Smartwatches and smart fitness bands are two main members among the wearable gadgets. Which one should you buy, a smartwatch or a smart band?. Lets discuss which one would be suitable for you.
Smartwatches are very good looking in firsthand, they have plenty of features and most of them are fitted with a beautiful led screen which can be used as a limited alternative to smartphones. Some examples are Moto 360, Samsung Gear S2, Fossil Q Marshall etc.
On the other hand, smart bands are comparatively smaller and lighter devices built exclusively for fitness tracking. Examples can be Mi band 2, Lenovo fitness band, Samsung Gear Fit etc
We will talk about different aspects of both these devices and how these devices perform. Before reading further you can also checkout the various pros and cons of a smartwatch.
Battery life
Smart bands have a better battery life. They last about 5 to 25 days on average depending on the usage. On the other side Smart watches are not known for their battery life. For example, the Samsung Galaxy Gear S3 which is known to have better battery life among smart watches lasts about 2 days. Remember that we wear these devices every day, suppose you forgot to charge a day – you will end up with a dead watch.
Winner : Smart band
Water resistance
Both smartwatch and smart bands are water resistant. But if you have a smartwatch with some fancy leather straps longer interaction with water will spoil the straps. In case of fitness bands, most of them comes with a rubber/silicon bands which lasts long.
Winner : Smart band
Comfort
Smartwatches are quite bulky compared to normal watches. Using these watches for fitness tracking and especially for night sleep tracking is not comfortable compared to smart fitness bands. Fitness bands can be very light weight that you don’t feel like you are wearing one after a weeks usage. Also sleep tracking using a smart band is more comfortable than wearing bulky smartwatch all night.
Winner : Smart band
Notifications
Smart watch is better at alerting you about your incoming messages, calls and so on. We can even reply to a message from a smart watch. However typing a full sentence in a smartwatch can be difficult, you will more often reach out to your smartphone for longer reply.
On the other hand, smart bands are limited to just a vibration if you gets a notification although we can configure which notifications should be alerted using the band. It cant show you the message content or the details. So if your preference is notifications a smartwatch will do the job better than a band.
Winner: Smart Watch
Calls
Some smart watches (like the Fossil Q Marshal) allows you to pick up calls. This is really cool feature if you see it for first time but in most of the smart watches, the voice quality is not so great. You will eventually take calls from your smartphone because the users in the other end will start complaining about the call quality. Nevertheless smart bands does not have the call feature so it is a plus point of smart watch.
Winner : Smart Watch
Price
The price gap between smartwatches and smart bands are huge. Some of the budget smart bands like Mi band 2 or Lenovo fitness band costs around 2k where as a decent smartwatch will cost you around 15K-20K. Also, price of smart watches while launching generally tends to be in the higher side compared to bands. If you wait for 6-8 months, you can see the price drops.
Value for money : Smart band
Verdict
Although smart bands and smart watches are two kinds of devices, we can see from the above points that smart bands are more practical and economical. The only reason you want to buy a smart watch is for style and a better notification feature.
