10 Things You Can Do with the Smartwatch

Posted By Morgan on May 20, 2016 | 2 comments

How often do you have to worry about your cell phone running out of battery when you have a whole heap of things to do today? Have you ever forgotten your phone at home while hurrying to work in the morning? And how did you feel this day? Waiting for an important call, you have to carry your cell phone everywhere (even to the toilet)? And what it is like when you are in a crowded transport and your phone starts ringing being in the depths of your inner jacket pocket or at the bottom of your purse? I think there is no need to tell how greatly a modern person depends on the cell phone, as well as describe curious situations one can get in if deprived of the opportunity to answer the call or to read an important SMS.

Fortunately, these disadvantages can be easily bypassed since now the smartphones have multi-functional companions – smartwatches. Tiny, convenient, and connected to the smartphones they are easy to use and always at hand being fixed on your wrist.

What is a smartwatch, and what are its main functions

The smartwatch looks like a simple watch but has more functions. Depending on the manufacturer the smartwatches can differ in features, but the majority can receive and send text messages, receive Push notifications and social media alerts, provide access to the Internet, play music, and give an opportunity to do many other manipulations. So let’s find out how to use the smartwatches in everyday life as efficiently as possible.

Use case №1: Call Management

This feature allows the user to accept or reject incoming calls, to set a speakerphone mode, to mute a microphone, and also provides the information on the caller and the duration of the call. Also, you can check the call history and make calls. If you have a headset, you even do not need to get a smartphone out of your pocket.

Use case №2: Receiving notifications

One of the main functions the smartwatches is to receive notifications like a mini-pager. The user can set up the preferred apps that are allowed to send Push notifications to the smartwatch. Without holding the phone in hand, this feature allows you to receive social media notifications, SMS, messages from Hangouts, WhatsApp Messanger or Viber.

Use case №3: Music Management

Smartwatch knows how to adjust the volume, switch records, run and manage music apps on your phone.

Use case №4: Reading E-books

With the help of the smartwatch menu, you can open a text file without taking your phone out of the pocket. Some smartwatches read the txt files. This is also a handy tool to save cribs. You need to press just one button and the smartwatch will quickly switch to the normal operation mode. At the same time, it will remember the place in the file where you stopped reading, which is useful when you re-open a file. You can change the font size, line spacing or a paragraph intervals, and the highlight color.

Use case №5: Wrist Navigator

It is convenient to use a smartwatch for walking and cycling navigation. The application that works with the online maps will give you a verbal assistance on the route every time you pass the next checkpoint. The screen also displays the speed, distance to the next checkpoint and the necessary maneuver.

Use case №6: Sticky notes

This function allows the user to send to the smartwatch some small text notes that look like notifications. This is an indispensable feature, for example, for saving a list of necessary goods going to the supermarket.

Use case №7: Messenger

Answer the SMS and messages received from different applications using the message templates or typing the text letter by letter. The process is a bit similar to T9, so you can learn to type fast enough. This feature will be useful in the cold, rain or in the transport.

Use case №8: Camera control

The smartwatch can control the smartphone camera. You can take a picture, to start or stop the video recording, set the timer, choose a flash mode or turn it off.

Use case №9: Universal soldier

It is hard to describe in one article all the things the smartwatches can do. Their capabilities are so versatile that they can be given the title of the “universal soldier” for whom you can set the tasks. For example, you can set different wallpapers for each situation or day time, make every button perform individual function and use the smartwatch as the remote control for the smartphone, to set the actions to be performed by the phone at a short/long press on a particular button, enable/disable the backlight, change the application windows with a flick of the wrist, etc.

Use case №10: OTP token for 2-step verification

While all the previous features were made for the user’s convenience, using the smartwatch as a mobile authenticator to generate one-time passwords for two-factor authentication is not a luxury, but a necessity. Protectimus developed a special application Protectimus Smart, which allows you to use your Android Wear smartwatch as an OTP token – a one-time password generator.

It is a bit strange, how quickly and dramatically the progress changes the familiar things and a simple wristwatch starts performing the computer functions. But you cannot help but notice how a small strap with the clock face on the wrist can ease the life of the modern man.