Watches have evolved from timekeepers to modern IoT devices with sensors, microphones, Bluetooth, Internet access, NFC, and payment systems. That's the good news – but it is also the bad news. Smartwatches can receive email and notifications from messaging apps like WhatsApp or Telegram. Watches have sport, fitness, and health applications that operate with sensitive data related to the user's health, running activity, and location. Do you trust your personal health data to the cloud? Losing personal health data can lead to increased insurance rates if health issues are disclosed. If smartwatch users are in the military or government, a leak of location data due to data mining or hacker activity can lead to disciplary action.

In the past, users never had to worry their watch could compromise their privacy. However, the new generation of watches have many of the privacy issues associated with smartphones. Classic attacks are still present: man-in-the-middle (MITM) attacks, in which a malicious third party intercepts communication between devices on the same network; malicious third-party apps that can steal personal information; and typical malware. Also, many hardware vendors stop delivering updates for their devices a year or two after release because it is more profitable to focus on new devices.

The easiest way to approach smartwatches is to purchase a new device from Apple or a vendor that ships Google's Wear OS operating system; however, both these systems are closed source. If you support open source, prefer privacy, and like the idea of customizing your own watch, AsteroidOS offers an exciting option.

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