Honey, he shrunk the watches | Hacker News Reader

Honey, he shrunk the watches

hodinkee.com

88 pointsmudil59 comments

If I were him, I'd blur the finger tips in the photos. They have enough resolution to extract fingerprint information. There's much opportunity for mischief. I hate biometrics as a means of identification and access control, but the reality is that it's used (certain smartphones, some national ID cards, door locks, criminal records search). Even if he isn't enrolled in any fingerprint system now, he might be in the future.

Before you get too excited, these aren’t working watches, they are just little models. I was ready to buy some as a flex but was disheartened to find they were mostly props.

I couldn't help but search... there are working ring-watches out there, apparently. Most of them look a bit uncomfortable to wear day to day.

Off topic I guess but I wish smart watches would shrink. Anyone else find them just too bulky for something you wear all the time? Especially in thickness with the protruding sensors.

I recently got the apple watch 7 in 41 mm and I don’t think it is too big. It is about the size of a normal watch. And the smooth corners make it the most comfortable watch I’ve ever worn.

I find a lot of normal watches too thick. You'd think thinness would be a priority for comfort reasons but I guess not. Most phones are thinner than most watches. The Apple Watch is close to twice as thick as the iPad!

Looking at the ifixit tear downs, it’s difficult to see how they could make it much thinner without sacrificing battery size or sensors.

https://www.ifixit.com/Teardown/Apple+Watch+Series+6+Teardow...

I'm stilling waiting for proper stand-alone "smart watch phones". I don't think the form factor has been figured out yet, but I'm sure there is one.

One way I imagine it being possible is with a detachable watch from the strap via magnets, meaning it can be interacted with without holding your arm up and also recharged without removing the watch strap. The move towards removing ports helps the idea and improve IPS rating (as it did with smartphones).

The only real question is screen size. I'm still not convinced by folding displays, but it could be a possibility. The main requirement for a larger display is an on-display keyboard. A flip/slide-out keyboard could be interesting, especially something that types as nice as blackberry devices did [1].

[1] https://gadgetynews.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/iphone-ke...

I love my Garmin Vivoactive 3 specifically because it's not a massive chunk on my wrist. It's a little taller than other, regular watches I've had, but not by much. My wife got the 4s recently and it's definitely "regular watch size". And the battery life is pretty good, as smartwatches go. I usually go 3 days between charges.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/c/wearables-smartwatches/?serie...

I love the Garmin watches! Not the best features compared to Wear, but Wear has intolerable battery life.

My only problem right now is that I prefer a nylon strap to the provided rubber strap (I think I might have a mild allergy?), but all the nylon straps I've found end up covering the heartrate sensor. I've tried cutting a window out of the straps, but it doesn't work, and the way I cut the window (soldering iron) left rough, irritating edges. I have an idea for v2 of modifying the straps (and luckily nylon straps are extremely cheap, plus v2 cuts out all of the effected area of v1), but I might go for a chainlink strap instead.

Are you aware of Withings smart watches such as the scanwatch and scanwatch horizon?

I’m the opposite. I’d love to have a full forearm device instead of a cell phone. Or at least something that could be worn on my arm and popped off - give me that sci-fi futurism.

For that reason I bought an Apple Watch SE with LTE.

But it turn out your iPhone needs to be switched on to receive Signal messages on the watch. Only iMessage works without iPhone. Also the total number of apps is disappointingly slim.

But yeah, you can walk around with a StarTrek-y device that can communicate a bit.

If you search for "Android wrist phone" on Aliexpress, you'll find anything from stuff to strap your full phone to your arm to ~3" Android phones on a watch strap...

There's also one (search for Nubia) which seem to have a foldable screen.

They all look like they're at least 2-3 generations away from having something great, though...

Depends on what you want it to do. I've been using a Mi Band which you can get for $35 on Amazon and has some 3rd party software options on android if you don't want corporations sucking in your health data.

You mean the one without a screen? I want the opposite, a smartwatch with a screen, but without the health sensors which I find inaccurate and and overall rather pointless.

It has a color screen, but it's focused on health sensors. It does support other things though like "find my phone", alarms, text message notifications, music control, weather etc. Lasts 14 days on a charge.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09D2RJ2RP

I’m a little shocked the Apple Watch hasn’t slimmed down yet. I would have thought based ion the iPhone product history that they would realize a higher sales rate once the dimensions came down.

But they’re still adding new sensors instead of shrinking the battery.

I’d really appreciate longer battery life before they start thinking of making it thinner!

The current battery life is fine for day to day use (lasts 28-32hrs, can be charged while getting ready in the morning), but it’s a pain having to remember to take the charger when you’re away for a weekend.

Definitely. My recollection is that the 3g came around the time that battery life was improved.

Historically in Apple's product line, an improvement in either battery capacity or system efficiency was accompanied by a shrink in footprint.

Batteries, especially the sorts Apple used in laptops, have some flexibility in shape and thickness. At this point I don't think they can make the display much larger than the 7 without increasing the footprint again. If they can keep boosting the efficiency per pixel, a larger display should mean slightly larger battery volume as well.

I'm still a little bummed that their plan to incorporate batteries into the band never materialized. I was further disappointed when the hidden connector in the band slot went away after the beta program ended. (Also a little disappointed that the covers went magnetic with no way to include a small supplemental battery in place of the stiffeners). There are definitely some opportunities to expand the system to include these peripherals that we largely ignore. And there may be some opportunities to pack more of the circuitry into the curved areas on the sides of the watch. Currently the speaker takes up one side, the wheel takes a chunk of the other. I'm not sure how much of the band attachments require reinforcements at the ends but I would imagine it's the corners that matter the most there. I'm not sure how big the taptic package is in the 7 but in the 6 it was a significant fraction of the size of the battery.

Also with the iPhone every time the screen got thinner either the device got thinner or the battery bigger. Not so with the watches. Thinner displays lead to an SPO2 monitor. How about we tap the brakes on more sensors for now and work on lifetime and package density for a couple iterations?

How about, it’s thin enough and lasts long enough and Apple needs new features to sell new watches.

Whole sub thread is people saying it isn’t thin enough. Honestly I think the phone and iPad are too thin, and I’d appreciate it if a couple engineers got reassigned. Not the whole team mind you, but just a couple more pairs of eyes would be lovely.

You make it sound like there’s a weight loss program and you can just shuffle some consultants from thinning the iPhone to thinning the Apple Watch.

Never mind of course that Apple doesn’t care what people in the typical Apple threads on HackerNews say. They care what sells.

The 3G was a watershed moment for the iPhone. The 3Gs was my first one (I love Apple, but they have their flaws. I always buy the 'even numbered' versions where they've done at least one hardware revision on any new design) and a lot of people hopped on around then or the next model.

I feel like the watch is waiting for a similar notch-up in sales.

The other way to go is to make it into a standalone phone, which I am not sure I'm interested in (yet) but would be a reasonable approach. Given how they've handled the watch so far, I think that's more likely to happen than my thin watch request.

Or perhaps they'll do both. Fat version or tall version with a phone, smaller version without.

The Apple Watch can actually already be used as a standalone device:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT211768

> Anyone else find them just too bulky for something you wear all the time?

Nope! As long as it's robust enough to hold up and not get scratched or smashed while I slam it in the car door or whack it against the cage at the gym or whatever else clumsy thing I do each particular moment, I think bigger is better.

I quite like this site name

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/hodinky

I was hoping that mini Casio watch would work just like the real one. I'm a little bit disappointed.

By the way, I recently noticed that many women's sportswatches are really big and clunky. Quite different from what women's watches used to be like.

Just curious but couldn't find what these cost...

I like the small versions of sneakers. But shrinking watches seem a bit pointless, as watches are about precision which is what you lose when you shrink them.

Watches are also about style, and in this case accuracy to a character.

Which is exactly the same as shrunken sneakers as far as I can tell

The little nautilus would be cool as a ring

Kids, watches were devices that boomers, like Walter White, used to tell time before iphones.

We have smart watches now thank you.

I know you’re joking, but once I accidentally broke a 200 something day streak of activity on my Apple Watch, I chucked it and went back to (modest) collection of real watches.

No one needs yet another notification device, and the activity tracking stuff isn’t as valuable as people make it out to be. Just break a sweat everyday and you’re good.

(Yes, the health monitoring stuff is wonderful)

I 'downgraded' to a cheap Casio late last year and I think i'm better for it.

Yeah "dumb" watches for me have been a real oasis in a world of increasingly obnoxious technology!

That activity monitor caught my mom's cancer early enough that it was treatable. My looked at the activity, said no way, checked and her heart rate was too high so went in to get it checked.

Most activity monitoring isn't useful but the exceptions are very valuable.

For the aged or others outside normal healthy boundaries, wearable tech is a life-saving benefit. Otherwise it's a life-style option.

You never know when something will take a bad turn, age makes it more likely

I've been cynical about wearables over the years, but the fitbit I received for Christmas has not only stimulated me to take more walks, the sleep monitoring functionality has made me much more intentional about my setting myself up for good sleeps. And it wasn't at all an issue to disable all the notifications stuff from it so that it's a monitoring device only.

I know I'm still in the honeymoon phase with it, but overall I really have been pleasantly surprised.

I am definitely more active as a result of owning my apple watch. My health is noticeably better. I get that it doesn’t work for everyone, and that’s fine.

Ironically, I like my Apple Watch because it gives me a lot of the things that my phone does without being so distracting. I can leave my phone behind and go walking while listening to an audio book, and have access to trail maps if I’m going somewhere new. I can see altitude, compass, Sun up and sun down all without having to use a phone, all of which I use on a weekly basis.

Oops, my battery died and now I have no idea what time it is.

oh, like a watch

Except the battery on a quartz watch lasts years, and the battery on an Apple Watch lasts 12-18 hours.

Never mind that most mechanical watches are self-winding.

Self winding just means "needs to have the time reset after 2 days unworn". I wonder if an unworn Apple Watch would last longer?

So wear it every day, get an device that keeps it wound, or just shake it for 30 seconds a day.

Full disclosure, I'm a mechanical watch nerd, to the point that I enjoy repairing them. So I'm a bit biased towards them.

I have a few of them too, but let's be honest when it comes to their limitations. How is a watch winder any better than the Apple Watch's charger?

If you forget the winder you always have a backup winder.

No, my kinetically charged watch can go weeks unworn without exhausting its charge or losing accuracy.

Not that it matters really. I wear it every day.

2-10 years is very different from 1-2 days though!

(Not to mention solar watches)

I have a solarwatch that I can't use in the winter time, after moving up north, not enough sun light to keep it charged =p

I'm surprised, my solar G-Shock [GAW-100B-1AER] never dips below "H" charge even on the darkest winter days.

You can charge them under a lamp, too! Regular indoor lighting charges them too, but slowly

My Citizen and Seiko solar watches are good for months after getting a full charge... they say ~6 months and that seems about right

I have a citizen eco drive solar watch i got 16 years ago. Never needed to change or recharge the battery.

And I live in Norway just below the arctic circle so artificial light must be enough to charge it.

Automechanical watches self charge from wrist movement. Quartz batteries last years. They are not comparable to smart watches, which need to be charged often.

My garmin fenix is a bit more bearable as it lasts about 2.5-3 weeks on a charge.

You might need to update your heuristics, because most kids these days haven't watched a show that ended almost a decade ago.

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