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 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.
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…
Smartwatch. It’s very useful for triaging notifications (messages, email, phone calls, etc) and turning HomeKit devices on/off quickly or when my hands are full (Siri, open the garage door). Also extremely useful for fitness.
I use mine more as an mp3 player and I do find the vibration alarm feature very useful as sometimes a normal alarm clock doesn’t wake me. Apart from that don’t really see to much benifit over a normal watch.
It is nice to have things like maps etc on your wrist bit I can’t say I’ve ever actually used really used them.
Both, but much more of my days are an Apple Watch SE2 than my DW5600.
I use it as a HUD - I want to know the exact time for work, current temps high/low, sunrise / sundown times, and a pop up for screening phone notifications helps me quite a bit with not checking my phone as much. I also appreciate wrist heart rate (for keeping anxiety in check,) compass is neat, and knowing the local dB is helpful for keeping my tinnitus from getting worse.
I never thought I’d like a smartwatch until I tried one.
I enjoyed having a smartwatch back in the pebble days. I was kind of addicted to notifications (especially from datadog) at the time. My Pebble time made me feel less stressed because glancing at my watch was less effort than pulling out my phone.
Then Pebble was killed off, web-scale infrastructure became more reliable, and I learned to recover from my notification addiction. Now I’m happily watchless again.
Have you looked into Rebble? I’m still wearing my Time Steel as a daily driver. I’ve yet to find a newer smartwatch that hits all the features I care about.
I don’t like either. I don’t use things for fashion, and the phone alone gives me all the function of either watches without it giving me sensory issues by being a bracelet on my wrist.
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!
Add comment