Smartwatches: the battle for hearts and wrists

Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the last couple of weeks it can’t have escaped your attention that smartwatches are back on the agenda. I say ‘back’ because I know people who’ve dreamt of owning one since the days that Dick Tracey had his own TV show.

Leading the charge are Samsung’s Galaxy Gear and Sony’s SmartWatch 2 – Apple staying curiously quiet despite rumours of the Cupertino-based company throwing money at prototypes.

Would you wear a smartwatch?

Essentially expansions of your smartphone, smartwatches are able to connect to your mobile phone over Bluetooth and allow you to monitor texts, emails, social networks and even answer calls from your wrist.

There have also been arguments made that smartwatches can aid both security and fitness. Smartwatches are theoretically more secure in that you can leave your phone safely stowed in your bag or pocket. And they can also count your footsteps while tracking your whereabouts, making them the ideal jogging aid

You can almost sense the ‘but’ coming, and here it is: smartwatches are rather on the expensive side. The Galaxy Gear is going to be £299 – and that price is going to sting even more when you consider that it’s $299 in the US. The SmartWatch 2 is a more palatable, but still pricey £120.

But (oh yes, another but), the SmartWatch 2 will come bundled with the very fine looking Sony Xperia Z1 phone. This raises the question of whether I’d use a smartwatch if I could get it for free. And you know what? I’m not sure.

I’m going to leave it to you to set me straight – is there any point to the smartwatch and will any of you use one?

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