Abandoning smart watches

Forums › Gadgets, robotics, home automation, electronics (including wearables) › Abandoning smart watches

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SheriffNZ

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#3165399 29-Nov-2023 07:12

MikeB4: I have a Casio G-Shock that I wear when doing stuff in the garden, cleaning around the home, at the beach and in the pool. They can certainly take a beating.
Both my sons that were in the army had G-Shock muds and the watches survived through basic training, through corpse training and deployments.

This may interest you, with the g shock and military link https://www.watchesofespionage.com/blogs/woe-dispatch/the-history-of-casio-g-shocks-and-the-us-military

It’s a cool website in general too.

jonathan18

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#3165748 29-Nov-2023 14:33

Gurezaemon:
frankv:

What I'm looking for is another Pebble, but with a decent battery connection.

Doesn't need to measure my blood sugar or pO2 or anything like that. I don't want to count my steps. I don't want a practically useless phone on my wrist. I don't want it to be a calculator with a touchscreen with miniscule buttons. I don't want it to measure my cycling performance or be a GPS. I don't want 20 different cartoon watchfaces... one nice clear one is sufficient.

I just want a watch so that I can see the time without having to either wave my arm around or press a button. (Plus, maybe a BT controller for my phone's audio player).

^This.

Telling the time, notifications, controlling audio playback, and maybe a timer for when cooking things. The essentials. And not having to take it off every couple of days to charge it.

The only watches that seem to offer this Ttype of basic functionality are super cheap, with pretty ordinary battery life, although the CMF smartwatch looks like an intriguing deal.

To circle back to the earlier part of this thread, I’m really pleased I made the move from various Samsung watches to a Withings Scan Watch. Yep, it does have a bunch of ‘health’-related features such as ECG and oxygen levels (whereas only step counting was a must for me), and it doesn’t have BT audio control for phones - but, honestly, it’s not something I’ve missed terribly.

What it does have is good looks, a true analogue interface and build(most people have no idea it’s a smart watch), notifications of text etc, alarms and timer etc, excellent battery life (I get about three weeks)… I really can’t imagine I’ll go back to a ‘conventional’ smart watch for the foreseeable future.

This is the one I’ve got (at the bargain price of $436 earlier this year):
https://www.withings.com/nz/en/scanwatch-horizon

alasta

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#3165759 29-Nov-2023 15:19

My requirements seem to be the direct opposite of most others here. I don't want notifications or audio controls, but running and swimming metrics are critically important for me to manage my training.

I currently have an Apple Watch but if I were in the mood for a change then I would be tempted by the Garmin Instinct Crossover.

MikeB4

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#3201623 29-Feb-2024 15:12

It's now been around ten months since I abandoned "smart" watches. I have given away my wrist beepers and only own traditional watches.

My collection of watches is sitting on fourteen and I enjoy them all. The absence of the beeps squawks vibrations and flashes is a god send. I am now considering dumping my smartphone for feature phone if I can find a decent one that is not handcuffed to a provider.

I have not experienced any withdrawal symptoms.

alasta

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#3201635 29-Feb-2024 15:40

MikeB4:

The absence of the beeps squawks vibrations and flashes is a god send.

I have all of that turned off on my Apple Watch as it would drive me nuts.

I recently bought a Garmin Forerunner 55 for someone as a Christmas present and it took us weeks to gradually and progressively turn off all the various features that were causing it to randomly disrupt her during the day. We got there in the end though.

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