Wearables are perhaps the hottest trend in tech right now. Starting with Bluetooth headsets and calculator watches to the more recent health bands like Fitbit and UP by Jawbone, wearable technology is poised to become a big aspect of our technological lives. The smartwatch industry is also becoming abundantly more saturated, with a lot of manufacturers jumping on the bandwagon. Although some smartwatches have really useful features, no manufacturer has implemented the smartwatch correctly... yet.

Pebble

The Pebble smartwatch is the second most successful Kickstarter to date. It is a band with a e-paper display that does what any watch should do - tell time. It allows you to choose watch faces from the Pebble marketplace or make your own using online generators. It is a very open-sourced operating system and a lot of cool things can be done with it. As an owner, I have found that the notifications system is well-done.

I recieve notifications for text messages, emails, Facebook notifications, Snapchats and really anything I care about on my phone. The Pebble’s notification system does have some small issues. For example, the watch will try to display all of the text from an advertising email. Overall, it has done a good job at letting me know if it’s worth pulling out my phone or to leave it for later. It also has some useless features like Solitaire and a snake-like game that is reminiscient of the time before smartphones. Here are a couple more features of the Pebble:

- Waterproof

- Vibration alarm clock

- Music controls

- RunKeeper companion app

- 1-week battery life

Pebble does not allow for voice input and does not have internal speakers. There is a lack of interactivity between the Pebble and iPhone or Android devices. The Pebble is mainly used for displaying information at a basic level. But, for its purpose, it serves well.

Galaxy Gear & Android Wear

My biggest problem with the Samsung Galaxy Gear is that Samsung continues to try to make a new watch almost every 3 months. They have six models that they released last year. Samsung is trying to reach every niche market and it seems that nobody’s needs are really fulfilled. They put a camera, speakers and microphone on the first model, which was a bit of a hardware overload. It was very buggy and there were features that just weren’t done right, like the Google Now voice commands that proved to be a step backward from Samsung's proprietary S Voice. It was only compatible with one phone, the Galaxy Note 3. Even after an update, they only increased compatibility to 3 other Samsung phones.

Samsung's second release was less than six months later and included three new models - the Gear 2, Gear Fit, and Gear Neo. The Gear 2 was very similar to the the Gear one, but it featured Samsung’s new OS, which was even buggier than Android. The Gear Neo was a dumbed-down version of the Gear 2 and Gear Fit was essentially a Nike FuelBand with a screen. The third time around, Samsung decided to work with Google and implement Android Wear in their Gear Live. There is almost nothing separating the Gear Live from the LG G Watch or any other Android Wear watch on the market currently.

The Gear Live has a square screen like most other smartwatches. Android Wear is great at letting you know when you have calendar events coming up, and notifying you about the weather. Google Now is implemented just a well as it is on Android and iOS. It notifies you when you get text messages and other notifications. Overall, the Gear Live does a good job at being a smartwatch. However, it only has a 12-hour battery and is, quite frankly, ugly. People that wear watches do so primarily to tell the time and to sport a nice-looking accessory. In order to make a smartwatch worth wearing for the majority of people, it has to look good and work well. That leads me to the Motorola Moto 360.

Moto 360

The Motorola Moto 360 was introduced at Google’s keynote in June and although the LG and Samsung smartwatches were released a week later, Motorola announced that theirs would not be available until September. The big factor that Motorola brought was the circular design of their watch. Most real watches are circular and Motorola said they didn’t want to give in to standard screen restrictions, so they would release a circular screen with almost no bezel.

On September 4th, Motorola released the Moto 360 with a big problem. They flattened out the bottom of the screen because they wanted room for the display driver. The circular Android Wear watch many people had waited for wasn’t even a true circle. The bezel was thin, but it was a thick watch. Android Wear also was made for a square screen and was not optimized for the circular display.

The wireless charging base station is great because it can face you and show the time when you go to bed and wake up, but the battery life is so weak that you will have to charge it once during the day to make it to the night.

Apple Watch

On September 9th, Apple announced their own smartwatch, dubbed Apple Watch. A few days earlier, Jony Ive even said that Switzerland better watch out for a new competitor! Apple is very confident in this new product and unfortunately, we will have to wait until early 2015 to find out if they are right. Here is a list of things Apple did right with the Apple Watch:

Multiple sizes

Acknowledging that womens' wrists are not the same size as mens' is really important in order to reach a wide range of customers (I’m looking at you, Moto 360). Apple is producing a 38mm and 42mm (1.5“ and 1.65”) Apple Watch to accommodate different-sized wrists.

Health Connectivity

How does it do this? The Apple Watch will collect data on your heart rate to calculate how intense your workout is. It also tracks the amount of time you spend standing, moving and exercising with a built-in accelerometer. It uses the GPS in your iPhone to track where you’ve gone on your jogs or bike rides. I can see Runkeeper getting involved and adding their "common routes" function to the watch.

A Vibration That Makes Sense

It has been a few weeks and the complaints about the iPhone 6 are in. One of them is that the vibrate motor is louder than any iPhone that came before. Having owned one myself for two days, I can confirm this. My Pebble, however, is still louder.

The Pebble doesn’t have a context-aware vibration for different types of notifications. But who needs that? According to Apple, everyone with an Apple Watch should. They call it taptic feedback. It won’t be noticed by those around you and it can even be used in ways that will tell you different things. When you’re using maps (I know, who wants to look at a map on their wrist?), it will vibrate when you get to the point where you need to turn and the feedback on the watch will tell you the direction to go. This way, you don’t have to look at the map for where to walk or bike. It tells you by vibrating with a unique pattern. I think that will be a cool feature of the new watch that most people have not thought about. Plus, bothering people in class when I get an email will be a thing of past.

Custom and Colorful Bands

There are “millions” of custom options for the Apple Watch (according to the fruit themselves). There are three kinds of watch based on your need. There is the standard Apple Watch using sapphire glass for the screen and a stainless steel body with color options of space gray and silver. The Apple Watch Sport comes in aluminum with color options of space gray and silver as well. Finally, there is the Apple Watch Edition which is 18K gold with color options of gold and rose gold. There are 34 band options that are all interchangeable. This is by far the most customizable and beautiful smartwatch that has been announced.

Tap vs. Press

Apple has created a flexible sapphire display that allows for the screen to tell the difference between a quick tap and a full-on press. Whereas a tap on the play button would play or pause your music, pressing the play button with more force will bring up context-aware options like AirPlay or shuffle and repeat toggles. This adds to Apple’s philosophy of brilliantly simple device interactions.

Third-Party Support

The biggest part of the Apple Watch that will help it succeed is developer support. If it is anything like the support for iOS, the Apple Watch will be a hit. Twitter and Facebook already have support with Apple Watch apps of their own, as shown in the demo of the watch. Samsung’s Gear watches do not have much third-party support and neither do any of the Android Wear watches. Pebble is winning this race but considering Pebble's limited functionality, Apple can win the smartwatch race by fitting the pieces together.

Third-party band manufacturers also have a very easy template for making products that will slide in-and-out of the body of the Apple Watch.

This is what Apple will be criticized for:

Weight

The Apple Watch looked really heavy with the materials it was made of and the processing components built into the S1 chip. Not many people have held it, but 18K gold is not light. It’s shiny and nice, but not light. Unless Apple can surprise us again, this will be a big factor in why people might not want the Apple Watch.

Battery Life

There was no mention of the Apple Watch's battery life, but with what it can do, the resolution and touch screen, plus a button that has extended functionality and advanced taptic feedback motor, many have predicted that the Apple Watch will be charging every night with your iPhone.

Reliance On the iPhone

In order to make the Apple Watch work, you must own an iPhone. While the watch will be able to perform certain functions on its own, such as tracking steps and heartbeat, many functions require the iPhone to be in close proximity to the Apple Watch. Many people have already critisized this saying that the Apple Watch is positioned an iPhone accessory and that it should've been made as a standalone iOS device.

I hope this has been a good look at the new Apple Watch and how its competitors stack up. I currently owning the Pebble and will be sad to see it go, but I definitely want to get the Apple Watch once it is released. What about you? What features of the Apple Watch are you most excited for? If you already own a smartwatch, what kind is it and what are you most/least favorite things about it? Let us know in the comments below!