A smartcard hardware wallet is a hardware wallet that keeps private keys inside a tamper-resistant secure element and signs transactions on the card itself, so raw key material never leaves the chip. In practice, this is a useful way to describe how Keycard works: the phone or computer prepares the transaction, sends the hash to the card over NFC or contact, and the secure element returns only the signature.
What makes a smartcard hardware wallets different from a general-purpose hardware wall