A common feature of each smartwatch app I analysed; Glory Fit, Apple Watch’s Activity and Fitbit, was that all of them conveniently show the time on their initial dashboards, allowing the user to use their homepages as the default screen of the watch.
They also all connect to your phone, with the ability to display messages recieved.
Glory Fit’s Home Screen is quite extensive in terms of information conveyed on a small screen, showing the user steps and calories burnt during the day, and their current heart rate. It also goes further than the other apps in showing not only the time but also the date and day.
The colour scheme is also very pleasing to the eye, and the gradient further helps to track the user’s progress, along with the circle around the simple, but easily identifiable, aesthetically pleasing icons. Other dashboards showing various fitness metrics can also be accessed intuitively through swiping.
An element of the UI which I find unnecessary is the border, reminiscent of a mechanical watch, as the time is displayed in digital format, therefore this border serves no practical purpose.
A useful feature is that the watch also connects to your phone, allowing notifications to be sent to remind you to exercise, and notifications from messaging apps to appear on the watch. It also turns on automatically when you raise your wrist for contactless opening of the app.
Although the watch app is highly aesthetically pleasing, the smartphone counterpart is somewhat bland and uninspired, serving only its basic function, lacking much interest in form.
Apple’s Activity is a more simple app, showing the user’s time in the day standing and exercising, and calories burnt. A highly interesting feature of this app is that it has accessibility for wheelchair users, with the option to replace standing time with time rolling the wheelchair.
Although in the Home Screen, the circles do not show an accurate statistic, they effectively show the user how much of their day’s goal they have completed.
There are also icons which direct the user to other dashboards within the app, such as activity graphs, and uniquely, awards, which help to motivate the user to be active and exercise.
The graphs show the user’s weekly activity, and average for the week. This can also be accessed in its companion iphone app. The watch can also send you notification reminders for exercising or standing up to move, which are also sent to your iPhone.
Although less extensive than Glory Fit, this app is ideal for users who are less interested in working out and mainly want an app to help them focus on being active in their daily lives.
