Not sure he researched his options well enough. The Garmin watches that use a MIP display only require a charge about once a month, probably even less if you turn off the Bluetooth, which gives him the other thing he wants, no distracting messages relayed from the phone. Battery life is potentially even longer for the models with solar charging.
I also find the reasoning in "Why track your sleep at all? If you’ve had a crap night, you’ll wake up tired." weird. That's the equivalent of saying "Why track your blood pressure at all? If you've had a problem with high blood pressure, you'll wake up with a stroke." Not that the sleep tracking on smartwatches seems to be worth much but I just don't agree with the logic.
> I also find the reasoning in "Why track your sleep at all? If you’ve had a crap night, you’ll wake up tired." weird. That's the equivalent of saying "Why track your blood pressure at all? If you've had a problem with high blood pressure, you'll wake up with a stroke." Not that the sleep tracking on smartwatches seems to be worth much but I just don't agree with the logic.
Equating tracking sleep to tracking a diagnosed and dangerous medical condition seems ridiculous. Not even remotely equivalent. There are lots of things in life that aren't worth the effort of tracking. There was a recent post here about a guy who spent years meticulously tracking every aspect of his life so he could crunch all the data and learn something interesting about himself. He learned in the end that he learned nothing new worth knowing.
"Why track your tumor at all? If the tumor becomes malignant, you'll wake up dead". That must be equivalent too right?
My parents bought an automatic Orient watch for each of them in the 70s - those that don't require batteries nor anything. My mother's watch was stolen somewhere in the 2010s and my father broke the crystal and kept stored for like 15 years or so. Just some weeks ago I remembered about it and sent it to service - now it looks and works like new and the service itself wasn't expensive. I'm pretty amazed.
Fun article, and it hits on the main trick: buy old, used watches. eBay, watchuseek forums, wherever. You can get sweet old, mechanical watches for like $20-200 all day long. And they come in reasonable sizes, modern watches are almost always way too big IMO.
It is solar powered and has a lot of passive sensors including a thermometer, barometer, altimeter, and compass. It sets the time from a radio signal. It is everything-proof. This is my "zombie apocalypse" watch.
I like my Apple Watch loads. Yes, it tells me the time and the date. And the weather. It has a timer. (It can't make a call by itself.) It will tell me if I have AFIB. I'm getting older -- it will detect a fall, or a car wreck. And I only have to charge it up once every day and a half or so...or for about 15 minutes to get me through a night of sleep monitoring.
Watches of all sorts are cool. I often have watch envy.
I also love them and wear an analog watch every day. Something funny I've noticed (anecdote warning) is that a lot of tech-savvy people I know wear an analog watch, and a lot of people who are not really tech savvy love to wear every digital gadget they can get their hands on, including smart watches.
Citizen makes great dumb watches. They're built well, reasonably priced, and completely solar powered. Promaster is maybe the best dumb watch you can get for that price point, you just need to put a sapphire glass in it. I wish they'd do a "Promaster Pro" model though, with a higher frequency quartz crystal and magnetic resistance. That would be asymptotic with perfection.
I love that everybody can enjoy watches differently :-).
There are people thay get a rolex. And good on them and they certainly send a message O:-)
There are people who like obscure Soviet watches, or hyper expensive ridiculously over complicated modern marvels, or just a few solid units from citizen and Seiko, etc etc.
I have a nice citizen blue angels navihawk with a tremendously useful ;) circular slide rule - but have much more enjoyed finding cool weird little Chinese semi-brand-name watches. Most of them will have a Seiko movement anyway, but without the brand / prestige surcharge. They're really the only jewelry / vanity thing I do - I have ten copies of same t-shirt because it's comfortable and fits me well, but I also have a watches for every occasion to match when I want to "dress up", and dozen of them cost me as much as that single citizen.
I love my (now third) Amazfit Bip watch with MIP display I wear since 2018 when my new phone lost LED notification indicator.
I charge it ONCE A MONTH, it has perfectly readable display in sunlight (more sun the better, opposite of AMOLED), at same time it tracks my sleep (bonus feature, not really necessary) and I can see incoming notifications on my wrist without taking it the phone, and of course it has much more accurate time than any dumb watch.
Author is some iphone addict who chose poorly apple watch and makes his opinion based on them.
Nobody force you to use smart features if you don't want, but they are there if you need and used Bip cost me like 20$, is thinner than any smart watch in market and saves me lot of time from looking at phone.
Reducing the cost of looking at a notification from taking something out of your pocket to just glancing at your wrist sounds like a superpower. I immediately jumped in and was an early adopter of smart watches back when the original Pebble was released.
Turns out being interrupted by a buzzing in your pocket gives you much less information to be distracted with than being delivered the actual message directly, and it was terrible for my mental health.
Mechanical watches are cool and look great but for most days I just use a Casio A158WA. It’s small and weight almost nothing and has a battery that could be measured in half-decades.
I know it's an anachronism, but I just can't like square watches- that round shape is just "right" to me, even though it's a terrible form factor for displaying most things like maps and apps.
I have a Tag Heuer I bought back in 2005 that I wore almost daily until I got my first Apple Watch (second gen). Since then it’s been collecting dust except the ultra rare occasion I have to dress up.
I recently bought a cheap G Shock on a whim thinking I might wear it. It’s also collecting dust. I probably have even less reason to wear it than the Tag.
My wife wants to buy me a Rolex as a belated wedding gift but I keep on insisting no because I feel it’s also going to join the Tag in the dustbin.
I don’t understand how you can say a smart watch isn’t, on top of all the smart features, also the best watch there is when it comes to keeping time. It keeps perfect time, always, even over DST changes, even when you change time zones. You never even have to set them!
Also your Apple Watch is defective if you have to charge it all night. I’m up to my third, I always wear it while I sleep, I only charge it when I’m getting ready for bed or getting ready in the morning, and the battery never runs out.
My Fitbit died two weeks ago. I had purchased it because I can set multiple silent alarms.
I could replace the battery but then it’s likely that the watertight seal would be compromised. I’ve put on my analogue watch, learned to live with my phone for alarms and so far so good. No worrying about the charge state every few days. No syncing with apps etc.
I've had mixed luck with that auto 31 jewel Vostok movement - one still going strong (although it did have to be sent back to RU for attention), and another that completely gave up the ghost
Prior to certain geopolitical events they could be had for under three figures, which is a steal if you got a good one
The danger with the older ones is that the rubber seals might be toast - if it's an Amphibia this kind of defeats the object of a dive watch
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I also find the reasoning in "Why track your sleep at all? If you’ve had a crap night, you’ll wake up tired." weird. That's the equivalent of saying "Why track your blood pressure at all? If you've had a problem with high blood pressure, you'll wake up with a stroke." Not that the sleep tracking on smartwatches seems to be worth much but I just don't agree with the logic.
> I also find the reasoning in "Why track your sleep at all? If you’ve had a crap night, you’ll wake up tired." weird. That's the equivalent of saying "Why track your blood pressure at all? If you've had a problem with high blood pressure, you'll wake up with a stroke." Not that the sleep tracking on smartwatches seems to be worth much but I just don't agree with the logic.
Equating tracking sleep to tracking a diagnosed and dangerous medical condition seems ridiculous. Not even remotely equivalent. There are lots of things in life that aren't worth the effort of tracking. There was a recent post here about a guy who spent years meticulously tracking every aspect of his life so he could crunch all the data and learn something interesting about himself. He learned in the end that he learned nothing new worth knowing.
"Why track your tumor at all? If the tumor becomes malignant, you'll wake up dead". That must be equivalent too right?
* https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing
I snagged one of these on watchuseek 10+ years ago, remains my favorite watch: https://www.fratellowatches.com/citizen-homer-second-setting...
https://www.casio.com/us/watches/gshock/product.GW-9400-1/
Casio Rangeman GW-9400 Series
It is solar powered and has a lot of passive sensors including a thermometer, barometer, altimeter, and compass. It sets the time from a radio signal. It is everything-proof. This is my "zombie apocalypse" watch.
Watches of all sorts are cool. I often have watch envy.
There are people thay get a rolex. And good on them and they certainly send a message O:-)
There are people who like obscure Soviet watches, or hyper expensive ridiculously over complicated modern marvels, or just a few solid units from citizen and Seiko, etc etc.
I have a nice citizen blue angels navihawk with a tremendously useful ;) circular slide rule - but have much more enjoyed finding cool weird little Chinese semi-brand-name watches. Most of them will have a Seiko movement anyway, but without the brand / prestige surcharge. They're really the only jewelry / vanity thing I do - I have ten copies of same t-shirt because it's comfortable and fits me well, but I also have a watches for every occasion to match when I want to "dress up", and dozen of them cost me as much as that single citizen.
I charge it ONCE A MONTH, it has perfectly readable display in sunlight (more sun the better, opposite of AMOLED), at same time it tracks my sleep (bonus feature, not really necessary) and I can see incoming notifications on my wrist without taking it the phone, and of course it has much more accurate time than any dumb watch.
Author is some iphone addict who chose poorly apple watch and makes his opinion based on them.
Nobody force you to use smart features if you don't want, but they are there if you need and used Bip cost me like 20$, is thinner than any smart watch in market and saves me lot of time from looking at phone.
Turns out being interrupted by a buzzing in your pocket gives you much less information to be distracted with than being delivered the actual message directly, and it was terrible for my mental health.
Mechanical watches are cool and look great but for most days I just use a Casio A158WA. It’s small and weight almost nothing and has a battery that could be measured in half-decades.
I recently bought a cheap G Shock on a whim thinking I might wear it. It’s also collecting dust. I probably have even less reason to wear it than the Tag.
My wife wants to buy me a Rolex as a belated wedding gift but I keep on insisting no because I feel it’s also going to join the Tag in the dustbin.
Also your Apple Watch is defective if you have to charge it all night. I’m up to my third, I always wear it while I sleep, I only charge it when I’m getting ready for bed or getting ready in the morning, and the battery never runs out.
Prior to certain geopolitical events they could be had for under three figures, which is a steal if you got a good one
The danger with the older ones is that the rubber seals might be toast - if it's an Amphibia this kind of defeats the object of a dive watch
This genuinely saves me time and adds fluidity to my day. Tap for subway. Tap to for vending machine. Tap for restaurant bill. Tap for shop purchase.
I genuinely don't look at my phone not much, so it's always deep in my winter coat pocket. Fishing it out takes 2-3 seconds each time.