Putting the practicality of needing or wanting a camera on your Android Wear smartwatch or Apple Watch aside, it looks like Sony might be the first at developing a sensor small enough to a fit camera inside our wearable companions. Hillary Grigonis from Digital Trends:

 The company says it’s the smallest one megapixel sensor yet and could help reduce the size — or increase the features — of smartwatches and other small, lightweight devices.

The sensor captures images at about 1,296 pixels at the longest edge, yet the sensor itself only measures two millimeters. That sensor is paired with a low-profile lens that measures 2.6 millimeters. The circuit that connects the camera to the rest of whatever tiny device it’s implemented in is also tiny — Sony reduced the number of conductor pins to 20 to shrink the connection down to 3.3 millimeters. 

Another important milestone for the sensors are their low power consumption which, while important in mobile, is the difference between functional and not for wearables.

 Along with the new sensor’s tiny size, Sony also says the camera module boasts low power consumption. With a reduced frame rate, the camera only eats up 8mW, but at 60 frames per second, that number bumps up to a still low 55mW.

The sensor can capture up to 240fps with three different high speed scan modes, though that fastest speed cuts the resolution down to 324 pixels. Using the sensors at full megapixel, the camera captures video at up to 60fps. 

I’m certainly part of the camp that’s skeptical about the need of a camera on my watch outside of using it for FaceTime-like features or other sensory-related things which could take data from that camera. Otherwise, having a camera on my wrist so I can take pictures has gimmick written all over it – which means we should expect the 2017 Samsung Gear Smartwatch to have it.