Still using my Pebbles with gadgetbridge. Wearing the pebble time steel now. I like only having to charge it once week or so. I preferred the OG steel but it’s gotten flakey after 6 years. Still have 2 OG pebbles that power up and a pebble2 so I am probably good for another 2-5 years.
I love having my podcast audio controls on the watch. Earbud controls suck, as do phone controls with gloves. Buttons are easy to manage. Also good notifications. I get previews of work slack messages as well as sms & calendar events.
Gave my wife an amazfit after her Pixel phone started being weird with gadgetbridge. Its ok. Not as feature rich and I am not happy about the app; it seems nosy. But she only has to charge every 2 weeks or so.
@jamesmcp I have a Pebble Steel that I like, but the battery does not hold a charge. I have a watch like today’s offer (I think from another Meh site) and while it is not bad it does not do much of what I need so far, so I rarely use it.
I have a fitbit and a wyze band, but they’re more like fitness trackers and don’t have a lot of functions I assume a smart watch has.
Have a pebble, but haven’t got around to figuring out how to get it to work on my new phone. I did enjoy it when pebble was still a company and all the features worked.
My favorite so far was my Basis Peak. But they had problems and recalled and I don’t think they ever made anything else after that. It was the best one I have used so far and I miss it a lot.
Personally I find the concept of a smartwatch to be lazy and redundant, at least in the context of linking it to a smartphone. I’m not so incredibly lazy or needy that I can’t stop what I’m doing and pull my phone out of my pocket to read a text, check the time, or do everything else a smartwatch does.
Dedicated fitness watches are a bit different I suppose, though I’d think almost everything one of those watches senses/measures can be done by a smartphone anyway.
I have a phone and a tablet and a number of speakers, thermostats, light bulbs, kitchen appliances, car audio and a laser measurer that pay way too much attention to what I’m up to. If I develop some condition that requires on-body monitoring I may consider one, tho …
I have gone on a smartwatch buying spree of late, so have several. I was trying to replace my Martian, but none are quite the same.
My Martian did what I needed- told me who was calling, or scrolled my text messages- while allowing me to have the analog watch I prefer. There is nothing else like it. But the app is wonky now, and has been abandoned.
Another thing to keep charged, and tether us to tech so it physically cannot be escaped. My normal analog watch is solar charge, so I don’t have to take it off.
Have one, don’t use it. We’ll, use the watch function, but nothing else. Not even the step counter. Now if it did the Dick Tracy walkie-talkie type thing, I’d annoy the heck out of everyone around me, but nope, just a lot of health tracking crap and a really crappy job of letting me know I got a text that usually doesn’t work.
I just want a step counter. Something like a pedometer that I don’t have to worry about falling out of my pocket or off of a clip.
I don’t want a watch that’s smarter than me. lol
I think it was 2004 when I realized I was constantly looking at my wrist. But I spend most of my day with a clock on the screen in front of me or in front of me in the car. Those few times I didn’t have either of those, I have a phone on my person
I have one but I wish it didn’t cost so much or I’d have multiple to help track all the things I want to. Someday…I’ll be able to get another. An apple watch would be fantastic if there was a way to use the app without having another apple device. Until then I’ll use my second hand purchased fitbit because they’re all over priced.
Have a Versa and have spent the past year almost daily trying to get it to consistently sync with my phone. I love the third-party band I got for it, but it’s been nothing but frustration. Saturday I ordered an Amazfit Bip S, so we’ll see how that goes.
I have a Garmin fitness watch that is semi-smart. It lets me know if I need to get the phone for a text or if one out of ten calls I get isn’t spam. Convenience is sometimes nice to have.
My smartwatch ownership was a bit of a journey.
I was in the “stupid accessory” mindset for many years. I stopped wearing a watch when I started carrying a smartphone everywhere. I did find it irritating to carry the phone when working out or running, so I just went without that tracking.
I found myself with some extra cash during the pandemic (like most with no vacations, no dinners out, no movies, etc, etc) so when I saw a deal on a Fossil Sport smartwatch for only $35, I figured it was worth trying for that.
What I liked about it:
Super lightweight
Notifications – I was surprised how much I liked it versus taking out and unlocking my phone. I could decide very quickly if it was worth doing.
Voice responses/dictation
Automatic workout detection. This was like magic. It could determine what exercise I was doing, and it was pretty accurate most of the time. Even when I created my own.
Watchfaces are fun!
What I didn’t like about it:
Pretty slow/laggy (it was $35)
Hard to read without my glasses (41mm)
The slowness really got to me, as did the viewing. Given that I liked the experience enough, I decided I deserved an upgrade. So I flipped it on eBay for what I paid, and on a black friday deal, moved to the Fossil Carlyle (Gen 5). This was a newer generation and larger face so it took care of my chief complaints. Turned out to be a good, but not great, watch.
What I liked about it:
Snappy processor
Larger Face
Ability to take calls from the watch. That’s also super-handy
What I didn’t like about it:
Heavy (considerable moreso)
Battery life. Only got a day or so on a charge. Something I could live with, but didn’t love.
The center crown dial is large and often got pressed during workouts (particularly pushups). This super-sucked because if you held it down, it would restart the watch. Which happened. A lot.
Shortly after I got it Google released an update which removed the auto-workout detection. Arguably the best feature of the device. Grrr.
The last two (especially the incidental reboots) became dealbreakers, so I flipped the newer Fossil on eBay for $20 less than I paid for it (yesterday, actually) and picked up the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 (45mm).
What I like about it:
Easy to read
No center crown button to get in the way
Awesome rotating bezel for navigation
Super fast/responsive
Lighter than the Fossil
Better, newer sensors (like Blood Oxygen, for example)
Better charging/docking experience
Amazing battery life. 2+ days on a charge with normal use, easy to extend by disabling convenience features (like always on display, etc)
What I don’t like about it:
Lost some paid apps because it runs on a different OS than WearOS.
I’m REALLY happy with this watch and will be keeping it for a while. So in the end, I like a smartwatch. But it needs to be the right smartwatch (for me) and definitely get what you pay for in this case, assuming you can make use of the features.
I have the Apple Watch 3 (upgraded from the original apple watch a few years ago because I wanted to be able to wear a watch while swimming). I had the cellular plan with it for a bit, but found that to not be very useful, so I dropped the plan.
I really like the health benefits of the watch. It taps me on the wrist to get up so I don’t just sit at the computer all day long ( I also have an app that reminds me to drink water throughout the day, so I don’t get hyperfocused and forget to drink anything until I’m about to die of thirst). It can tell how many calories I’ve burned each day, and gives me goals and challenges with regard to health and fitness that I also appreciate. Apple Fitness+ has been really cool, and I like the extra benefit of seeing how I am stacking up against other people who have done that particular workout, which plays right into my competitive nature and gives me a little extra boost to work harder.
I like that it buzzes me when I’m getting a phone call, and if I’ve left my phone somewhere in the house or in my purse, I can quickly answer on my watch while I go searching for my phone. It’s also helpful to be able to quickly see a text, and the speech recognition is pretty good for responding through the watch as well.
Speaking of leaving my phone around the house, there’s a function where I can ping my phone from my watch and will make a little ding, so I can find it. I use this all the time because I leave my phone all over the place, all the time.
I like the ability to customize the watch face and that I can see what the temperature is and the weather for later in the day. I also have it show the times for sunrise or sunset.
Oh, yeah, I also like that it tells me what time it is.
I have yet to figure out how to turn on the hourly standup notifications, but otherwise my Apple Watch 4 has been great. Didn’t think I’d ever go back to wearing a watch, but a few years back Aetna was offering big discounts so it was almost like an impulse purchase. And I never looked back.
It’s very handy to get text messages and other notifications when I’m downstairs eating and all of my other devices are upstairs. Working from home I don’t feel the need to keep my phone in my pocket all the time. Especially when I’m wearing sweatpants (which is like 90% of the time), because it makes a big heavy phone inconvenient. Might be different if I ever went back to a flip phone. (Hahaha no.)
Also handy for the occasional (WiFi) phone call, though I feel like I’m trapped in a pinball machine when a call comes in and my phone, watch, Mac, and iPad all start ringing at once — especially since they all ring differently. It’s insane that I can’t set one consistent ringtone across all of my Apple devices. Or maybe there is a way, but I haven’t figured it out yet. Like the standup reminders.
I lost 50 lbs by “gamifying” exercise with my watch. Now I have kids, so I’m meeting my move goal without discrete exercise times, but it’s still nice to look at my wrist for the weather, my schedule, start a breastfeeding session, and adjust my lights without having to grab my phone (especially since four year old turns them on and leaves them on all over the house). It helps me not have my phone in my face so much, too.
Love it. I look at my phone less, the stand reminders are very useful because I tend to nest, the blood oxygen, pulse and heart rate detectors are huge and I can monitor the ambient sound levels and UV at a glance.
It’s improved my health. Getting the fitness rings closed might have me speed walking around my place like a weirdo, but it works!
Similar sentiment to the other Apple Watch people in this thread. Initially I bought it experimentally, then was surprised when it turned out to have qualities:
Having certain core functionality on my wrist is surprisingly convenient – controlling volume levels and playback of podcasts and music, lights sometimes (got some Hue bulbs), timer, Siri – while doing kitchen stuff especially.
I’m less attached to my phone.
Wrist notifications are superior (when mostly disabled, as notifications should be).
The DB monitor thing is handy. Turns out my car’s failing bearing was creating unsafe noise levels when driving.
Getting MS Authenticator prompts for MFA on my wrist is a much bigger quality of life improvement than it sounds like.
I like the activity tracking and take occasional advantage of the prompts to “breathe”, but the “stand” ones were always a mistimed nuisance.
Apple Pay on your wrist is probably silly, but kind of gee-whiz cool anyways.
Iffy on sleep monitoring. The monitoring is better than a phone app, but sometimes I roll over onto my wrist and extra-smash all the veins.
I hear you are supposed to commit voluntarily health movements now. I hope this “Fitness+” thing takes, but don’t have much of an expectation that it will.
Only one more iOS release and Apple will let you unlock your phone while wearing a mask if your watch is on. Wish that’d been ready months ago. I keep my grocery list on there.
Nylon sport loop is the only good band – wrist size changes dramatically through the day and night. Knockoff from Amazon is fine.
Don’t have one and don’t want one. They do not seem very useful. I have my normal watches as much for the time telling as the looks.
why in the comments
@awk I guess you told them!
Still using my Pebbles with gadgetbridge. Wearing the pebble time steel now. I like only having to charge it once week or so. I preferred the OG steel but it’s gotten flakey after 6 years. Still have 2 OG pebbles that power up and a pebble2 so I am probably good for another 2-5 years.
I love having my podcast audio controls on the watch. Earbud controls suck, as do phone controls with gloves. Buttons are easy to manage. Also good notifications. I get previews of work slack messages as well as sms & calendar events.
Gave my wife an amazfit after her Pixel phone started being weird with gadgetbridge. Its ok. Not as feature rich and I am not happy about the app; it seems nosy. But she only has to charge every 2 weeks or so.
@jamesmcp I have a Pebble Steel that I like, but the battery does not hold a charge. I have a watch like today’s offer (I think from another Meh site) and while it is not bad it does not do much of what I need so far, so I rarely use it.
Why? Because we like you! This, not so much.
I have a fitbit and a wyze band, but they’re more like fitness trackers and don’t have a lot of functions I assume a smart watch has.
Have a pebble, but haven’t got around to figuring out how to get it to work on my new phone. I did enjoy it when pebble was still a company and all the features worked.
My favorite so far was my Basis Peak. But they had problems and recalled and I don’t think they ever made anything else after that. It was the best one I have used so far and I miss it a lot.
Personally I find the concept of a smartwatch to be lazy and redundant, at least in the context of linking it to a smartphone. I’m not so incredibly lazy or needy that I can’t stop what I’m doing and pull my phone out of my pocket to read a text, check the time, or do everything else a smartwatch does.
Dedicated fitness watches are a bit different I suppose, though I’d think almost everything one of those watches senses/measures can be done by a smartphone anyway.
I have a phone and a tablet and a number of speakers, thermostats, light bulbs, kitchen appliances, car audio and a laser measurer that pay way too much attention to what I’m up to. If I develop some condition that requires on-body monitoring I may consider one, tho …
I like being able to know who is calling, read the next text, and see the outside temperature at the twist of my wrist. Yes, I am lazy.
I have gone on a smartwatch buying spree of late, so have several. I was trying to replace my Martian, but none are quite the same.
My Martian did what I needed- told me who was calling, or scrolled my text messages- while allowing me to have the analog watch I prefer. There is nothing else like it. But the app is wonky now, and has been abandoned.
Health monitoring has become more important as I have aged. My Apple Watch has brought more peace of mind, as well as some significant conveniences.
Maybe if I got more than one text message per week that wasn’t from a 2FA or a faceless corporation or both?
Another thing to keep charged, and tether us to tech so it physically cannot be escaped. My normal analog watch is solar charge, so I don’t have to take it off.
Have one, don’t use it. We’ll, use the watch function, but nothing else. Not even the step counter. Now if it did the Dick Tracy walkie-talkie type thing, I’d annoy the heck out of everyone around me, but nope, just a lot of health tracking crap and a really crappy job of letting me know I got a text that usually doesn’t work.
I just want a step counter. Something like a pedometer that I don’t have to worry about falling out of my pocket or off of a clip.
I don’t want a watch that’s smarter than me. lol
@Tadlem43 Most smartphones have it built in or an app you can download.
@Salanth Yeah… I just want a simple one, not a ‘smart’ one.
Thanks, though!
I don’t even wear a dumb watch.
I think it was 2004 when I realized I was constantly looking at my wrist. But I spend most of my day with a clock on the screen in front of me or in front of me in the car. Those few times I didn’t have either of those, I have a phone on my person
I have one but I wish it didn’t cost so much or I’d have multiple to help track all the things I want to. Someday…I’ll be able to get another. An apple watch would be fantastic if there was a way to use the app without having another apple device. Until then I’ll use my second hand purchased fitbit because they’re all over priced.
Have a Versa and have spent the past year almost daily trying to get it to consistently sync with my phone. I love the third-party band I got for it, but it’s been nothing but frustration. Saturday I ordered an Amazfit Bip S, so we’ll see how that goes.
I’m not too terribly excited to be gadget centric. I love the idea of the Ironman house but all the nefarious hacking is concerning.
I have a Garmin fitness watch that is semi-smart. It lets me know if I need to get the phone for a text or if one out of ten calls I get isn’t spam. Convenience is sometimes nice to have.
Have one, haven’t used it since last March.
My smartwatch ownership was a bit of a journey.
I was in the “stupid accessory” mindset for many years. I stopped wearing a watch when I started carrying a smartphone everywhere. I did find it irritating to carry the phone when working out or running, so I just went without that tracking.
I found myself with some extra cash during the pandemic (like most with no vacations, no dinners out, no movies, etc, etc) so when I saw a deal on a Fossil Sport smartwatch for only $35, I figured it was worth trying for that.
What I liked about it:
What I didn’t like about it:
The slowness really got to me, as did the viewing. Given that I liked the experience enough, I decided I deserved an upgrade. So I flipped it on eBay for what I paid, and on a black friday deal, moved to the Fossil Carlyle (Gen 5). This was a newer generation and larger face so it took care of my chief complaints. Turned out to be a good, but not great, watch.
What I liked about it:
What I didn’t like about it:
The last two (especially the incidental reboots) became dealbreakers, so I flipped the newer Fossil on eBay for $20 less than I paid for it (yesterday, actually) and picked up the Samsung Galaxy Watch 3 (45mm).
What I like about it:
What I don’t like about it:
I’m REALLY happy with this watch and will be keeping it for a while. So in the end, I like a smartwatch. But it needs to be the right smartwatch (for me) and definitely get what you pay for in this case, assuming you can make use of the features.
VAN MURALS! GROUND SQUIRRELS! SPIT CURLS! AWESOME!
@mediocrebot You okay?
shrug
not my style & just don’t need one for anything.
I have the Apple Watch 3 (upgraded from the original apple watch a few years ago because I wanted to be able to wear a watch while swimming). I had the cellular plan with it for a bit, but found that to not be very useful, so I dropped the plan.
I really like the health benefits of the watch. It taps me on the wrist to get up so I don’t just sit at the computer all day long ( I also have an app that reminds me to drink water throughout the day, so I don’t get hyperfocused and forget to drink anything until I’m about to die of thirst). It can tell how many calories I’ve burned each day, and gives me goals and challenges with regard to health and fitness that I also appreciate. Apple Fitness+ has been really cool, and I like the extra benefit of seeing how I am stacking up against other people who have done that particular workout, which plays right into my competitive nature and gives me a little extra boost to work harder.
I like that it buzzes me when I’m getting a phone call, and if I’ve left my phone somewhere in the house or in my purse, I can quickly answer on my watch while I go searching for my phone. It’s also helpful to be able to quickly see a text, and the speech recognition is pretty good for responding through the watch as well.
Speaking of leaving my phone around the house, there’s a function where I can ping my phone from my watch and will make a little ding, so I can find it. I use this all the time because I leave my phone all over the place, all the time.
I like the ability to customize the watch face and that I can see what the temperature is and the weather for later in the day. I also have it show the times for sunrise or sunset.
Oh, yeah, I also like that it tells me what time it is.
@shaunanl
I have yet to figure out how to turn on the hourly standup notifications, but otherwise my Apple Watch 4 has been great. Didn’t think I’d ever go back to wearing a watch, but a few years back Aetna was offering big discounts so it was almost like an impulse purchase. And I never looked back.
It’s very handy to get text messages and other notifications when I’m downstairs eating and all of my other devices are upstairs. Working from home I don’t feel the need to keep my phone in my pocket all the time. Especially when I’m wearing sweatpants (which is like 90% of the time), because it makes a big heavy phone inconvenient. Might be different if I ever went back to a flip phone. (Hahaha no.)
Also handy for the occasional (WiFi) phone call, though I feel like I’m trapped in a pinball machine when a call comes in and my phone, watch, Mac, and iPad all start ringing at once — especially since they all ring differently.
It’s insane that I can’t set one consistent ringtone across all of my Apple devices. Or maybe there is a way, but I haven’t figured it out yet. Like the standup reminders.
Whoops, finally figured out the standing reminders. I’ve never used any of the Activity stuff, so I didn’t know I had to activate it for that to work.
Security concerns prevent me from wearing an electronic device. It’s just trouble waiting to happen.
@accelerator Kinda makes the microchip Bill Gates had big pharma put in the vaccines redundant, right?
I have an S3 classic. It’s fine. I don’t love it or hate it. It’s pretty meh.
I lost 50 lbs by “gamifying” exercise with my watch. Now I have kids, so I’m meeting my move goal without discrete exercise times, but it’s still nice to look at my wrist for the weather, my schedule, start a breastfeeding session, and adjust my lights without having to grab my phone (especially since four year old turns them on and leaves them on all over the house). It helps me not have my phone in my face so much, too.
@jitc This! The fact that it keeps the phone put away is a key feature.
Have one. Love it, but don’t use it because I don’t go anywhere because of the beer virus.
Love it. I look at my phone less, the stand reminders are very useful because I tend to nest, the blood oxygen, pulse and heart rate detectors are huge and I can monitor the ambient sound levels and UV at a glance.
It’s improved my health. Getting the fitness rings closed might have me speed walking around my place like a weirdo, but it works!
I don’t wear a watch because I don’t have to.
Besides, I’m already smart enough.
For anything else, I’m just a smart ass.
Garmin rocks.
Similar sentiment to the other Apple Watch people in this thread. Initially I bought it experimentally, then was surprised when it turned out to have qualities:
Nylon sport loop is the only good band – wrist size changes dramatically through the day and night. Knockoff from Amazon is fine.