. It can be your little traveling partner and help you to navigate your way in an unfamiliar area without any difficulty. You can also play music or listen to radio while going about your mundane tasks. It helps you save time and is indeed a life saver. The list of the functionalities goes on and on.

When should you wear a smartwatch?

Considering the multiple purposes of a smartwatch, you may need it frequently. You may be even tempted to wear it around the clock, since it revolves around the concept of making your life convenient. Something you can wear on your wrist and use for various purposes that a phone serves, helps you in not having to hold your phone in your hands all the time.

  • If you are a fitness freak, you can wear your smartwatch while doing some physical exercise or activity in order to keep a track of your speed, the distance or the number of steps and your heart rate as well. Adventurous individuals going on a hike, trekking or swimming can use smartwatch with apps suited for their activity. 
  • If you are out exploring a new place or town, you can use GPS to help you by guiding the way. The GPS function can also be very useful if you want to have a run or jog around the city. It may help you guide the path and check the traffic flow as well. Similarly if you are out in the city or on the go, you can use your smartwatch to check your emails, make calls or see your messages and that too without having to hold your phone or take it out from your bag or pocket. 
  • Consider another scenario. You are riding the train or a bike or you are out and about and your hands are loaded with files; in any case your hands are too busy to check your phone. By the mere turning of your wrist you can check your notifications or updates in a timely manner. It may easily remind you of any upcoming event or occasion and save you from having to check your phone for everything. A little bit of that addiction with your phone might go away too.
  • It is a busy day around the house. You are continuously shifting from one chore to another, from laundry to dish washing to cleaning your house to cooking. A little music along the way would help make things a little relaxing. Just connect your smartwatch to Bluetooth headphones and there you go. You can change tracks, lower or raise the volume or even switch to radio if you wish to. This could certainly make the routine chores a little fun.

Should you wear smartwatch all the time?

As discussed above, it appears that the functionalities of a smartwatch are so many that you may very well need a smartwatch all the time. But should you wear a smartwatch all the time? The answer to this question cannot be a definitive yes or no. The reason for this is that the purposes for which you use a smartwatch are different, because we all differ from each other in terms of our lifestyles. 

While the benefits are so widespread and may outweigh the drawbacks of owning a smartwatch, if you put a little bit of consideration and caution in the use of your smartwatch, there is no harm in wearing it. Let’s look at a few factors we should take in to consideration:

  • One factor to consider here while considering the safety factor of wearing the smart watch is the weight of the smartwatch. Earlier the smart watches made were heavy in weight and could affect your wrist if you wore it all the time. The newer versions however are more user-friendly and light weight and you would not even notice wearing one.
  • Like any other technology, it may not be surprising that few months within the use of the smart watch you may very well get addicted to it. Like your smart phone you may be using your smartwatch too much tethering on the edge of obsession literally. 
  • Looking too much at it while driving or cycling may be dangerous leading to a probable accident hence posing risk to your safety. 
  • While it is a good thing that a smartwatch gives you the facility of connectivity, too much of anything is not good at all. In instances where you cannot access your phone, the presence of a smartwatch keeps you connected and keeps your mind in a state of frenzy all the time. Sometimes it’s good to shut down everything and just relax. The continuous stream of connectivity may even feel overwhelming to you.
  • If you are very conscious about your health and fitness, and you are wearing a smartwatch, you will be obsessing over your milestones and calories intake all the time. This over obsession is certainly not healthy.
  • The other factor to consider is the health factor associated with the use of technology. Like other electronic gadgets smartwatch too may be a risk factor owing to the radiations emitted. This is another detailed discussion that we may cover in later articles.

Having said that, we may conclude that usage of a smartwatch is basically a judgment call and it is primarily up to you how you can balance between the pros and cons to utilize this piece of technology so that it proves to be useful.