this post was submitted on 25 Nov 2023
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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.

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[–] [email protected] 54 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Regular watch. I don't need more things sending me notifications, and a nice watch makes me feel more confident.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Happy for you! If wearing a regular watch makes you feel better, then the value of that far outweighs any other option.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 11 months ago (7 children)

You forgot the third option: None.

I got a smartphone, I don't need a watch to tell the time.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I thought the same until I got a smartwatch. They add so much that I highly recommend them.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 11 months ago (4 children)

I've looked into them, but I just don't see the benefit. They usually still need the phone nearby to be useful, except you have an extra SIM for them.

The only function I thought interesting could be the pulse sensor.

For everything else the display seems to be too small. No typing and for calls you can just use Bluetooth headphones.

What do you actually use the watch for besides telling the time?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Also, the last thing I want is another screen popping up notifications at me.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 11 months ago (8 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Garmin "Smart" watch. It doesn't do apps but it does notificatios and is great for fitness... and only needs charging once a month. A watch that needs recharging daily is useless to me.

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 11 months ago

I don't wear any watch at all. Time isn't real, it was invented by capitalists to sell more watches.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

You also forgot the fourth option: Both.

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...

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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)
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[–] [email protected] 17 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Me too. I just hate everything that should be on my wrist or neck. They are just really not comfortable for me.

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[–] [email protected] 15 points 11 months ago

Regular watch. Other than my phone, I tend to want less technology on me.

My go to is an old Casio, the same one Dennis Nedry wears in Jurassic Park. It's super weird seeing how expensive this watch has become on eBay.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

No watch. I have a smart phone

[–] [email protected] 12 points 11 months ago

Regular mechanical watch. I don't care about my notifications, I just want what is effectively a piece of jewelry. I prefer the watch to a bracelet because I also appreciate the worksmanship and design of the analog machine.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (4 children)

Casio G-Shock owner here. I prefer a watch to always know the time without checking my phone but I would never use IOT devices, including a smart watch for privacy & security reasons.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Where my Casio G-Shock fam at? Solar, set by atomic clock, stylish, pretty backlight, old Nokia cell phone levels of indestructible. What's not to love?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I gave my ~25 years old G-Shock to my son, he somehow lost it the garden in the fall. I found it the next spring when the snow had melted. I dried it up and changed the battery, it works like nothing had happened.

Amazing design.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 11 months ago

Regular watch.

My good old Timex Ironman has survived tons of physical abuse over the decade or more ive had it, and it's battery only needs my attention every few years. I doubt a smart watch would improve either of those scenarios.

Plus, I don't see any value added to my life by having phone features on a smaller, harder to read screen. If I want to use phone features, my actual phone is less than a foot from my wrist.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago

A regular watch.

I've never seen the point of a smart watch, unless you're using it for fitness.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

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.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I only wear a sundial but I admit it's hard to tell the time when it's cloudy or night out. Forget telling time inside too.

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 11 months ago

I've a solar normal watch. Having to plug it in every week seems annoying to me.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago
[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Regular watches - been wearing watches of some kind since middle school, and at this point I feel undressed or like something is missing without anything on my wrist. Like many others here, while I love the tech of smartphones (and admittedly the smart watches are really cool) but don't want an even more in-my-face screen to further pull me into more phone time. Trying to really cut back on screen time. Also, if I went for a smart watch, I'd feel the want to wear it all the time both because of how much they are and to keep activity tracking data consistent, which would mean my collection of watches would likely get much less wear time.

Watch I have on now is the Citizen Eco-drive I got when I graduated college, years of service and frequent wear in situations I had no business wearing it and it's held up great. Because of the eco-drive it's one of my few watches I don't have to worry about, it just always has the right time.

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Regular watch, my $60 watch has traveled to 5 continents with me over the past decade. Lightweight, has a dim illumination when needed, and ticks right even after some rugged adventures.

I honestly wouldn't ask a smartwatch to handle what I've put my regular watch through.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I go old school and rock a pocket watch (my cellphone).

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Regular watch. I already often find it stressfull to be constantly connected and available with just a phone, I don't want to be even more available.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

Why would I need a watch?

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

I have a Garmin viomove hybrid, I use it to count steps, count my swimming and see how much I sleep. I wouldn't want a smarter watch out of trust issues. Battery life still sucks 3-4 days but the analog watch works if the smart watch part is dead.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Smart watches and privacy don't go hand in hand. Also dont want to own another product that i need to worry about charging. But if i am going to buy one ever, it would be garmin. I heard pretty good things about it here in europe.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

No. I prefer to not wear any watch. I dislike having something heavy strapped to my wrist.

And I dislike accidentally looking at clocks when I didn't specifically query the clock time; it screws with my perception of the passage of time, causing unpleasant dissonance.

Also I work in food, which means washing my hands above the wrist every half hour at a minimum, and wrist jewelry gets in the way of that.

And I've never been mugged, partly because I aggressively look like someone not worth mugging, and strapping multiple hundreds of dollars to my wrist is counter to that.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

Like many, I stopped wearing watches when smartphones became a thing. Then I adopted the Apple Watch when that came out and wore one or another of them until this month. Something switched in my brain and I just decided that I hated that thing. Hated having to charge it. Hated the notifications. Hated feeling a need to close the rings. Hated the look of the thing. Hated that everyone seems to wear the same thing.

I started to learn about mechanical watches and bought an inexpensive but reportedly good quality one that looks nice to me. So far, I love it. There’s something viscerally satisfying about watching the movement through the display back, hearing the subtle sound, occasionally winding it, and contemplating that people can make such complex things that actually work.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (2 children)

I wear an automatic Seiko. I like that I don't have to worry about a battery staying charged/wearing out over time. I just have to take a second every couple weeks to set it forward to account for it losing a few minutes. Another factor is when I looked at the smart watches that were available last time I got a new phone and they were all very large and I have small wrists which I don't want to emphasize. My current watch fits well.

I would like to get a bracelet or something that tracks biometric data but from what I saw when I was investigating those is that they all have watch functionally as well and I don't want to wear two watches.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (3 children)

Regular watch

I currently have a smartwatch but I don't like how I can't prevent it from getting my text and phonecalls which I find useless because my phone is on me 95% of the time. The only way is to keep it on Do Not Disturb. It also for some reason has trouble updating, sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I just want it to tell time without all the fancy annoyances.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I don't wear watches. I have small wrists and it bugs me that they never fit right

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

No watch at all - I check the time on my phone and I don't see the point in saving a half second here and there checking notifications on a smart watch.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I have a couple of traditional watches that I occasionally wear and don't own a smart watch because I don't need another thing to worry about keeping charged.

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

Regular watch. I like watches so I have a collection (mostly cheapos). I don't want to give that up, I don't see a point in a smartwatch (except maybe for counting steps), and I don't want to have to recharge the thing frequently.

Today: Orient Neo 70s Panda solar chronograph.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

I like both, but I mostly wear a smartwatch. I don't always hear notifications on my phone. Having my watch vibrate at the same time has been a huge improvement. It is also nice to be able to view and dismiss notifications without pulling out my phone.

I started experimenting with smartwatches soon after they first appeared. There were a lot of limitations, but having better access to notifications made them worth the tradeoff for me. Over time, the hardware and software have both gotten steadily better. I have owned and used four previous smartwatches. My latest, a Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic, is the first I've had with the battery life, display quality, and speed to make me feel like I'm no longer compromising. It works well as a basic watch, in addition to all the other features.

My other reason for sticking with smartwatches was not something I expected. I was able to build my idea of the perfect watch face for myself, using the Watchmaker app. Getting it to do everything I wanted required some serious programming, among other things, but I can't tell you how satisfying it is to have exactly what I want on my wrist.

I do still wear regular watches, sometimes for particular occasions and sometimes just for fun. I have a Citizen Promaster Skyhawk A-T Titanium that serves as a dress watch and a Casio Pro Trek 3500T for when I'm camping or just need a watch I can't accidentally break. Both watches are solar powered and both set themselves to the Bureau of Standards radio signals.

I would hate to have to choose one type over the other, but my smartwatch get most a lot more wear time than my others.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I had a pinewatch for a good while, neat little thing for 40 bucks, until the belt thingie broke and I couldnt use it anynore

I'd love to get new one, or a band that is

[–] [email protected] 7 points 11 months ago

They use standard 20mm straps, pretty cheap on ebay. I wear my Pinetime every day, great device.

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