Those with smartwatches, how do you use yours? As a smartphone notification relay, a fitness tracker, do you have a clever routine for a specific need?
I’m getting a Galaxy Watch 4 soon, and I’m interested in how to make the most of it 
Ticwatch 3 Pro on WearOS here. First, honestly, is as a watch, since in standby, it actually has a readable digital interface.
The smart features I use regularly is to (illicitly) text and respond to my wife, since having your phone out at your desk at work is verboten. I have also been known to use it to (equally illicitly) read e-books on the tiny screen when stuck in long office meetings, but with such tiny screens, it’s more a novelty distraction than a practical read.
I often use the voice interface ‘hey google’ to get information on a whim during a drive, or the Shazam app to identify a song on the radio. Lastly, I’ve downloaded a decent bit of youtube music to the watch - these days now that (post New Years) I’m back trying to do daily exercise, I can listen to music from the watch while wearing it for fitness tracking.
Here’s hoping I can keep up that resolution.
So - in short - the watch does things that would otherwise mean I’d have to be looking at my phone for. At the @ $220 US I paid for it, it’s worth it, but smartwatches IMHO aren’t yet at a stage where there’s a NEED for them, just things that justify the 12 year old in me that always wanted a wrist mounted computer.
That’s why I was considering getting one, to use at work where cellphones were basically for emergency use only. However I quickly found out what was written policy and what actually happened were very different and also since most of my shift was out in the woods, I was not being supervised much anyway. So I never got it.
However I think the only killer app smartwatches really have is a way to use one’s phone when they can’t.
I have a Garmin Fenix and a Galaxy. The Garmin is my favourite by far, mainly because I like my watch to be “always on” so I can discretely look at the time without making an exaggerated arm movement to turn it on. It also has around 14 day battery life which is excellent.
As for actual uses. Primarily I use it to tell the time. I also make heavy use of its alarm and timer functions. It’s silent vibrate makes for a good discrete alarm for an early morning get up.
I have a Galaxy Watch 4 (received for xmas). So far, I mostly use it for time, sleep tracking, message notifications, and a stopwatch/timer. I’m still working on incorporating the other features into my life. I tried using the body fat tracking but it is so inconsistent that it seems unusable.
I’m also using it to keep up to speed with Android/WearOS development. I’m making a Pip-Boy 3000 face:
There are other Pip-Boy faces, but this one is mine. It’s still a work in progress (hence the janky alignment, empty spaces, etc.).
I also have a TicWatch Pro 3 and it’s primary uses are the time, checking emails/texts and, if I’m walking, I’ll use the pedometer and heart rate functions plus I can control Spotify from there without taking my phone out. I didn’t find the daily fitness stuff very useful since it would record things like tapping my hand on the steering wheel and congratulate me on thirty minutes of activity while I was sitting in traffic.
It’s basically a neat gadget for me. Hardly necessary in my daily life but I like it. I have a subtle “The Division” theme face on mine which looks pretty sharp with the orange and black if I do say so myself.
Sorry for the snip, but thanks for reminding me. This is another one of the most used features for me - I’ll start a playlist from VLC on my phone, and be able to adjust the volume/skip tracks on music on the Bluetooth earbuds paired to the phone during workouts or on lunch. I’m a lot less likely to leave my phone somewhere stupid if I’m not getting it out my pocket all the time to do minor chores like this.
ETA - I use Marine Commander smartwatch face, it packs a ton of info and looks very crisp (NOT a given with various smartwatch faces) and is full featured even with the free edition.
Which brings us to something else - the full ‘at a glance’ info. With that face, I get time, weather, watch charge, phone charge, steps, and date all in one place. As well as launchers for a few of the other apps I use semi-frequently (like the e-reader). A good smartwatch face is actually more usable than a lot of the built-in tiles, which often lack good customizability (the google news tile always seems to get stuck on news I’ve asked for ‘less of’ for example).
I have an Apple Watch and I use it every day for a variety of functions, such as the built-in timer and alarm. I also use it for of course the time, date, day of the week, as well as the weather, stock market, how many steps I have walked today, and what my heart rate is at. I can see all those functions by just glancing at the face of my watch. There are lots more things it can do… I just don’t need those functions very often or at all.
I have a Samsung watch, paired to my Samsung phone, which is paired to my hearing aids. I’ve used the watch to track my fitness rides and walks. It has a few quirks. I ride a recumbent trike, and if I have to stop for more than a few seconds, sometimes it’ll pause and not start again. If I take both hands off the bars, the trike wobbles, so tending to my balky watch requires pulling off the road to restart the tracking.
About “Killer apps,” I believe killing someone with a smartwatch is highly unethical.
Admittedly, I don’t have my glasses on. But I clicked on this thread specifically because I wondered what “Sandwich usage and killer apps” might mean. I still want to find out.