Sensor requirements for activity recognition on smart watches

The new generation of watches is smart. Smart watches are connected to the internet and provide sensor functionality that allows an enhanced human-computer-interaction. Smart watches provide a gesture interaction and a permanent monitoring of physical activities. In comparison to other electronic home consumer devices with integrated sensors, Smart watches provide monitoring data for 24h per day, many watches are water resistant and can be worn constantly. The integrated sensors are varying in performance and are not intended to distinguish between different states of activity and inactivity. This paper reports on identified requirements on sensors of smart watches for detection of activity, inactivity as well as sleep detection. Hereby a new measurement quantity is introduced and applications of heart beat detection or wearing situation are presented.