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I'm beginning a project with WatchOS and need to be sure of a few capabilities.

The watch app basically tracks some activity (movement) and sends bluetooth commands to custom hardware the end user has.

So the basic requirements are:

  1. Does WatchOS have bluetooth?
  2. Does WatchOS provide accelerometer access?
  3. Does WatchOS allow an app to continue running in the background to gather data or is there a way to keep the screen on and the app running so the bluetooth commands are still sent to the hardware? On WearOS (Android) you have Wake Locks which keep the screen from turning off, which keeps the app in the foreground during the times we need to have constant/ensured access to the accelerometer data to run against some ML models we have to determine what the user intended to do and which command we are sending via bluetooth.

I've been researching for a day and haven't found a solid answer on #3. That's the most important thing to determine if WatchOS is a viable platform compared to WearOS with what we can do there in regard to ensuring we receive the user's input when the "activity tracking" is active so we don't end up missing the user's "stop" command from the user movement to stop the hardware functionality. Fail safes are built into the hardware when the "stop" command isn't received or connection is interrupted so injury isn't likely, but it's more of a viable platform question to ensure the user experience is stable and solid.

Brad Martin
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    Your final sentence makes me think that your software shouldn't rely on *any* mobile operating system. Software failure that could cause injury is frightening. WWDC videos are useful sources of information - https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2016/713/ and https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2019/707/ may help – Paulw11 Apr 14 '20 at 21:45
  • Injury is highly unlikely, there are fail safes in place. Current products are in place, FDA regulation in place, so there are safety measures, but just generally trying to be sure that the connectivity remains even when the watch screen display goes off. From more research it seems that HKWorkoutSessions are what I'll need to end up working with, but again, super early stages of research on WatchOS. Though, you're correct, the way I worded that does seem like injury will occur if this can't be achieved which isn't accurate. I'll change the wording a bit. Thanks. – Brad Martin Apr 16 '20 at 19:33

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