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Comment by foldor | Hacker News Reader

I'm still disappointed that new smart watch development has seemingly stalled in progress as of late. I was hoping that by this time we'd have watches that had 24 hour battery life, and an always on display that didn't need a flick of the wrist to activate. I hoped that wouldn't be asking for much, but I guess it's harder than I assumed.

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That thing unfortunately seems to have died with Pebble.

Amazfit is the closest player to Pebble's old space. I don't think they have any 3rd party app ecosystem at all, but the baseline experience covers time, notifications, workout tracking, and a couple other things.

Bip and Stratos are the watchier lines, they also have more minimal Fitbit strap-style product that I forget the name of.

EDIT: Here's another new entry https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/04/garmin-revamps-entir...

> Like most Garmin smartwatches, the Forerunner 45 and 45S track all-day activity and sleep, deliver smartphone alerts to your wrist, and are easy on the eyes thanks to an always-on, sunlight-friendly display. Even though the Forerunner 45 watches are the most affordable of the bunch, they still have a heart-rate monitor and built-in GPS, so users can make outdoor runs without the help of a smartphone.

> It can also connect to external sensors like a running dynamics pod and heart-rate chest straps to capture more running data while you train. The Forerunner 245 watches have the same one-week battery life as the Forerunner 45 watches do when in smartwatch mode, but they'll last up to 24 hours in GPS mode or six hours when using GPS and music playback simultaneously.

That looks really promising.

Currently wearing an Amazfit Bip and I really like it. I got one for my Dad to replace his Pebble Time Steel and he loved it so much I got one. I usually get around 20+ days of battery life and it does everything I need, aka sleep tracking, notifications, and activity tracking.

I purchased an Amazfit Stratos around 6 months ago. This thing is better than any other smart watch I have owned (Pebble, Moto360, Apple Watch). Always on screen. Multiple days worth of battery. Best workout tracking I have had on a watch. And it does all the notification and smart watch type things I expect. I am not certain why Apple, Samsung, et al haven't figured these things out yet, but other companies have and it is great. Oh let's not forget this only cost me $150.

My watch can do 16+ hours with standard GPS (well, after a trail run that took 8 hours pretty much on the dot there was less than half the battery gone based on its readings, I'm extrapolating from there) and there are settings that in theory will extend that a fair bit. The official claim is 20 hours as I use it, 50 with GPS in its least accurate but most power saving configuration (fine for walking, perhaps not for tracking faster locomotion). The 20 on standard settings might be expecting too much, but on reduced accuracy your 24 hours is easily doable. It can go a couple of weeks as a normal watch with ~8 hours of GPS tracked runs, maybe four weeks if I didn't use GPS at all.

Its display is always on too, though the backlight isn't so if you need night-time tracking it won't meet your requirements but otherwise it will.

It isn't top-of-the-range either, or even a brand spanking new model at all (early 2016 release IIRC).

Things have stagnated a bit I'm sure, but mainly because we are hitting to plateaus: one caused by the limits of battery tech & what size/weight we are willing to carry, the other caused by there not being many features left to add, at least not that most users will be willing to pay extra for (or lose battery life in order to support).

Even my 3 year old Zenwatch 2 lasts over 24 hours with an always on screen. Watches like the Amazfit Bip last close to a month with an always on screen.

I have a Garmin Fenix 5 that has this and lasts 2 weeks on a charge.

https://explore.garmin.com/fenix/

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