There's A Good Reason Why Many Smartwatches Don't Use USB-C Charging Ports

Most consumer electronics devices use USB-C these days, which is really convenient because you can simply have a single cable that charges all your gadgets. Even Apple, which had long stuck to its guns with the Lightning port, finally gave in and switched to USB-C after the European Union passed legislation forcing tech companies to embrace the port as a standard. But one category of gadgets where USB-C is surprisingly uncommon is smartwatches. Most of these wearable devices use proprietary charging methods, and, to make it even worse, some companies use different chargers for their models, throwing charging compatibility out the window. 

It's a total mess, to say the least, and that makes it hard to juice up any smartwatch with just any cable. While this is going on in the smartwatch category, USB Type-C exists, and it has already made its way onto many modern gadgets. Interestingly, even some of the major smartwatch brands offer USB-C ports on their other products, like Apple, Google, and Samsung, but don't have it on their wearables. So why haven't smartwatches made the switch yet, you might ask? Well, it's that way for one good reason: water resistance. Smartwatches generally don't use USB-C ports because it makes it challenging to keep them dust- and water-tight. 

Unlike your phone, smartwatches need to withstand water and dust better because you wear them on your wrist, and thus they're generally more exposed. Besides, you'll want to use your smartwatch to track water-related activities like swimming, water skiing, and recreational scuba diving, all of which require a greater level of water resistance to prevent damage. As a result, the trade-off for even the best smartwatches has been to use proprietary solutions like pogo pin connectors and magnetic charging pucks.

Proprietary smartwatch charging solutions are quite common, to the detriment of consumers, because they're typically incompatible with each other and can be hard to replace if you lose yours. However, some manufacturers have actually made the effort to solve this issue by offering USB-C ports. So far, we've seen some models on the market feature USB-C ports, but they're made by lesser-known brands. One example is the awkwardly named boAt Storm Call 4 smartwatch, which was launched in May 2026 in the Indian market. 

The boAt Storm Call 4, alongside its pricier sibling, the boAt Ultima Vogue 2, offers a USB-C port for charging the smartwatch. There's also the Colmi P80, another smartwatch model from a lesser-known company that comes with a USB-C charging port. Colmi claims that the P80 is IP67-rated for dust and water resistance, and the company does include a rubber seal to try to protect the watch from water or dust entry through the USB-C port. Perhaps that's the way the company manages to include a USB-C port and still offer water and dust ingress protection. 

The boAt Storm Call 4, on the other hand, doesn't seem to have a rubber seal to protect the port but claims to be IP68-rated. There are also many more examples on AliExpress that offer USB-C charging ports. Of course, all these models are from small brands, and we can't really take their word at face value on the IP rating claims. Regardless, perhaps it's time mainstream smartwatch brands looked into how they can offer the best of both worlds: USB-C charging and water resistance support.