What interested you about smartwatches? This will help determine whether they will be useful for you.
In general, I think the function of a smartwatch is to
facilitate on-the-fly, routine tasks. Answering short texts, checking your schedule and so on. There's
not much space on a smartwatch, so of course, there is no point using it to do something that would be better done on a phone (e.g. long emails). In other words, they're probably most
useful for professionals who have many non-intensive tasks to do every day and may not always have access to their phone (e.g. in a board meeting).
The other main type of smartwatch is for
fitness junkies. The
Fitbit is perhaps the most well-known and I do think that if you
track all your exercise, nutrition and health stats that it might be a worthwhile investment. For example, you can export your data so you have access to it anywhere! However, I also track a LOT of stuff (sleep, food, exercise) and my phone's apps work just fine.
Unless you are a serious athlete, I'm not sure the Fitbit is really all that necessary. It's probably just appealing to people who really like data analysis, stats and keeping track of every little thing.
On the other hand, some people might think it a natural evolution from a digital watch. If you're very attached to your phone, I suppose it would be useful to make alerts even more noticeable by putting them on your wrist. This could
help with time management since at a quick glance you can decide whether you need to handle it on your phone.
You might also be able to
pay for things with your smartwatch, which is more useful and less clumsy than paying with a phone. It can also come in handy if you do a lot of navigating in unfamiliar places - particularly as a pedestrian. I'm not sure I would advocate using your smartwatch to navigate your car unless you're in somewhere familiar! Plus, they do look pretty cool!
However, that just seems wasteful to me since you could just pull your phone out... Not to mention you
have to use two hands to operate a smartwatch, while you could use one hand for a phone, so is it really more convenient? You also
need to charge it regularly, which means yet another thing that requires time, electricity and $$$. Thus,
I don't think smartwatches are a smart investment (ha, ha) unless there's a lifestyle-specific, pragmatic reason to buy one.
In short, smartwatches are
extensions to your phone
. They definitely are not replacements unless you only use your phone to text, check the weather and count your steps. If your daily routine requires you to always be connected and includes many menial tasks like checking your email and sending short replies, they might be useful for you.
