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Comment by ElKoji | Hacker News Reader

The author purposely ignores Garmin, who is one of the biggest player in Smart watches, after Apple and among Samsung and Fitbit. They make a strong case of buttons over touch screens, mostly because athletes prefer them, buttons are easy to operate without looking at the screen and the only way when the screen is wet, something that is meant to happen even if you don’t swim at all. But he even ignores the fact that Fitbit themselves always use a combination of touch screen and buttons, including their newest watch The Ionic. I hate when a headline is fabricated this way.

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I sort of consider real fitness watches, like the Garmin line to be in a different category from smartwatches. My Fenix 3, especially when paired with a chest strap feels like an actual tool for me, whereas the smartwatches I've seen and tried were more like toys.

I don't think I can ever switch back to a touchscreen watch until there's one that still has the physical buttons, but also lets you disable the touchscreen functionality during workouts - beyond the difficulty getting the touches to register, sweat has enough minerals that the screen sill start registering false touches, which can wreak havoc during a workout when it starts pausing things!

And, of course, with my Fenix 3, I normally charge it less than once a week unless I need to use GPS on it. Touchscreen smartwatches simply don't get that type of battery life.

Capacitive touch screens don't work well if your hands are sweaty. I couldn't understand for the life of me why Garmin ever introduced a capacitive touch screen watch.

I thought my old Garmin GPS watch was amazing when I first got it around 2010.

I certainly can understand why they released a watch with a touchscreen. They're trying to appeal to people who aren't necessarily as serious about fitness (or rather, don't feel the need/desire to closely track their workouts), but do want to start doing more, and want some of the benefits that they've heard smartwatches are supposed to offer.

I think the smartwatch fad is actually good in some ways, because it is forcing Garmin to look at what they can realistically add into their core watches to help make them more appealing, while still not turning them into a full smartwatch until the technology is there.

And I'm calling smartwatches a fad for now because they really are at the moment. The potential for them to be more than a fad is there, but the technology, specifically battery life, isn't there, and the current lineups don't offer a compelling story about why we should consider them an integral piece of technology to keep with us all the time.

See also: FitBit Blaze, which also has real buttons

> The author purposely ignores Garmin, who is one of the biggest player in Smart watches, after Apple and among Samsung and Fitbit.

How did you conclude that it was intentional?

What’s the proof athletes prefer Garmin over Apple?

Op says that athletes prefer hardware buttons

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