The Advantages of a Smartwatch and Three that are Currently Available
by Karl Belanger, Kennedy Zimnik, and Matt Hackert
From the Editor: I remember being both amused and amazed when the comic Dick Tracy would run around with a wrist radio he would use to communicate. Given the size of two-way radio equipment and even short-range walkie-talkies, this seemed really far-fetched. What we find in this article is that the idea is not at all far-fetched, and we can get much more from a smartwatch than just a way to speak to others. It is with gratitude to the folks at our Jernigan Institute that we run this article:
Introduction
Smartwatches have continued to grow in popularity since the introduction of the Apple Watch in 2015. The combination of rapid access to notifications, accurate health tracking and GPS features without looking at your phone have proven very popular, and the smartwatch market has exploded in the years since. Today, many companies are in the smartwatch business, from Apple and Google, to Fitbit, Fossil, and many other companies. The features of these watches vary, as do the prices. For this article, we are reviewing three smartwatches from three of the largest phone manufacturers: the Apple Watch, the Google Pixel Watch, and the Samsung Galaxy Watch. All three watches fall within the $300-$400 range. The Apple watch specifically works with iPhones, while the Google and Samsung watches both work only with Android devices.
Getting Started with the Samsung Galaxy Watch 5
The Galaxy Watch has a round face with squared edges and four prongs that stick out to hold the band in place. On one side are two buttons which serve as back and home buttons and provide other functions when held down. The charger is a round disc that magnetically attaches to the bottom of the watch. Attaching the band is fairly difficult, because it requires moving a very small piece of metal built into the band to retract the pins, aligning the band, then releasing the latch. It is quite difficult to impossible to do without sighted assistance and will likely be impossible for someone with any level of dexterity issues.
To turn on the watch, press and hold the home button for a couple seconds. You will feel a brief vibration. After a while, the watch will be on the setup screen. Press and hold two fingers on the screen to start TalkBack. You will also need the Galaxy Wearable app on your phone. Open the app and follow the instructions to set up the watch.
Configuring the Galaxy Watch
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The Galaxy Watch has a number of settings that can be configured. These include everything from Wi-Fi and Bluetooth to sound, display, security, and mobile payment features. You can adjust the settings either on your watch or through the Galaxy Wearable app. The accessibility settings contain many of the same options you would expect coming from an Android phone, including TalkBack, display settings, audio adjustments, and more. TalkBack settings allow you to adjust verbosity, punctuation levels, TalkBack’s sounds, and more. Interestingly, the text-to-speech rate is in the Text-to-Speech settings under General rather than Accessibility, which was a bit confusing at first.
There is no Braille Keyboard support due to the small screen, and there is also no Braille Display support. Due to the dense nature of the setting screens, many users will likely find it easier to make settings changes on their phone, though making them on the watch is most certainly doable and accessible.
Using the Galaxy Watch
Navigating around the watch is straightforward for anyone familiar with using TalkBack. Many of the one-finger gestures work to navigate around, and two-finger gestures can be used to change screens. The interface is largely responsive, but can slow down drastically if the watch is downloading data or doing other processor intensive activities. This seemed particularly egregious if the watch had been powered off for a while, and the laggy behavior could last for several minutes before things return to normal. There is also a feature where you can run your finger around the bezel of the watch to scroll through content. This seemed to cause more issues than it was worth, so I turned it off in settings. The feature does appear to work reasonably well with TalkBack, but, due to the small screen, I found myself triggering it accidentally a lot of the time and causing my focus to change when I didn’t want it to.
The Home Screen
When you wake up the watch, you will hear the time and that you are on the Home Screen. The first screen contains the time, any activity you’re currently involved in, and other customizable information. Doing a two-finger swipe right accesses recent notifications. Swiping left with two fingers takes you through a series of customizable tiles. These can contain information such as current heart rate, number of steps taken that day, your next calendar appointment or alarm, music controls, and potentially more depending on the installed apps. Activating a notification or one of these tiles will get you into that app. Lastly, swiping down from the top edge on the Home Screen brings up Quick Settings, and swiping up brings up the list of installed apps.
Installing and Using Apps
When you first set up the watch, any compatible apps installed on your phone can be optionally downloaded to the watch. After setup, you can access the Google Play Store directly from the watch, or you can filter by watch apps when browsing from another device. Installing an app to the watch works just like it does from the phone: just bring up the Play Store page and select Install. Once installed, swiping up from the Home Screen brings up an alphabetical list of installed apps, which you can scroll through. Unfortunately, the selections of apps on the Android watch are fairly limited. You can use Google Maps for GPS, YouTube Music for listening to music from your watch, and various health tracking apps. Some notable apps, such as Audible for Audiobooks, which have Apple Watch apps, do not have equivalent versions for Android watches. As with any device, not all apps will be equally accessible.
Handling Notifications
Swiping right from the Home Screen will bring up the notifications panel. You can flick through your notifications and act on certain ones. You can return calls, acknowledge alarms and timers, and reply to messages with your voice. Other notifications will show the content of the notification and advise you to continue on your phone if there is no watch app for the notification. I found no real problems here, and things generally behaved as expected.
Calls
Making and receiving calls worked quite well on the Galaxy Watch. While not especially loud, callers came through clearly, and I could also be heard even when the watch was not near my mouth. All call controls are accessible. When a call comes in, both the phone and watch will ring. Once on a call, it is easy to transfer the call back to the phone if desired. Initiating a call is also straightforward on the watch and can be done either through the phone app or by voice.
Tracking your Health
A main feature of any smartwatch is tracking your health metrics, and the Galaxy Watch is no exception. From the Home Screen, you can get easy access to your steps and heart rate, and you can easily track various workouts. I tracked a few walks, and they seemed fairly accurate to the time and distance I actually walked. The Galaxy Watch also has automatic workout detection. For example, if you start walking, after a few minutes the watch will start tracking your walk automatically. This can be very useful since you don’t have to remember to start a workout every time you leave. It also has a feature that pauses the workout if it detects you’ve stopped. Again, this can be useful so that the workout doesn’t get skewed while you’re waiting for a long traffic light. However, this does mean that if your speed is inconsistent or you have to slow down or stop frequently, such as moving through a crowd, you can get a lot of paused/started/paused/started messages rapidly, which can get a bit annoying. The Galaxy Watch also has sleep tracking, but I wasn’t completely satisfied with its accuracy. It also has EKG features, which I did not test. Overall, the Galaxy Watch offers solid and accessible health tracking, and it should meet your needs whether you’re just wanting to track steps or have a more serious workout.
Low-Vision Features of the Galaxy Watch
The Samsung Galaxy smartwatch incorporates a range of low-vision accessibility features to enhance usability for individuals with visual impairments. These features include customizable font size and contrast, color correction and inversion, filters, and magnification. These are accessible under the "Visibility Enhancements" menu within the accessibility settings. "Magnification" allows users to enlarge screen content for easier reading and interaction, while font size customization ensures information is displayed in a readable format. Color inversion provides high contrast for improved visibility. The "Dynamic Type" feature offers a range of font sizes, accommodating users who prefer larger or smaller text. Apps supporting Dynamic Type deliver a consistent reading experience across the interface. Additionally, the "Taptic Engine" provides haptic feedback, offering tactile cues for notifications and alerts. Users can customize accessibility shortcuts and add specific accessibility features to the Control Center for quick access. These comprehensive low-vision accessibility features make the Galaxy Watch highly accessible.
Apple Watch 8 Setting Up and Pairing
Setting up an Apple Watch is relatively simple, especially for anyone who has had some experience already using an iPhone and VoiceOver. Begin by powering on the Apple Watch by holding down the side button—below the Digital Crown. Of course, the first thing any VoiceOver user will want to do is enable VoiceOver on their Apple Watch to get things started. To do this, simply triple-click the Digital Crown.
The next step is pairing the watch with an iPhone. This can be accomplished in one of two ways: automatic pairing, which involves pointing the iPhone camera at the watch face, and manual, which involves selecting the Apple Watch and entering a pairing code on the iPhone. The automatic method is simple enough, even as a blind person, but having a manual option available is reassuring.
After the two devices are successfully paired, there is a brief period of data synchronization after which, everything’s all set.
Settings and Accessibility
As with Apple’s other hardware offerings, the Apple Watch comes brimming with settings and options for customization. Therefore, one approach is simply to spend some time just using the watch; then decide how it could work better, if only it would… (Fill in the blank.) Then, as you browse through setting options, you have something more specific to look for.
Many of the settings will look familiar to iPhone and iPad users. The VoiceOver settings will also look familiar. And of course, it being a watch, you’ll find galleries of watch faces to choose from and countless ways to personalize each.
One niche area smartwatches try to excel in is for health and fitness. The Apple Watch can be a pedometer, heart monitor, and a fitness coach, reminding you to get up and be active. It can even detect and time how long you take washing your hands! And keep in mind, you haven’t even visited the App Store yet.
Use of the Watch
Once again, since we’re in the Apple ecosystem here, users of iPhones and iPads will find navigating the watch interface fairly intuitive and familiar. Gestures are comparable to navigating Apple’s other mobile offerings. The Apple Watch sports a Digital Crown which offers an alternative method for scrolling through apps. Pressing the Digital Crown is a convenient way of moving back to the Home Screen. Swiping down with two fingers opens the Notification Center; swiping up opens the Control Center. Both of these behave much like their counterparts on iPhones and iPads. Flicking and double-tapping work just like they do on other iOS devices. Triple-tap with two fingers to enable Digital Crown navigation where turning the crown allows you to scroll through apps on the Home Screen.
Notifications
This feature might be one of the key reasons people use to justify the purchase of a smartwatch. Rather than reach into their pocket or handbag to find their phone (if it is even on your person), why not just glance down at your wrist to see who just texted, what that Tweet was, read the news headline that just popped up, or see who’s calling. In many respects, the Apple Watch is sort of a remote extension of the iPhone. And, for a blind person, a close equivalent can be achieved by having VoiceOver read out these notifications. This too is configurable; you may want to just know you received a text rather than having VoiceOver read the text unless you tap the watch face.
Health Features
As noted above, the Apple Watch comes with quite a few health-related apps included with watchOS. These include a heart rate monitor, blood oxygen monitor, ECG, Cycle Tracking, Medications, Mindfulness, Sleep, and Workout. These apps work in conjunction with the Health app running on the paired iPhone. While a comprehensive evaluation of the health-related features and apps of the Apple Watch could fill its own article, rest assured that overall, they work very well with VoiceOver, and the information they collect is accessible to blind users. What’s a little harder to speak to is the accuracy of the information. As it is worn on the wrist, there might be some differences in step-counting between the watch and the iPhone itself, carried different ways, i.e., in a pocket, in your hand, or in a handbag.
Braille Support
During my testing, I used the Apple Watch with a Mantis Braille display. Pairing the display works just like it does with VoiceOver on an iPad or iPhone. Since it’s still VoiceOver doing all the work, the support is comparable to that which you get from other Apple products. While perhaps using the watch paired with a smaller display like the Chameleon might be a more functional setup, the Mantis worked well enough. Certainly, for a deafblind user, having this additional support would be essential, and certainly, the support is as good as that which you get from Apple’s other mobile devices.
Low-Vision Features of the Apple Watch
The Apple Watch offers a range of low-vision accessibility features to enhance the user experience. Users can enable the Zoom feature to magnify screen content for improved readability. Display Accommodations allow customization of contrast, brightness, and color filters to enhance visibility. "Dynamic Type" provides a choice of font sizes, catering to individual preferences. Apps that support Dynamic Type deliver a consistent reading experience. The "Taptic Engine" provides haptic feedback for notifications and alerts. Customizable accessibility shortcuts and the ability to add specific accessibility features to the Control Center enable quick access to necessary features. These extensive low-vision accessibility features make the Apple Watch highly inclusive.
The Google Pixel Watch
The Pixel Watch, Google's response to the Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch, is designed specifically for Android devices. It's the newest of the three, having been released in October 2022. However, it may face limitations due to a smaller accessibility community. The setup process begins with TalkBack, Android's native screen reader, ensuring accessibility from the start. Most setup steps occur within the Watch app on your Android phone, simplifying navigation for new users. However, some accessibility settings are only accessible on the watch itself, which may be slightly inconvenient.
Using the Pixel Watch
Navigation on the Pixel Watch relies on touch gestures and physical buttons. You can choose between "touch to wake" and "tilt to wake" for activating the device. Swiping down opens Quick Settings, similar to those found on smartphones. Swiping up reveals Notifications, while swiping right to left cycles through "Tiles," quick-access apps. Physical buttons offer an alternative means of interaction. However, simulating swipe gestures using buttons would enhance accessibility. Notably, there can be lag when using the touchscreen, particularly when the watch is out of range from the paired phone.
The Accessibility of the Pixel Watch
The Pixel Watch offers an accessible experience for blind or low-vision users, though it may not be as polished as on smartphones. TalkBack relies heavily on swiping gestures for navigation and interaction, leading to occasional conflicts with the "Explore by Touch" feature. Typing on the small on-screen keyboard can be challenging, though voice input and Google Assistant provide convenient alternatives. The watch supports screen magnification through the "Magnifier" feature, which may be challenging to use due to navigation difficulties. Font size customization and text-to-speech rate adjustments are available, as are Real-Time Text (RTT) and vibration customization.
Notifications
Notification handling is user-customizable, allowing you to choose which apps can notify you and how they behave. Notifications are not disruptive to the user experience and can wake up the device when necessary.
Applications
The Pixel Watch offers a growing selection of apps, including health and fitness tools, music streaming apps like Spotify and Amazon Music, and unique features like remote camera control through the Google Camera app. Users can search for Pixel Watch-compatible apps in the Google Play Store.