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Comment by ghaff | Hacker News Reader

That seems to exist in a price and battery life no man's land between a true smartwatch and a basic $30 LCD watch that gets years of battery life. Both smartwatches and cheapo time pieces have their place. Not sure about this sort of in-between model.

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Personally, this watch seems pretty cool and right in the niche of what I would want in terms of 'dumbness' and also aesthetic, and the battery life does not sound intolerable to me.

But $300 sure is a lot for it, although my impression has always been that "G-Shock" watches were inexplicably more expensive than they look, presumably as a branding thing. This is something I'd wait for to go on sale.

The basic G-Shock (e.g 5600 model) will be around $50 which I think is a fair price given the ruggedness of the thing. More expensive models (like 5610) will be in $100 range since they have solar cells and self-adjust based on radio signals from atomic clocks. I think that's fair (I don't have one though, I'm cheap :) ).

Where the hell can you get the 5600 for 50 USD? In Europe it's more like starting from 80 Euros.

I feel Casio is taking us to the cleaners here.

DW5600E-1V is $49.98 on Amazon in the US right now, but it's listed as 33% off, and $74 on US Casio site. So we might be both right :)

It's been available at $40-$50 in practice for years and years.

Without a time machine, the prices of today are more relevant for me right now.

I am implying you can expect that price to be maintained in the future -- it isn't some ephemeral discount.

Maintained how? It's 50% more expensive in Europe.

What is a Europe?

A continent

Prices on this kind of stuff are often higher in Europe. Dunno if it's VAT or tariffs or what, but it seems to be across the board.

Also note that that US$50 price does not include taxes. So depending on what state you're in, the actual price you pay could be 10% or more higher.

It's taking the mickey. Even with adding VAT, US prices are still much lower than Europe an all consumer goods made overseas, Casios, MacBooks, etc. A G-Shock in US is 50 USD, in Europe it's 80 Euros, which i 88 USD. Insane difference. An M2 MacBook air starts from 1200 USD while it's 1500 Euros or 1650 USD. We're being taken for a ride.

I just don't buy that markets there are so inefficient that all electronics manufacturers are colluding to artificially increase prices over other markets. There must be other reasons why prices are higher. In addition to VAT/tariffs, maybe the consumer protection laws lead to more returns for refund, or something.

> We're being taken for a ride.

You might be. OTOH, you have far more robust consumer protection laws - ISTR reading that UK law requires that you be able to return a product to the place where you bought it for two years or so and get warranty service or replacement. Don't know how it works in EU countries, but that was a pre-Brexit anecdote.

In the US, there are numerous products for which any warranty service requires you to send it to the manufacturer. Only DOA can be addressed at the point of purchase.

I got the 5610BC so I'd get the combi-bracelet with clasp and it was well worth the extra money. It is very adjustable, durable, comfortable, and looks great.

Joey Castillo’s Sensor Watch project seems to be the only example in this no man’s land. Over 365 days on a single coin cell battery so far.

https://github.com/joeycastillo/Sensor-Watch

I have this and I love it!

Yeah, I can't see why someone would choose this when you can get a Garmin forerunner 45 for $199 (or even cheaper as it's on sale right now) with better battery life and more features. The smartwatch market has categorically left casio behind and it'll be really hard to try to catch up now.

Yeah, some of the Garmin models have a place if you're focused on getting a fitness/hiking/etc. watch and not really on a smartwatch as such--especially if you're not bought into the Apple ecosystem. You can get better battery life and maybe get a better price (though at the high end the Fenix is pretty pricey).

I have a Garmin watch and am baffled when I hear people say they charge their Apple Watches every day. I had to add my watch charger cable to my vacation checklist because I often forget I need to charge it.

The Ultra is a bit better but battery life is definitely a downside. However, as soon as you get below the better part of a week of battery life you pretty much need to remember to charge now and then. I'm not sure there's a big difference between charge every couple of days and charge once a week.

On the other hand I never have to remember to charge my cheap Timex.

Having had both, I ditched the AW and now have fenix 6 sapphire for less money (~$300 new) than used AW 8. The thing is indestructible (practically), battery lasts for weeks, and it has less smart features and more onboard “stuff”, which I like.

Instinct 2 is now $200 at Costco.

I think the watch technology is pretty mature. I feel cutting edge with a 3 year old watch. Sensor maybe not as good as AW but for anything that really matter you would wear a chest strap hrm anyways.

That's a great price for the Instinct 2. I've had my eye on it for a while and $100 off might get me to pull the trigger. Thanks for mentioning that.

I think you underestimate the number of G-Shock collectors out there and how well loved the brand is. Casio has sold more than 100 million G-Shocks. Price and features matter for some, but not so much to watch collectors in general.

For the smart watch market, it's entirely price and features that matter. It could be that there's enough g-shock fans to sustain a product here, but it's not going to grab any of the smart watch market.

I say this as someone who loves their F91-W. It's a great watch and I like it. But I don't want to use it for the things I want to use a smartwatch for.

Indeed. When I was researching which G-Shock to buy, it was common to read about collectors buying the same watch in different colors.

I'm not disagreeing, but the observation that Garmin is doing the Instinct series which is basically an elaborate G-shock counter suggests that Casio is onto something.

I'm puzzled by the whole range. There are some that look just like a £10 digital watch but sell for £100. The difference seems to be the robustness but not that many jobs or hobbies put your watch in constant danger.

Some notable models in the line-up of classic looking digital watches:

  - Casio F-91W: $14 which gets you a basic watch
  - Casio AE1200: $40, modern module with timezones, stopwatch, timer
  - Casio G-Shock DW-5600: $50, Similar to AE1200 in functionality, adds shock-proofing
  - Casio G-Shock GW-M5610: $110, Similar to DW-5600E but adds solar, radio time-sync
  - Casio G-Shock GW-5000: $300, Similar to GW-M5610 but has a stainless steel case instead of plastic
  - Casio G-Shock GMW-B5000: $400, Similar to GW-5000 but has a stainless steel bezel and bracelet
  - Casio G-Shock GMW-B5000T: $1100+, Similar to GMW-B5000 but in titanium

I used a Garmin vivofit 3 for about a year and a half without a battery change. I liked it and it felt a little bit like an F91W. I switched to an Apple Watch 4 for a while and I'm back on Casio for now but I might consider another vivofit if they keep making them.

> Activity Tracker with Garmin Move IQ Automatic Activity Detection Features 1-year battery life Shows steps, calories, distance, intensity minutes and time of day on backlit display; monitors sleep Auto activity detection classifies activity type on Garmin Connect . . . it DOES NOT include a built-in wrist heart rate monitor.

The step counters always seemed wildly inaccurate to me and they're pretty much useless for hiking. But I'm generally not really into the quantified health stuff.

Ah, I never really bothered to verify and instead used it to measure whether I walked as much as I did the previous day. I assume it does a bit better at this. Thanks for pointing that out.

Same. Especially when sold at $300; for that price you have better options.

This one does seem too expensive for what it is. The GBD-200 at $150 seems much more appropriate for a smartwatch-lite, besides scratching the itch for a modern take on the old Casio squares [1].

https://www.casio.com/us/watches/gshock/product.GBD-200-1/

I have a Withings Scanwatch

30 day battery life, looks like a regular watch, but has health tracking built-in.

https://www.withings.com/us/en/watches

The main battery life killers seem to be the full-screen always-on display of many smartwatches and GPS. If you can dump those you can do a lot better it seems. Though in my case I have no interest in a fitness tracker without GPS.

I use a Mi Band which I wouldn't really recommend on the whole, but it gets great battery life and one reason might be that AIUI it piggybacks the phone's GPS rather than doing GPS tracking itself.

I'd love a Steel HR but 225 euro (~$250) for the one I want :(

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