Maximum smartwatch makers are gambling speedy and unfastened with thickness specifications

TL;DR: {Hardware} specifications from respected firms are typically taken as gospel however as one YouTuber just lately found out, some have a penchant for stretching the reality (and a few greater than others).

Samsung final week introduced a brand new line of smartwatches together with the Galaxy Watch 5 Professional. Product specs checklist the watch’s thickness at 10.5mm however some other folks on-line spotted that the specifications didn’t appear to go the attention check in comparison to different slimmer wearables.

Ray from the YouTube channel DC Rainmaker made up our minds to take a more in-depth glance. He began with the Galaxy Watch 5 which has a said thickness of 9.8mm. In fact, it’s nearer to 13mm – or about 30 p.c thicker than Samsung claims. The aforementioned Watch 5 Professional measured out to a tick over 15mm, or round 43 p.c thicker than Samsung said.

The Apple Watch Collection 7 has a intensity of 10.7mm in step with Apple’s website online however Ray’s software measured it at round 13.14mm. Garmin’s Forerunner 255 is indexed at 12.9mm on Garmin’s website however in reality is a marginally over 14mm thick. The Polar Pacer Professional is reportedly 11.5mm thick however the virtual caliper says it is nearer to twelve.16mm. Suunto’s 9 Height watch is indexed on-line at 10.6mm thick however measures 12.85mm.

Are you noticing a pattern right here?

Handiest two watches Ray measures – the Fitbit Sense and the Wahoo Rival – have been inside of their said spec. To verify his measurements have been correct, Ray recalibrated the software after every size and verified them towards a measuring mat.

What is going on, you ask? Neatly it seems that many smartwatch makers play speedy and unfastened with their wording. On Samsung’s website within the effective print, you can realize it says watches are measured with out well being sensors. Armed with that wisdom, Ray discovered that units from Apple and Garmin do line up with spec when you do not take into accout the sensor bump.

Whilst the bump does not surround all the backside of the watch, it’s bodily there and does issue into the full thickness of the tool. To state the spec from any segment apart from the thickest level with out explicitly pronouncing so (and no longer simply hiding it within the footnotes) feels misleading.

With the Galaxy Watch 5 Professional, on the other hand, Samsung is stretching the reality even farther. As Ray highlights, the said thickness size is only for the sidewall of the watch and entirely excludes the sensor bump and all the rear shell.

How does that translate into the actual international? Seems, the Galaxy Watch 5 Professional is just about similar in thickness and diameter to a Double Stuf Oreo. Paradoxically sufficient, the usual 40mm Galaxy Watch 5 is kind of the similar thickness as a normal Oreo.

As Ray concludes, it sort of feels that almost all main smartwatch makers have an unwritten gentleman’s settlement wherein they’ll merely forget about the sensor bump when record the thickness in their virtual timepieces.