By Chris Hanson

Of the Gleaner

I’m sure by now you have heard about smartwatches and what they can do. You may not know that 2014 was the year of the wearable and with this came many new smartwatches for consumers. Multiple companies including Apple, Motorola, Samsung, and other companies have unveiled their smartwatches for 2014 or early 2015.

A smartwatch is essentially an extension of your phone. When you get a notification on your phone, that notification gets pushed to your watch and you can reply to it on your watch, but that’s not all a smartwatch can do.

Smartwatches are becoming replacements for the loose expensive fitness bands that multiple companies are selling. Most of the new smartwatches double as fitness trackers. They can keep track of your activity, heart rate and other aspects of your fitness like how long you’ve been active in a day.

Smartwatches are also home to apps that you can use. One of the most popular apps on android smartwatches is the Amazon app. You can now search and purchase products straight from your watch.

The coolest feature of the new smartwatches that are coming out is the voice search. You can now do Google searches straight from your watch. You can search for weather, and it will display the weather. You can ask also questions like how tall is the Empire State Building and your watch will pull it up for you.

Overall smartwatches are a great because of their functionality. Now you don’t have to pull out your cell phone every time you want to do something or look something up. You can now just ask your watch.