Abstract

Despite large investments in smartwatch development, the market growth remains smaller than forecasted. The purpose of smartwatch use remains unclear, indicated by the lack of large-scale adoption. Thus, we aim to better understand the early adoption and everyday smartwatch use. We investigate a diverse usage data of smartwatches logged over a period of up to 14 months from 79 individuals between December 2015 and March 2017, one of the largest wearable datasets collected. First, we identify both explorative and accepted behaviours that users exhibit and further investigate how the individual usage traits and features differ between the two categories. Our analysis offers an insightful perspective on how smartwatch use evolves organically. Our results improve our shared understanding of smartwatch use and users adapting their use of smartwatch over time to match the capabilities of the technology by validating numerous findings from previous literature.