Apple’s Watch Is Smarter, but My Casio Keeps Getting the Job Done

How did it adjust its own time? I'm guessing GPS receiver?

I think I have the same watch - a Casio WaveCeptor Tough Solar. It was a 21st birthday present. The complete lack of need to replace batteries is amazing. I have the titanium version, which is astonishingly lightweight. And it is indeed tough - I've gone travelling, swimming, diving with it and it's fully functional. The timezones feature is also extremely useful when travelling, being able to swap between home and local easily. My current apartment makes it difficult to pick up the time signal though.

However, I bought a Pebble a few years ago, and I have to say there is definitely a way to do smartwatches right. The idea of charging a watch regularly is annoying, I can't deny, but Pebble did something right when they prioritised battery life. I routinely get over a week of use out of the Pebble, and that's with an always-on LCD screen (contrary to popular belief, it's not a traditional e-ink display, but a 'memory LCD', which has a refresh rate fast enough to display animations), which for all the watch does is quite acceptable battery life. It can fully charge from USB in an hour. And the ability to have a watch face showing a large amount of information at once (just like the 'complications' on traditional watches) really helps - on the main one I use, I can see the local weather at a glance. Having certain notifications pushed from my phone is also useful. Although sometimes, I do find myself ensuring the watch is exposed to sunlight like my Casio, trying to charge it.

I've found that sometimes I want to know the time without pulling out my phone, had a citizen eco drive that was solar, loved the thing until it just created a rash on my wrist.

I always wear a cheap Casio watch (and mean always: in the shower, when I sleep...) And it's been great for me. I was fed up of pulling my phone out whether I wanted to check the time because I would always get distracted and sometimes not notice the time anyway. It also felt like a regression to the days of pocket watches.

This is the same for me. I don't know what it is about it but when I get the notification that there's an award available for a certain holiday or season, I have to get it. I don't really even share that I've gotten the award or tell people about it even though I should. Just the thought of not being able to do one of these challenges physically makes me so much more motivated to do every one of them. It's almost like I'm trying to prove to myself that I'm not out of shape. Once that got me hooked, then I got to where I wanted to close all my rings every day. Now, it's just something that isn't really an option for me anymore unless I absolutely can't (because I'm on a long plane flight or somehow otherwise incapacitated). I'm not in the best shape of my life but I'm in much better shape than I have been in a very long time.

It's so stupid but this watch plus my AirPods are kinda life changing. I swear I'm not being paid by Apple to say this, either. There are still some issues obviously but, on the whole, it would take a lot to get me to stop wearing this thing.

I keep email notifications completely turned off, and only turn on app notifications for a few select apps.

I still can't get mine to sync with my car.

I thought most (if not all) fitbits are set to only activate the display when you rotate your wrist to look at it. Given that the screen isn't on for a majority of the time, wouldn't e-ink barely affect the battery life?

I used to be a huge fan of the FitBit. I've got multiple FitBits from multiple product lines (meaning I have more than 1 of the same device for multiple devices) and I have all the accessories that went with them (Aria scale, watches, etc.). Every single one of them has been replaced either under warranty or purchased specifically to replace another device that failed within the first six months of the 1-year warranty. The customer support has been pretty fair about replacing them and even replaced one that we admitted accidentally went through the washer because we had emailed about the same issue while it was in warranty still.

But... I'm over the regular hassle of everything just suddenly not working at all. On some of them it's the strap which is less of a deal. On others it's the display. On other things it's the motion sensing. On another it's the pairing and bluetooth. Everything is just such a headache that, cumulatively, I couldn't do it anymore. The fact that they also don't sync to anything except their own portal unless you pay for a third-party app to connect to it is another nail in the coffin.

Haven't so far and don't ever plan to go back to the FitBit world. Once this latest scale and tracker die, I'm out.

What kind of GMT watch do you have. I have a Glycine Airman, and I’m not aware of others than 24 Hour Watch Company (which I went through two of).

What's your use case for the notifications? I took some time to pick which notifications get sent where and it helps me keep off social media and keeps me focused on what I'm doing. If it doesn't come to the watch, it's not important and if it comes to phone and watch, then it's not time-sensitive and I can respond whenever. If it just comes on the phone, then it's an alert for a game or something mindless that I only care about when I'm bored.

I like that feature but, for some reason, I always have issues answering the call on my watch. It doesn't happen every time but it happens often enough that looking at new routers and cell carriers. From what I can tell, no one else I know that has an Apple Watch has this problem. They're always Dick Tracy'ing everywhere and I'm always staring at my wrist saying "Hello... hello... hello..." like some crazy person. I wish that feature worked more for me. It might even be a minority of the time but it's just far more memorable for me when it doesn't work because it's always when I need it to work the most (when my hands are full and I need to answer with my nose, for example). It'll get there at some point for me, I hope. It's very convenient.

Question from a non-Apple watch user, but an interested prospective consumer: if you have to charge your watch at night, how do you use it to wake you up?

Beautiful watch. On top of looking good, it will never be 'outdated'. Your average _insert here smartwatch_ will be outdated in 2 years as technology evolves.

>I don’t know what is the point here in comparing to a regular watch.

The author is questioning the utility of doing all that bullshit from something strapped to his wrist.

>Clearly Apple Watch is meant more for that.

You don't say?

Sir, disposable watches have been put together with rivets and spot welds since time immemorial.

Another <sn followed by a number> user agrees with you.

My problem is the only way to retain notes over 8 years or more is plain paper and pen, or plain text. Of late, I've also started using ruled index cards.

> SN76477

... Ah, you're a sound chip! I had one of those. The sweet memories of teenage electronics projects circa 1985...

Pedantically its WWVB, the LW digital code version, not WWV the SW station. WWV/H/B were at risk for defunding, but their funding was renewed.