Road testing the Sony SmartWatch 2

Wearables is one of the key hypes of the moment. Most attention has been for smart watches, but other devices that can be worn are included in this category as well: smart shoes, smart glasses, cameras (GoPro) and fitness bands (FitBit, Garmin Vivo, JawBone, etc.). This is closely related to the Internet of Things (IoT) and sees the development of other smart devices such as blood pressure devices, weighing scales and so on. Initially, applications for these devices have targeted health & fitness as well as location based functionality.

I have road tested the Sony SmartWatch 2 for the last 2 months and will share some of my experiences. First and foremost, I believe that these devices will only reach the right level of maturity and adoption once they can operate independently from a smart phone. This will require the smart watch to have its own SIM card and will avoid the need to take your (bulky) smart phone on a run or ride. The next release of Samsung Gear is rumoured to have this standalone functionality and I would strongly expect Apple to aspire the same when they ultimately release the first version of an iWatch. Regretfully, these are not yet available and we have to do with paired devices.

There has been a lot of attention for Samsung Gear, LG smart watch and some of the fitness brands: Garmin, Nike and Polar. The Sony smart watch (http://www.sony.com.au/product/sw2) is in its second release and has been reviewed much less to date. The watch works with any Android smart phone and has a reasonably large number of applications available on Google Play. Applications are installed using Google Play and your smart phone. The devices pair via NFC (near field communication) and cover a range of about 20 meters. The set up and pairing is pretty straightforward as the integration with my Sony Xperia works seamlessly with the device pairing whenever they are within range.

The good thing about the Sony SM2 is that its appearance is like a normal watch and actually looks quite 'smart'. It is not bulky and wears like a normal watch as well. The watch face is changeable and can actually display information about the weather, upcoming calendar items and battery level. The SM2 needs to be charged every 4 days which, as we are used to charging our phones daily, is quite acceptable.

So, what do you actually do with the watch? I found it handy to answer calls remotely, read texts, twitter and emails (at least the header and first lines), use some basic apps like torchlight, calculator, counter as well as check the weather forecast. Other applications allow you to initiate a search on Google, check your location or track your own movements (using your phone's pedometer). I find these applications rather clumsy and mostly went to the phone to execute the actual tasks.

This renders the SM2 a useful and stylish watch which does not fully live up to my expectation of a smart device. As said earlier, the smart watch really needs to be standalone with its own SIM card and have a variety of sensors including GPS to make this a true mobile device.

Frits de Vroet