As smartwatches become more capable and we use them for more activities, it’s becoming increasingly convenient to be able to leave their accompanying phone behind. That’s possible thanks to some smartwatches that come with a built-in LTE radio.
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The two biggest players in LTE-connected smartwatch platforms are Apple, with the Apple Watch running watchOS, and a broader ecosystem of vendors reliant on Wear OS (formerly Android Wear).
When in range of the paired smartphone, a smartwatch can accept calls that come through the phone. But an LTE-equipped smartwatch doesn’t need the smartphone to be anywhere else to function as a phone. In addition to calls, the smartwatch can also handle text messages and other data from the internet (weather, stock prices, sports scores, etc.).
Of course, the size of the smartwatch also has some disadvantages. For example, the smartwatch has a smaller battery, which means that calls consume more battery power than calls on a smartphone.
