ChatGPT touches down on smartwatches
Published: March 13, 2023
ChatGPT touches down on smartwatches.
ChatGPT continues its march across the tech industry as it reaches a new frontier: smartwatches. Fitness brand Amazfit has revealed it’s going to be adding generative AI as a feature on its GTR4 device.
Looking at a recently posted demo on LinkedIn, ChatGPT will be listed as ChatGenius in the GTR4’s menu, and from there, you can ask it whatever you want. The video shows someone asking how they can improve their running performance. Then in just a few seconds, ChatGenius responds with a several-paragraph answer which you can read in its entirety by turning the watch face crown. Tap the screen to erase the previous response and you can ask a new question. You can even ask ChatGenius how your day was and it’ll tell you how many steps you took plus your current heart rate.
Beyond the demo, there’s very little information out there on how ChatGPT will work on the Amazfit GTR4. Other reports claim you can ask generic questions like the weather forecast or traffic, just like any other smartwatch. It’s also unknown which other Amazfit devices will even get the feature. The video alludes to ChatGPT support depending on the watch model and your location, with the United States being the only confirmed region at the time of this writing.
We reached out to Amazfit about the availability of ChatGPT support as well as what else it can do. Can it, for instance, show different types of data or is it limited to just a few things? This story will be updated if we hear back.
The fact that Amazfit was able to beat out the tech giants in adding first-party support for generative AI to a smartwatch is a big accomplishment. The closest thing to ChatGPT on something like the Apple Watch is a third-party app called watchGPT for the Apple Watch. It works pretty much the same way. You open the app, ask a question, and you get a several-paragraph response. However, there are some notable differences.
For starters, you have to pay $3.99 to use it whereas Amazfit’s feature is free. But you can “share the outcome of your interaction” with other people either through text, email, or social media messages. It’s unknown whether or not the GTR4 can do the same at this point. Either way, Amazfit has managed to break boundaries before anyone else. We think it’s only a matter of time before the likes of Apple or Google eventually add first-party generative AI support to their own smartwatches. The tech is already on browsers and search engines, after all.
