Ask HN: How do you like your smartwatch? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you like your smartwatch?

13 pointshalotrope18 comments

Out of curiosity since I recently bought my first wearable. To all owners of Apple Watch, Pebble, Android Wear etc. how do you like your smartwatch, what do you use it for, what feature is most usefull to you, how long do you have it, what annoys you and which festure do you miss the most?

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I have a moto 360 (bought when they first came out), and I definitely feel strange when I don't have it on. The biggest feature for me is the ease of use while driving - the google maps integration keeps my eyes on the road, and the next turn is only a wrist flick away. I think the utility is less about specific features, though, and more about how connected to the internet you are when it becomes an extension of your body (not that phones weren't already).

I'm curious as well. I've noticed that one of the things that seems like a big predictor of the success of gadgets that we use in public is whether or not they force users to break etiquette, or if they can be 'grandfathered' into existing social norms. I'm curious about smart watches during one on one interactions in particular because the 'checking your watch' gesture is considered to be pretty blatantly rude in a lot of places.

I have yet to encounter any complaint about it. For some reason (at least I hope) people seem to mind it less than constantly checking your phone in a social setting. But I don't check it all that often since it is really hard to miss notifications so you are not checking constantly like might do with a silenced phone.

I have noticed that checking my watch for notifications seems to make people think I'm checking the time. Where as actually pulling out my phone would indicate that more obviously.

I do absolutely love that my phone's ringer is never ever on. It just doesn't ever make a noise.

I've had the same thing. I didn't tell my coworkers I had a Pebble, but when I got a notification in a meeting, I looked at my watch and the boss commented that I must be bored with the meeting and looking to get out. Once I said it was a smartwatch, they then always assumed I was playing Tetris.

I currently have an Apple Watch and two 1st gen Pebble watches. I have had the Apple Watch since its release in 2015 and the Pebble watches since their kickstarter campaign. What I like most about my Apple Watch is that I don't need to wear a chest strap to use the heart rate sensor. Other features that are useful are turn-by-turn navigation and the ability to store music on it for use with bluetooth headphones while exercising. That being said, I had the Pebble watches for awhile before receiving my Apple Watch. While the AW has more functionality and features, the thing I loved most about the Pebble watches was the need to charge them only once every 1-2 weeks. The AW needs to be charged nightly. The AW was given to me as a gift. While I do like it and have found it quite useful, I wouldn't have bought one myself. I don't feel its worth the $400 price point. I have several friends that have fitbits and every other flavor of android-based smartwatches. I haven't heard one complaint about any of them. What it comes down to is finding the platform/form-factor that works best for you and understand that wearables are still in their infancy. Much will change and improve as time continues.

How accurate would you say the heart rate sensor is with the Apple Watch? I know there's a fitbit with an optical HR monitor as well but it is apparently very unreliable. That's one of the reasons I ended up going for the Garmin Vivoactive + heart rate strap - accuracy of results. Do you know of any comparisons between the Apple Watch sensor and a strap?

I've been wearing an Apple watch since nearly week 1. My company bought us the Sport edition which has become a luxury that I wear daily. Never missing a notification is nice, never missing a call because your phone is out of reach is nice, paired with Apple music, I can speak to my wrist like a 90's spy at a party and listen to the music change - all of these things are nice. It's luxury sure, but do I really miss it when it's gone? Yes. It's something that I've grown accustom to, and when I don't feel the taps on my wrist, or loose the ability to glance and see that I can't count my minutes of exercise, I really wish I was wearing it.

Annoyances: I wear the sports band, and it's gotten difficult to put on. The rubber(?) hole that the metal peg grasps onto has become loose and is now agape, and slightly torn resulting in a couple of extra tries when I put on the watch. The external speaker is also a let down, I can not hear who is on the other end unless I put the watch up to my face (about 4" from my ear).

Features that I could use: Improving Siri's abilities with Wolfram Alpha when dictating to the watch, Improve watch face modularity. Decrease the thickness of the watch.

I have a G watch R, Initially I wore it constantly, but I stopped wearing it around the house, it seemed to get in the way. Admittedly I never really wore a watch before so it could be that.

I feel odd going outside without it though, I have bluetooth headphones, so on my walk to/from work, my phone can stay in my jacket pocket, and I still get notifications and can control my music.

I use the heart rate/step tracker a fair amount too as I'm trying to lose weight.

I don't use the other apps on there particularly regularly, although I found the 'remote camera view' app is great when working behind PCs/Monitors.

I don't wear it anymore. It's useless. Thank god I don't have to charge it every night anymore. Such a pain in the ass.

I won a free Apple Watch, and wore it for a while but decided to switch back to the Fitbit Charge HR after two months. The most valuable features to me are its consistent heart rate tracking and long battery life. I don't miss any of the features of the Apple Watch, other than maybe the ability to control Spotify from my wrist.

I have bought my Apple Watch two weeks ago after convincing myself since it came out that I would really not need it, would probably annoyed by constant distractions and charging yet another device at night. I really wanted to wait at least for version 2 as I thought of it as way to gimmicky and clumbersome for above reasons. I got one for my mother as a birthday gift and surrendered some days after that to get mine soon after as she was calling me specifically to tell me how much she loved it. Long story short to my great surprise I really like it. Like a lot. I find myself reaching for my phone much less than before and as a consequence I am much less inclined to follow Twitter/Facebook/Email OCD than before. When I check some notification / reminder on my watch there is nothing to do due to the severely limited software. Apart from a quick glance and maybe a very short reply there is little I can do with it. The "apps" are - apart from the watch face - very slow don't offer a lot of notifications. But surprisingly it covers the things I use my phone most for on a daily basis: Checking notifications, setting timers, adding reminders, navigation. It handles these things well for me yet. While being miles away from that it reminds me of the movie "her" where technology gets rid of visual interfaces and fades away from the "glowing squares" to are the ubiquitous screens of today. And for that reason alone it is much more and something completely different than a smartphone with a tiny screen. Sadly though there are nearly no apps that use the tactile interface etc in a innovative / surprising way for e.g. real life games or something like that just yet. But this will hopefully change over time. One last thing that I really find worthwhile sitting in front of a screen way to much is the activity tracking and reminders to "stand up and move for a minute". In combination with my whitings a lot of aspects of my life are now measured completely automatic and continuously (Hearth Rate, Weight, Distance Walked, Steps, Body Fat, Workouts) which I value quite a bit. Since I know only two people that also are using a smartwatch I was curious what the HN crowd things of them so far.

I have the Pebble Time (Kickstarter Edition!) and I like it for the most part. My favorite feature is seeing text messages on my wrist so 1) I can enter 2FA codes without taking out my phone and 2) seeing if I actually need to reply back to someone.

What annoys me is the constant Bluetooth disconnection and sporadic battery life. Maybe I'm a heavy user or am remembering things incorrectly, but I feel like I used to get more battery life. I get a 20% battery warning every two days it seems.

I only wish the screen was retina like my co-worker's  Watch. It's nice.

Had Apple Watch since summer.

Miss it when I forget to put it on.

Phone stays in my pocket most of the day.

Looking at it during meetings is rude and literally a deal breaker.

Only use it for:

- notifications

- remote controlled camera for group selfies

- asking Siri how far away somewhere is, or simple questions

- quickly responding to messages

Love the pebble (3+ yrs). Had an apple watch for a short while but didn't enjoy it all that much. UI was really a disadvantage, but voice control was spectacular (for siri).

Moto 360 Gen2

Mainly use it to get a glance at messages (Hangouts etc.), control music while on the go and to track my fitness goals.

I'm working on a Raspberry Pi powered doorbell/camera, so I'm looking forward to making the companion app and wear app.

Pebble Steel: I like the look and I don't have to pull my six inch phone out of my pocket every time I receive a message.

Moto 360 (gen1) here. I find that a lot of it depends on the cost. This watch launched at $250 and while I really liked the look and idea of it, it was still a bit more than I wanted to pay for a cool gadget that I didn't really need.

A few months after launch I snagged one on sale for $175 and I quite enjoy it (although not necessarily for the reasons I originally expected to).

My experience: it's nothing groundbreaking like your first (or latest) smartphone because it's largely just an extension of that smartphone. I don't really run too many watch-specific applications and mostly use it for quick notifications/replies and the occasional case where having a control on my wrist is nicer than messing with my phone.

One example of that would be navigation while riding my motorcycle. I don't have a phone charger/mount but I can fire up nav before leaving and glance down at my watch to see upcoming turns. It can also be nice as a remote for my phone's camera or to pause something I'm casting to the TV like a Netflix show.

Honestly my main, favorite thing about this watch is the ability to change the face to look like just about anything I want. I never would've guessed this at first but this is my stupidly obvious killer app (or at least the most enjoyable). There are several great watch faces for free or cheap on the Play Store and thousands of them available for download and application through apps like Watchmaker.

The fact that this is just a programmable screen means you can make it look like a subtle, classy "traditional" watch or you can do things not possible on traditional jewelry. If I felt like it I could swap between a long list of favorites to match whatever I'm doing or even what I'm wearing. Granted I'm not quite that obsessed with fashion or anything but it's a surprisingly cool thing to have.

And since I enjoy playing around in Photoshop and Illustrator, I can create my own interactive watch faces with no programming skill required. Watchmaker and other apps allow you to create each element from the background to the hands or dials or readouts or buttons and tie them to variables like time, date, battery, location, or even the orientation of the watch in space.

It's totally a geeky bit of tinkering that not everyone would enjoy but again, there are thousands of great ones out there made and shared by people who are into that sort of thing. Granted there are plenty of shitty "brand" watch knockoff faces and ugly amateurish stuff but that's the nature of user-generated designs.

So yeah, for $150-250, if you're a gadget fan and have the dough to spend on something that's mostly just pretty neat but not necessary, I think these sorts of watches are great. If the idea of putting it on a cradle on the nightstand every night turns you off or you would never spend that much on any watch, maybe it's not a great idea.

I doubt that I would spend the $400-500+ I've seen other smart watches going for because there's only so much I'd pay for a smartphone extender with custom display but in the $150-250 range it's pretty sweet.

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