I personally prefer a digital watch, but I definitely see why somebody would want a smartwatch
What do you folks think of smartwatches?
Apart from the health/fitness tracking built in into most of them and sometimes playing music via earbuds without hassle of a phone, I don't use them for anything else. I don't think either my sleep hygiene or health has improved despite the copious amounts of data these devices serve. Do you think these are just another tech gimmick that a person can do without or is it an essential part of your life?
I personally prefer a digital watch, but I definitely see why somebody would want a smartwatch
the only smart watch i have ever used and the only smartwatch i ever see myself using are the pebble series smart watches, they have everything i need from a smart watch: a buzz on my wrist for new notifications (im deaf), the time, and a timer. that's all i need! and i love them
I use a smartwatch, and make heavy use it of it. At work, it lets me know about meetings, and where I have to go if I am in the physical office. At home, I use it for timers, reminders for medication, and fitness. Additionally, where I live the weather is very unstable, so I have all type of apps trying to warn me about the rain. All in my wrist.
They're neat! (To an extent...)
I never really tried a "smartwatch" but I have tried fitness trackers for a year or two a while ago, which I did get uses out of sleep tracking, receiving notifications from my phone, and also setting timers/alarms helped me without bothering those around me.
I am interested in getting a smartwatch in the future as I do miss some features a bit.
But modern smartwatches? Some stuff are a bit gimmicky.
From a technical standpoint, I think they're cramming way too much tech into a small form factor, it's just hurting battery life and performance.
I always see that the good performing watches usually run their own operating system rather than something like WearOS, even if it is nice to have a decent version of Android on a watch build, it's not really what I'm looking for.
Wear OS watches [or for that fact, even Apple ones] aren't very great on battery life. Samsung Galaxy 6/Pixel Watch 2 can eke out couple of days if used with AOD turned off. But start doing things like streaming music from watch to earbuds and battery takes a tumble.
I used a fitness tracker before. In hindsight, it wasn't as accurate as even the couple of years old Galaxy Watch 4, but it had couple of weeks of battery life.
A fun fact, there's a local company here that actually installed full blown Android and in their marketing jargon, created a "wristphone". Problem is, they are marketing it to people who wish to consume videos and stuff on watches [ why would anyone want to do that, I dunno] but it's battery life, as expected, doesn't inch beyond 2 hours.
The health stuff is an essential part of my daily life, as a disabled person. It helps me understand my limits and how things are affecting my body.
My wishlist for a smartwatch is:
- Less than 100$
- Opensource (I want to be able to write simple programs for it)
- Batery life works for at least 1 week.
- GPS for traking me when I run and keeping a fast peace in races.
I have used the pinetime for 1 year, I was very happy with it, but it does not have GPS and the step counter broke... :(
I now have an amazfit with GPS. I have only connected it to an android phone to set the time and never connected it again. I am pretty happy with it. It is kind of possible to write software for it, but I did not try it really, it comes with an older version of the OS and it doesn't make a lot of sense to waste time on some closed device... It has some bugs too.
Next one I want to try is the bangle.js, but it won't be soon :(
My wife and I got free Apple Watches and iPhones from our mobile providers as a forced upgrade when they went 5G, mainly because I threatened to cancel service if they were going to cease to support devices that were only two years old.
The health metrics they provide can be a useful target if you want to make your own games around them, but having to charge them nightly limits their utility. When Apple ceases to support my devices I'll probably replace the Apple Watch with a Casio F-91W or something similar. I'll probably place the Necronomipod with a potato running Android that has just enough CPU and RAM to hold the MFA apps I need for my day job.
I worry about all the health data these watches collect, I don't feel comfortable about this data being shared with companies I distrust. I did use a Galaxy Gear for a while, got it on a bundle with a Samsung phone, but I didn't find it very useful, it was disracting if anything, plus it was one more thing to run of of battery, so eventually I just sold it. Don't miss it.
True. There is an app called 'GadgetBridge' [available on F Droid] that aims to replace propreitary connections with a FOSS variant so that watch related data remains just on phone and only used for phone-wair sync purposes. Too bad only some devices are supported. I don't think any of Samsung's Galaxy series [Wear OS] is supported as of now.
I have a amazfit that was given to me as a present, and it works great with gadgetbridge.
I always thought those things were unnecessary and gimmicky, but I have to admit that it greatly motivated me to start working out. Especially the ability to calculate your Personal Activity Intelligence (PAI) score.
Also sleep monitoring helps me, by keeping me cautious about my sleep pattern, and hours of sleep.
Like any kind of habit journaling and monitoring, success depends on will power and determination, but it does provide a motivation.
I just checked out Amazfit and they seem to have products covering much of the price spectrum. I too, use my watch to sleep, though my newer one[well, technically, the model is couple of years old but Galaxy Watches are expensive at launch :p ] always shows that I get much lesser deep sleep than what I got with my previous basic fitness tracker.
Don't believe in 'em. Watches were made to tell the time and do nothing else, so long as it shows the big hand and little hand, I'm all set. No need for fancy gadgets.