Which smart watches have microphone?
Smart watches have become increasingly popular in recent years, offering a range of useful features like activity tracking, notifications, and mobile payments right on your wrist. Many of the latest smart watch models also come equipped with built-in microphones, allowing you to make calls, dictate messages, set reminders, ask questions, and control your smart watch with just your voice.
With the rise of voice assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Alexa, smart watches with microphones provide quick, hands-free access to these helpful AI bots. The microphone enables the voice assistant functionality on the smartwatch itself, without needing to always rely on a paired smartphone. This allows for greater convenience and usability.
According to industry analysis, the smart watch market continues to grow rapidly, with global shipments expected to reach 136 million units in 2024. As voice control becomes an increasingly desired feature, smart watches with built-in microphones are rising in popularity among major brands and consumers alike.
Voice Assistant Capabilities
Many smartwatches now come with built-in voice assistants like Siri, Google Assistant, and Amazon Alexa. These allow you to activate the voice assistant simply by speaking a wake word or phrase. You can then make calls, set reminders, search the internet, and control other smart devices completely hands-free.
According to Google, their Google Assistant is now available on Wear OS by Google smartwatches, allowing you to “check the weather, start a run, set reminders and more” just using your voice (source). Voice commands on a smartwatch can be extremely convenient for quick tasks when your hands are full.
As discussed on Quora, voice assistants on smartwatches are very helpful for various functions and provide a convenient hands-free way to interact with your device (source). You can use voice to get directions, set timers or alarms, control smart home devices, and more.
Fitness Tracking
Many modern smartwatches now come equipped with microphones, allowing you to give voice commands and receive audible feedback during workouts. This can be incredibly convenient when your hands are full or too sweaty to handle your watch.
With a compatible smartwatch that has microphone capabilities, you can start, stop or pause workout tracking just by speaking. You can ask your watch questions about your current workout statistics like “What is my current heart rate?” or “How far have I run?”. The watch will provide audible answers through the built-in speaker or connected Bluetooth headphones.
Some smartwatches also provide motivational speech and encouragement through the microphone during workouts. You may hear cheers, applause or verbal affirmations as you hit certain milestones or beat personal records. This audible feedback can help push you further and keep you motivated on tough training days.
Voice controls allow for seamless access to your smartwatch’s fitness tracking capabilities without fumbling with buttons or touchscreens. Just use your voice to start tracking runs, rides, swims and more. Then request audible progress updates on the go. It provides a whole new hands-free workout experience.
Apple Watch
All models of the Apple Watch since Series 3 have included a microphone for voice commands and dictation. You can activate Siri by saying “Hey Siri” to your Apple Watch. This allows you to dictate messages, set reminders and alarms, make calls, and more using just your voice 1.
When the microphone icon appears on the Apple Watch display, it indicates that the microphone is actively listening for your voice input. This happens when using Siri, recording a voice memo, or taking a phone call on the Apple Watch 2. You can answer incoming calls directly on the Apple Watch and conduct the entire call using the built-in speaker and microphone 3.
Samsung Galaxy Watch
The Samsung Galaxy Watch series includes built-in microphones across their product line to enable voice calling and voice assistant capabilities. For example, the Galaxy Watch Active2 contains both an inner and outer microphone.
The inner mic picks up the user’s voice for phone calls or Bixby commands even in noisy environments. The outer mic enables ambient sound mode to amplify noises around you. Bixby can respond to voice commands for reminders, alarms, messages and more. You can also dictate voice memos and notes using the Samsung Galaxy Watch mic.
Overall, the microphone capabilities allow the Galaxy Watch to serve as an extension of your smartphone with robust smart features like Bixby. Just speak into your watch to take calls hands-free or control your smart home devices via Bixby voice commands.
Fitbit Versa
The Fitbit Versa and Versa 2 smartwatches include built-in microphones that enable quick voice replies and voice commands through Amazon Alexa integration. The microphone functionality allows users to get news, weather forecasts, set timers and alarms, control smart home devices, and more using just their voice.
The microphone on the Versa only turns on when the user activates Alexa or one of the voice reply features, according to Fitbit’s support article The microphone on my Versa 2 is not working. This allows for voice control capabilities while also preserving privacy when the microphone is not in use.
Voice replies on the Versa allow users to respond to notifications with short preset quick replies, speaking directly into the watch rather than needing to dictate a full message. Fitbit touts this as a safer way to respond while exercising or driving. However, some users have reported issues getting the microphone to work for voice replies and Alexa on the Versa 2 as noted in the Fitbit community forums.
Fossil Gen 5
The Fossil Gen 5 Smartwatch is one of the better-looking Wear OS watches and delivers smooth performance compared to earlier generations according to PCMAG. A key feature of the Gen 5 is the built-in microphone which enables Google Assistant voice commands and dictation.
However, the Gen 5 lacks some capabilities compared to full-featured smartwatches like the Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch according to 9to5Google. While Google Assistant works well, the Gen 5 doesn’t support taking calls directly on the watch and functionality is limited mostly to notifications and basic app integrations.
Overall the Fossil Gen 5 brings much improved performance over earlier Fossil smartwatches and the integration with Google Assistant via the built-in microphone makes it a decent option among Wear OS watches according to The Verge. However, its capabilities don’t match dedicated smartwatches that run their own OS.
Garmin Vivoactive 4
The Garmin Vivoactive 4 is one of the smart watches with a built-in microphone. This allows for voice control capabilities like controlling music playback.
The Vivoactive 4 has a microphone and speaker which enables audio feedback during workouts. You can receive lap updates, hydration reminders, and heart rate alerts through the speaker. The microphone also allows you to respond to texts and emails via voice commands.
According to Garmin’s website, the Vivoactive 4 has “built-in sports apps and Garmin Pay contactless payment solution.” It also has fitness monitoring features like V02 max estimating cardiovascular fitness.
Voice Control Privacy
One concern many have with smartwatches that have a microphone for voice commands is the privacy implications of an always-on listening device. There is a risk that conversations and other sounds could be recorded unintentionally through the watch’s microphone and transmitted back to the device manufacturer.
According to Smartwatch Privacy Risks: Safeguard Your Wearables in …, the always-on microphones in smartwatches pose “one of the biggest privacy risks” and recommends disabling the microphone if not actively using voice commands to mitigate this.
There are also concerns around how voice data is stored and used by smartwatch companies. As reported by Microphone-enabled smart devices are a huge privacy…, many people are unaware of the privacy implications of microphone-enabled devices. Companies should be transparent about their data usage and storage policies related to voice recordings from smartwatches.
Conclusion
In summary, several of the top smart watches on the market today come equipped with built-in microphones to enable voice assistant capabilities. The Apple Watch and Samsung Galaxy Watch lead the way in offering deep integration with Siri and Bixby respectively. Meanwhile, Fitbit, Fossil, and Garmin also provide microphone-enabled models like the Versa, Gen 5, and Vivoactive 4 for basic voice control functions.
We’re clearly seeing a rise in the integration of voice assistant technology in wearable devices. With the help of built-in mics, smart watches allow users to get quick information, set reminders and timers, place calls, dictate messages, control smart home devices, and more through conversational voice commands. As the accuracy and scope of voice assistants improve over time, hands-free voice control on smart watches promises to become an increasingly convenient and powerful feature.