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5 unexpected uses for your old smartwatch
Breath new life into your old tech with these handy tips.
Upgrading to one of the best smartwatches can be exciting, but it often means your old smartwatch is left with nothing to do. Unfortunately, it's at this point that users may toss their old smartwatch in a drawer and forget about it. But it doesn't have to be like that.
Your old smartwatch is a versatile piece of hardware, so despite how it seems, that small device that's been gathering dust still has some pretty unexpected and interesting uses. With the right guidance, you can give your old smartwatch a new lease on life, or at the very least, you could sell it for some quick cash. Even if your smartwatch no longer receives major OS updates, you can still use it as a dedicated AI tool, an easy-access note-taking device, a child monitoring tool, or a dedicated sleep tracker. So free your old smartwatch from its drawer and blow the dust off. Most of these unexpected uses only take a few minutes to set up and require an extra app or two, though some require a cellular plan or a phone for full functionality.
If you use AI tools like Gemini or ChatGPT, one of the more relevant uses for your old smartwatch is to turn it into a dedicated AI assistant device. Setting things up is pretty simple, allowing you to get answers from or talk to your AI, all without having to pull out your phone. On Wear OS smartwatches, Gemini is the primary option. While on the Apple Watch, Siri is the default — but you don't have to stick with Siri.
On watches running Wear OS 4 or later, you'll need to first make sure Gemini is installed and has been updated. Once that's sorted and voice activation is enabled, all you need to do is say "Hey Google," and Gemini will respond. If voice activation isn't your style, you can alternatively press and hold the side button to activate Gemini. On Samsung watches, you'll need to customize the side button so it can activate Gemini. To reassign, open Settings > Button and gestures > Double press > scroll to where you see Gemini and select it.
On the Apple Watch, activating Siri is straightforward; simply raise your wrist and say "Hey Siri" or press and hold the Digital Crown. You can use the Wrist AI app to gain ChatGPT or Gemini functionality, but the free tier only allows a small number of chats daily. For easier access, you can add a Wrist AI complication to your watch face. For Wear OS watches, to get ChatGPT going, you'll need the WristAssist app, but it's been removed from the Play Store, so you will have to sideload it. You'll also need an API key from OpenAI to get things going; creating the key is free, but usage is billed.
A good use case for your old smartwatch is simply making it a note-taking device thanks to more accurate AI transcriptions. So instead of having to pull out your phone from your pocket every time you get an idea or want to jot down some thoughts, you can raise your wrist and speak.
Your old smartwatch likely already has a note or voice recorder app, so what you need is preinstalled. On Apple Watch, you can say "Hey Siri," then "Record a voice memo" to get started.
You can get transcriptions of the notes recorded on both Wear OS watches and Apple Watch, but you'll need your phone. On Samsung watches, you can get transcriptions in the voice recorder app using the built-in speech-to-text mode, but it has a 10-minute limit. Recordings taken on your smartwatch should automatically sync across your devices, so a note you recorded during your morning walk should be waiting on your phone by the time you get home.
There are few things as important to the human body as sleep, and your old smartwatch can help you improve it. But you'll have to sacrifice charging your watch overnight, potentially leaving you with a drained battery in the morning. And that's precisely where your old watch comes in. You can charge it all day, then wear it to bed while your main smartwatch charges.