Do you prefer to wear a smartwatch or a regular watch?
Would love to know what you guys think and your reasoning for it. I’m starting to see a lot of Apple Watches/Fitbits/Galaxy Watches in my area compared to more traditional timepieces.
I always wear a real watch because I collect them and they are the only jewellery I have and they complete your clothing style. They can gain value and I can give them to my kids one day (when I’ll learn how to make them). Also because as a Swiss I don’t really have a choice.
But I also wear an apple watch on the opposite arm, for sport reasons at first, then I got used to all the bullshit it have…
I had a smartwatch for a bit and I realized the only things I cared about were the biometrics and clock. I got rid of it and got a nice watch and an oura ring that I only need to charge once a week and I much prefer this setup.
I don’t know how useful it would be without the membership as I haven’t tried it. I am unsure to be honest, the advanced features I am kind of on the fence about, but the sleep insights have been very helpful. I do like the workout tracking which I think is free.
I don’t care to have anything on my wrist. But I want to start tracking steps, especially over winter, to prompt myself into enough daily activity. So I’m going to try a ~$50 fitness tracker on my wrist and see how that goes. If I can get past the annoyance at having something on my wrist, I may shop around for a full smartwatch, or more likely wait for the next gen or two. I am deeply unimpressed with the size and battery life of the flagship smartwatches right now.
Used to have an Apple Watch Ultra. Used to because it’s been somewhere in my house for months and I can’t find it and even when I knew where it was I barely wore it. I have a phone, i don’t need further notifications. I wear regular old school watches and love those (I think it comes with the Swiss nationality at this point, our insane love for well crafted watches is in our blood). As a woman who loves watches and has way too many, I also enjoy that mid range and luxury brands are starting to get more exciting models for us. I don’t care about diamonds. But automatic models and such were almost non existant for us a decade ago.
I definitely fancy a nice boyfriend style watch. Got the pink Swatch x Omega one last spring and once you swap the band for a way less tacky plain white leather, it’s pretty solid for casual days looks at the office.
I tried a cheap smartwatch to test out the concept to see if a smartwatch would add anything of value to my life before I spent hundreds on a good one.
I liked that I didn’t have to reach in my pocket to take my phone out to check the time, see what a text was, and take calls on speakerphone. The best use case was while I was working and that was very handy. The problem was that my job destroyed that cheap smartwatch in a couple weeks. I don’t have anywhere near the same utility outside of work. So no smartwatch for me despite wanting one, because technology.
Construction. Lots of abrasion, vibrations, moisture, impacts, various sealants, masonry dust, mortar mixes, etc. Basically it is not a great enviroment for electronics kept near your hands. I honestly expected the watch to last a few days and only my caution kept it going as long as it did. Though I did get it ripped off my wrist, the magnetic band sticking it to the truck saved it.
Oh yeah, that will do it. I wonder if a G-shock would fare better. Casio is making smartwatches now, though Im not sure if they’re from the G-Shock line. Maybe those would fare better.
Where my Casio G-Shock fam at? Solar, set by atomic clock, stylish, pretty backlight, old Nokia cell phone levels of indestructible. What’s not to love?
I gave my ~25 years old G-Shock to my son, he somehow lost it the garden in the fall. I found it the next spring when the snow had melted. I dried it up and changed the battery, it works like nothing had happened.
Same. I’ve beat the shit out of this watch and they’re not even expensive. It has some dings now, but it took quite a while dealing with my blue collar bullshit before it started showing abuse.
dumb watch. I really just need a quick glance at the time and date mostly when I can’t (or don’t want to) whip my phone out.
No batteries, kinetic powered, waterproof, cheap.
Some smartwatches have features I might be interested in (offline GPS tracking) but not at the price I’m willing to pay. Still waiting for prices to drop more.
And aside from Garmins and other high end dedicated expedition/marathon watches, everything else’s battery life just seems like crap. Like if I ever leave home for a single night I’ll have to pack a charger? That’s terrible.
Well, I’d like if it were able to tell the time, and I suppose being able to respond to messages would be nice, though I don’t want to pay for the extra cellular device. GPS would be cool, and I suppose the general fitness features but I think most of not all of them have that. I have a Pixel 6, so I was looking at the Pixel watch series, but the battery life doesn’t seem all that great which is kind of a deal breaker since I will certainly forget to charge my watch. Oh! Sleep tracking! I definitely want that since I don’t think I get very good sleep most nights.
I like it for working out. I run a lot so pace setting and distance measure is important to me. I have health risks so having something that will call 911 if I am hurt is also important. I like the notifications because a lot of my hobbies involve my hands so I’m able to see who is calling or texting. I have it set up to have quick access for timer setting because I like to cook and it’s useful for working out as well. Mine also shows the weather for the next 5 hours right on the face so I can plan my runs or errands better. I like it for sleep tracking as well and it’s been very useful in improving my sleep because you don’t really know how often you wake up until you see it. The pulse measure is cool and for some of my friends with A-fib it’s downright life changing.
It is super great, highly recommend, but also understand if people don’t want one.
I’ve never understood the “all the notifications!” arguments. This community is filled with Linux enthusiasts who redesign OS’es for aesthetic pleasure, you guys can’t turn off notifications from apps you don’t want notifications from?
Smart watches do a lot more than just deliver notifications. Control music, send/ receive calls and texts (you absolutely can type with ease, at least I was able to on mine), calculator, smart assistants (Google / Siri), GPS. The list goes on.
Also, I said to disable notifications you don’t want.
That’s fantastic. A smartwatch can too. They’re used for different situations.
People can try to show off how much smarter than everyone else they are by trying to “prove” the smart watches are useless, but fact of the matter is tons of people find use out of them so it’s kind of a pointless argument.
It has nothing to do with being or wanting to seem smart. People are fed up with their smartphones already and the idea of getting yet another device that’s demanding your attention and needing to be kept charged up is repulsive. A smart watch doesn’t bring anything of value for people like me.
A smart watch doesn’t bring anything of value for people like me.
That’s completely fine. But why feel the need to try to convince everyone that they should feel the same? If I see someone using something I personally wouldn’t use I’m not gonna try to tell them “oh my XYZ can do that”, “wow why don’t you just use a XYZ?”, “seems pointless when you can just blah blah blah”.
It happens whenever done interesting new thing comes out, there’s people that use the thing, and people that don’t and make sure everyone knows why.
You don’t have to get a cellular connected watch. My Samsung operates off wifi and Bluetooth only.
While I wouldn’t say they’ll revolutionize your life, they are useful for telling time, notifications, navigation, step tracking, exercise tracking, sleep tracking, controlling music, etc. If you find a good deal on one you might try it out. My battery lasted about 3 days new and is down to about 2 days now but I’ve already bought a replacement battery which looks easy enough to swap.
I wore a standard wristwatch all the time until about 25 years ago. I began noticing that I was conscious of feeling something on my wrist and I couldn’t stand it.
I then carried a nice pocket-watch around for a while until I got my first cell phone.
Tried various smartwatches and the problems always came down to one thing: battery.
Some of the watches batteries last a few days or a week but the screen remains dark and to see time you have to touch the screen our flip your wrist which gets on my nerves.
Now wearing a regular watch and each time I look at the time I’m in awe of the miracle of seeing the time displayed clearly.
When they come up with a watch that can keep the screen lit for at least a week without recharge I’ll reconsider…
I have a withings scan watch. Battery life is 25+ days. My original one, which hubby now wears, has a battery life of over 30 days but doesn’t record spo2. Both are water resistant up to 5 ATM, sapphire glass face and an analog watch face with a small, touch less, digital display. I will never not have a hybrid watch again.
Wife wanted me to wear my Samsung to our wedding yesterday. Yeah. It was dead after taking it to the camp where we had a cabin. One day, didn’t even wear it and it was dead.
One word, garmin. Garmin has its own special charger but it’s designed for ruggedneas and there are several adapters on the market that let you charge it with usbc. My 7x goes for 3+weeks with spo2 turned on and does everything else a normal smartwatch does like notifications, quick replies, music, etc.
You should look at garmin. My 7x goes for weeks with all data collection on and the screen is clear enough to see without the back light when there is enough ambient light.
Unless I am recording tons of workouts, I don’t have to charge the battery but every few weeks. I sometimes plug it in when I take a shower so I don’t have to worry about it.
What timing! I am so pissed at my smartwatch right now.
I got a smart watch because I was having some sleep problems, and I found that some Apple watches can monitor your oxygen levels while sleeping. I suspected it was related to other things like stress, but I wanted to be a bit more comfortable and say that it’s probably not sleep apnea.
So, the point is that I must wear it when I’m sleeping. Also, like any reasonable person, I have my phone set up not to disturb me at night. But at least on Apple watches, this means that my alarm goes off only on my watch. I can’t figure out any way for it to not go off on my watch, and only go off on my phone, unless I simply take off the watch.
It’s the MOST ANNOYING THING. First, because it means that you can’t have your alarm go off across the room. You can always turn it off on your watch, which means that you can even turn it off without waking up. And then, you have no alarm at all. So, if I absolutely have to wake up for some meeting or airplane or something, I can’t wear my watch to bed.
Also, maybe this is just me, but I hate when my watch vibrates on my wrist. I hate the feeling. Every time it vibrates, I have the urge to smash the thing. If I had to choose a set up, I’d have my phone always vibrate, and my watch never vibrate. But I can’t figure out how to make that work on Apple.
This morning was an absolute nightmare, though. Now, I’m used to turning off my alarm on my watch, but when I went to turn it off this morning, the watch was deep in some shitty menu. I couldn’t figure out how to turn it off. And it was just vibrating on my wrist non-stop. Obviously, this was made much more difficult because I was just waking up.
I eventually figured it out, but the point is that the UI is obviously less refined than, for example, the phone UI, where this sort of alarm hiding has never happened in all of my years owning a smart phone.
Anyways, to answer your question, I prefer to wear a smart watch, because a regular watch doesn’t do anything for me. But goddamn do I hate my smart watch right now!
I wear an automatic Seiko. I like that I don’t have to worry about a battery staying charged/wearing out over time. I just have to take a second every couple weeks to set it forward to account for it losing a few minutes. Another factor is when I looked at the smart watches that were available last time I got a new phone and they were all very large and I have small wrists which I don’t want to emphasize. My current watch fits well.
I would like to get a bracelet or something that tracks biometric data but from what I saw when I was investigating those is that they all have watch functionally as well and I don’t want to wear two watches.
You can get a Whoop band or Oura ring, or something similar - from what I’ve gathered they are just like regular bracelet or ring, with good sensors inside, and no screen to distract. Plus, this probably makes them way more lightweight than watch-like smartbands.
The whoop band looks like what I’m looking for but that membership is too steep for something that I just want to gather data. Thanks for the recommendations.
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