Smartwatches: the polite, albeit judgmental, sidekick of the future

Sunday, 1 March 2026

REVIEW: Hollywood lied to us ‘80s kids about the future. We had a hoverboard craze, sure. But they didn’t fly and had a bad habit of bursting into flames.

What we all do have, though, is a very polite, albeit judgemental, sidekick strapped to our wrists, tracking our every step, breath and snore. It’s even scanning our thumbs to decide if our eating habits are up to its standards.

The Samsung Galaxy Watch8 flashes a little colourful animation before announcing my antioxidant levels are low. What it actually does is display that 50 reading on a colourful little scale from 0-100. What I hear is: “Your diet’s a bit shit, human.”

The future is here, and it’s passively-aggressively condemning my food choices.

The trend

The watch craze hit the smart device scene more than a decade ago. But despite predictions in 2015 that the “buzz is starting to die down”, they’re not going anywhere. In 2016 wearables first appeared at the top spot on the American College of Sports Medicine (ACSM) top fitness trends for the year, and they’ve consistently remained popular. In October last year the ACSM placed wearables, once again, at the number one fitness trend spot for 2026.

So when I was offered the chance to put the Samsung Galaxy Watch8 to the wellness test, I figured I’ll indulge myself in endless data points for a fortnight, from steps and heart rate to sleep analysis, body fat scanning and a bright light in the middle of the night that gives my poor husband “the creeps”.

What the experts say

To get the lowdown on what all these health and wellness data points on our wrists can do for our motivation, I turn to Massey University School of Psychology Associate Professor, Margaret Sandham.

How helpful these devices are, she says, largely comes down to how the wearer interprets the notifications, pings and data.

“Some people find it really helpful to have an awareness that they've not done a lot of steps that day, and that might encourage them to move and be active,” she says.

But the flip side is that people who are sick, frail or can’t be as active as they may like, can actually be demotivated by the data and reminders.

Her own 2023 research into user experience found that often, “people who were healthy found it really motivating … but people who were unhealthy and perhaps were frail, just found it just more bad news.”

And as the years go by, the data points continue to increase. Whether the ability to instantly pull information about body fat, antioxidant levels and blood pressure is helpful or harmful largely comes down, again, to how the user interprets the data. And whether it makes you feel better or worse.

If you feel good about the information and it’s not taking over your day-to-day life, “and you've made some small changes, or you're finding that it's helping you to maintain stuff, then that's a really helpful thing,” she says.

Find yourself in a place where you’re feeling a sense of distress from your watch with every ping or notification?

Then you probably don’t need the constant reminders.

The experience

This is a wellness column, sure. But long before discovering the novelty of scanning body fat percentage or earning movement badges, I get lost scrolling a sea of watch face options, missing sleep for the important task of finding the perfect design for my wrist.

The watch arrives as I’m in the final recovery stages of recent surgery so I am bummed about not being able to make use of the AI-powered running coach. And the “well done” movement notifications frustrate more than motivate. But my new sidekick hears no snoring during an interrupted night’s sleep after a humid and crowded punk rock show, plays witness to a mild stress increase at an Auckland FC game as the team fights to keep a 1-0 lead in the final minutes, counts my steps through many, many dull walks, gives me guided breathing work at the end of long workdays and lets me analyse my body composition at any given moment (as for how healthy that ability is at the touch of a button, I’ll leave that decision to you).

Then there’s the Antioxidant Index. With my thumb on the sensor, I’m hit with a low reading of 50 on a scale from 0-100. I’m a little miffed. I eat a pretty good amount of veges and have a very expensive tub of green supplement that I sometimes remember to start the day with. What more could a watch want?

The sensor measures carotenoids levels in the skin, which are red, yellow and orange pigments found in many fruits and veggies. Maybe I just need more carrots. I also stumble across a very entertaining Verge article from 2025 that describes how the journalist “tricked” the watch into a 100 score using a Cheez-it snack against its sensor.

I’m tempted to test the theory, but this watch is a loaner. I’m not ready to explain to Samsung why it’s being returned, stained orange from a bag of Rashuns. Still, it’s perhaps a nice reminder that any data from a watch rather than a doctor is worth taking with a healthy grain of salt (which may not help those antioxidant levels, either).

The general rule of thumb is that smart watches can be useful to help track trends or anomalies over time. But should never replace medical guidance.

But if some polite disapproval from our wrists is the motivation we need to add a little more colourful produce to our diet, maybe up on their high horses is where our watches should stay.

The verdict

As much fun as feeling critiqued by my watch is, what I find most useful are the stripped-back basics: Data points that remind me to move, stand, relax and rest. And maybe add a couple more carrots to the diet.

Do I need a device that hits me with a sad face when I don’t perform well enough, gives virtual pats on the head when I take extra steps around the block, then turns around and wishes me a happy birthday like it didn’t just sting me for being lazy a moment ago? Nope.

Was it still enough fun to convince me I really want one?

Absolutely.