Where’s the “none of the above” choice? Aside from keeping the time, all I want from a smartwatch is the ability to see its screen both in the dark and under direct sunlight, a week-long battery life, 5ATM water resistance rating, receiving notifications from my phone (with the ability to dismiss them), ability to have customizable watch faces, and finally the ability to accept standard size watch bands. The last watch I’ve owned that could do almost all of that (aside from standard bands or ) was Pebble Steel. I still miss it to this day.
Everything else was an overpriced disappointment. I don’t need it to monitor my heart rate, or my blood oxygen level, or my blood alcohol level. I don’t want it to prod me or give me pep talks, or make phone calls, or play music, since my phone can do all of that better.
Double plus for the Garmin. I’m wearing an Instinct 2 right now. 21 day battery life! It replaced my Vivoactive 4S (6 day battery life) and was cheaper than the Venu 2 (11 day battery life).
I’ve killed at least two smartwatches by forgetting I’m wearing them when I go in the ocean. The Vivoactive 4S was completely unaffected by the salt water, and I’ll test the Instinct 2 this week.
My mom is all about her Apple watch, and has touted the features to me. “I can [insert feature] with this!” Have you used it for that? “No.”
I’ve had three Pebbles, a couple Fitbits, a couple Garmins, a couple Android watches, two Amazfits… I just want something that sends me notifications and has good battery life. If I have to charge the watch every night, I’ll forget I’m wearing it.
That being said, the Instinct 2 is actually worse at tracking my workouts than the Vivoactive 4 was. I do martial arts, so the GPS is actually a hindrance there, and I haven’t found a way to make it move “generic cardio” to the top of the workout list.
Everything else was an overpriced disappointment. I don’t need it to monitor my heart rate, or my blood oxygen level, or my blood alcohol level. I don’t want it to prod me or give me pep talks, or make phone calls, or play music, since my phone can do all of that better.
That’s the thing. I have an apple watch, and apps on it are complete garbage. They’re not useful, they UI is impossible, browsing for apps to launch them is tedious and painful. Like, I don’t want to order Taco Bell on my watch. I don’t want to play a game. I need notifications, time/date/weather, and easy playback controls for whatever is currently playing on my phone and that’s it.
I also generally don’t trust fitness trackers. If you have a watch that can use GPS to track a run or a ride, then that’s fine. But pedometers are a joke, and counting calories burned is most assuredly bullshit since the human body isn’t a closed system and everyone’s metabolism is different
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Where’s the “none of the above” choice? Aside from keeping the time, all I want from a smartwatch is the ability to see its screen both in the dark and under direct sunlight, a week-long battery life, 5ATM water resistance rating, receiving notifications from my phone (with the ability to dismiss them), ability to have customizable watch faces, and finally the ability to accept standard size watch bands. The last watch I’ve owned that could do almost all of that (aside from standard bands or ) was Pebble Steel. I still miss it to this day.
Everything else was an overpriced disappointment. I don’t need it to monitor my heart rate, or my blood oxygen level, or my blood alcohol level. I don’t want it to prod me or give me pep talks, or make phone calls, or play music, since my phone can do all of that better.
I’ve had this for 4.5 years and it is amazing. Does everything you want.
https://www.garmin.com/en-CA/p/621802/pn/010-02064-00
Double plus for the Garmin. I’m wearing an Instinct 2 right now. 21 day battery life! It replaced my Vivoactive 4S (6 day battery life) and was cheaper than the Venu 2 (11 day battery life).
I’ve killed at least two smartwatches by forgetting I’m wearing them when I go in the ocean. The Vivoactive 4S was completely unaffected by the salt water, and I’ll test the Instinct 2 this week.
My mom is all about her Apple watch, and has touted the features to me. “I can [insert feature] with this!” Have you used it for that? “No.”
I’ve had three Pebbles, a couple Fitbits, a couple Garmins, a couple Android watches, two Amazfits… I just want something that sends me notifications and has good battery life. If I have to charge the watch every night, I’ll forget I’m wearing it.
That being said, the Instinct 2 is actually worse at tracking my workouts than the Vivoactive 4 was. I do martial arts, so the GPS is actually a hindrance there, and I haven’t found a way to make it move “generic cardio” to the top of the workout list.
I agree with that preference
Not sure about the water-proof-ness, but actually a pinetime might tick most of those boxes. I’m happy with mine.
I miss Pebble so much.
That’s the thing. I have an apple watch, and apps on it are complete garbage. They’re not useful, they UI is impossible, browsing for apps to launch them is tedious and painful. Like, I don’t want to order Taco Bell on my watch. I don’t want to play a game. I need notifications, time/date/weather, and easy playback controls for whatever is currently playing on my phone and that’s it.
I also generally don’t trust fitness trackers. If you have a watch that can use GPS to track a run or a ride, then that’s fine. But pedometers are a joke, and counting calories burned is most assuredly bullshit since the human body isn’t a closed system and everyone’s metabolism is different
I have a Withings ScanWatch. Almost all of that (except for custom watchfaces, because it uses a physical watchface).
It also does the heart tracking and ECG stuff, but that matters to me because I have a heart condition that it can help track.