Fossil is quitting smartwatches
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Previously, I got a Samsung and it was a buggy piece of junk. The Garmin has been extremely reliable, getting regularly doused underwater in saltwater when crashing while windsurfing, monitors heart rate, and can be hooked up to a heart rate monitor. And I charge it maybe once a week.
I looked into Apple Watches and I think Fossil too but they didn't seem to fit the bill. Apple has terrible watch battery life. I was able to put my Garmin in low power mode and only use the GPS when recording a few windsurf sessions, and it lasted 2 weeks like that without charging while in Europe.
I do wish it was better at sleep tracking...
I really think there should be devices that track health data and then just sync data to a computer or phone a few times a day. I know the Oura ring exists, but that's a subscription and therefor not interesting.
I suffer cognitive issues following severe health issues, the watch helps keep me on track with medication reminders and helpful pings to remind me of what I’m supposed to be doing/going to that day (drs appointments, scans, reminders to perform rehabilitation exercises etc). I can’t rely on my phone because it’s not guaranteed to be with me, but as long as I strap the watch on every morning (my partner reminds me first thing) I’m set for the day.
No YouTube, HN, web browsing etc, it’s far more functional for me as a life tool than a phone with a significantly larger scope for distraction and time wasting.
Whether I set it to measure continuously or ever 10 minutes, it never captures the real highs of the day.
I've been cycling a ton since I got swift and my first "real" bike last autumn and had been pretty sedentary for months before.
You'd expect the long term min max heart rate graph to increase but it's pretty much the same. The rare times it picks up on my elevated heart rate as I bike, it warns me that my "at rest" heart rate is high..
I've tried adjusting tightness, even reducing arm hair with a clipper as people were saying it can interfere. Nothing changed.
It was half off when I bought my phone so I grabbed it but it still feels overpriced. For sleep tracking I feel like it's been relatively decent and otherwise obviously I get notifications and stuff.
But the UI often feels laggy, simple things like entering my pin lags.
Ever since I switched from an iPad pro to the galaxy tab s9 ultra, I do appreciate how well things work when you own everything in the same ecosystem but the watch is the low point.
During high intensity interval training, the AW (and Garmin) can struggle. For me, it'll regularly read grossly under or over (like, think you're at 90 when your HR is actually 140, or 180 when I'm at 150).
Depending on your veins, your skin color, and your activity, wrist HR might be fine for you. If you want accurate HR in most conditions, though, it seems that you have to resort to a chest strap.
It's been a while since I looked at reviews but when I did the conclusion seemed to be all wrist based monitors are iffy and vary greatly from person to person. Maybe some people have a stronger signal at their wrist?
EDIT: I do like the watch though. Lightweight. Durable. Long battery life. Accurate GPS. Everything I need to track my running.
Another nice thing I've noticed with the 255 is GPS is normally super accurate, and I'm now able to rely on it 100% of the time for auto 1 mile lapping.
There's a whole bunch of signal processing mumbo-jumbo you can do to get a clean-ish heart rate from reflective PPG, it's just more complicated than Samsung/Apple/etc probably care to implement. They're selling you a watch, not a medical device. It sucks, but that's advertising.
From what I've seen in written reviews and user forums, the solar can reduce the rate of discharge but isn't realistically going to charge up the watch. It could be enough to offset daily basic smartwatch use if you spend time with it exposed to bright conditions while you wear it.
Setting it out in bright sun is likely to just overheat it and then it won't charge. On your arm, you act as a heat sink compared to if it is left on a sunny surface.
Based on your comment, I'd error on the side of gimmick then. =)
And the watch will report amount of solar energy gathered ... Somewhere.
I'd say the main problem is that sometimes the watch stays on battery so long I forget it needs a charge at all ...
It looks like a great watch but compared to my Fossil HR Collider: far more expensive, color screen instead of e-ink.
If they made something that looked well with a suit too, maybe I'd bite.
Or have they and I'm just not up to date with options?
Consider for example https://res.garmin.com/transform/image/upload/c_limit,dpr_1....
Noted, thanks.
I've clicked around a bit and i could find just one metal bracelet. And zero leather (even fake).
I know you can generally swap bracelets* - if they're standard - but there's enough plastic garbage in the world if you ask me.
* easy with leather, but if you want a metal bracelet that matches the metal body of the watch exactly, hard.
Very much like this watch, especially with aftermarket Velcro strap. It's also surprising how useful the builtin flashlight is on a watch, much more convenient in everyday use than one in a phone.
I wear it everyday and it has happily survived many water sports including a lot of surfing sessions. Practical, no bullshit (I don't want most of "smart" watch features, I have my phone for that), long battery life (I can record several day hike or full ski days without needing a recharge) and quite resistant (I took the Sapphire + Titanium version).
Only thing that could make me take a new Garmin model would be glucose tracking.
the UI too a bit to figure out, it isn't as intuitive as Samsung, and I assume Apple, but now that I've got the hang of it, it's fine.
What I don't understand is why Garmin has SO many different models. They all seem basically the same. When I was in the store to buy mine, I struck up a conversation with another guy looking to buy a Garmin, and we were trying to figure out why you'd chose a Fenix over an Epix over (I can't even remember the other names).
I recently tried a Pixel Watch 2 for a few days. The experience was terrible. Battery life is laughable and the interface made me want to smash it. Also wasn't really useful since everything is compromised by the form factor. Dick Tracy calls were kinda fun for 2 mins though.
The Garmin just unobtrusively (app-wise, physically it's pretty beefy) does what I want it to do, and I'm also totally comfortable going away for a week and not brining a chargers. I'm also comfortable wearing it in all circumstances.
In lower power mode, it lasts several weeks, which is great since 95% of the time, I'm using it as a watch.
The Lamborghini effortlessly (performance-wise, it's quite powerful) does what I want it to do, and I'm perfectly fine taking it on a week-long trip without worrying about refueling. I'm also comfortable driving it in any situation.
In eco mode, it has an impressive fuel efficiency, which is fantastic since 95% of the time, I'm using it for regular commuting.
All I want is a simple watch with simple features that doesn't require charging every day. Their hybrid line with some sort of e-ink (like) display really is perfect to me.
casio?
Or any smartwatch with a long lasting display that only needs charging every month, like the Fossil hybrid ones did.
When you only need notifications, and some music control, it works really well.
I have most features enabled though, using it as "just a watch" (which is what the tunable battery saver mode is, which I used a fee times in a bind) it turns 2d remaining into 1w+, so I would not be surprised if it would turn the 20-25d into 50-75d ballpark, possibly more.
Instinct Solar and Crossover Solar seem to give the above a run with much longer times, a friend is getting a Crossover this month because of that. Unfortunately if the claim is true he's not going to be able to report success for a looong time...
I love my Withings. Given what I've read about the Fossil application experience, I assume Withings is better in that regard too.
1: https://www.skagen.com/en-us/smartwatches/learn-more/gen-6-h...
I have been hoping that fossil (whose watch I didn’t pick originally because I found the interface sluggish, text hard to read, and light difficult to trigger) would release an updated model that would be my next watch. Pretty bummed to see this news.
They should have leaned in to it and made the Versa the equivalent Pixel Watch "a" series. Instead we have nothing good left.
How did you hack the BIP, and what did you do with it then?
The device is safe since on iOS I restrict the Zepp app from any internet, but you need to refresh your GPS with the app. On Android it's much safer with something like gadgetbridge.
I got a basic Amazfit model now, besides time, I only care about SMS notifications and having it vibrate on calls.
A single charge lasts around a month.
I bought Bip in 2018. I bought a $20 used Bip Lite as replacement in 2020 after Bip failed because of a known issue with the case's glue (fixed in later models), since I always run with my phone so don't need Bip's own GPS.
They've got models with various kinds of displays, from transflective outdoor usable ones to the usual OLED.
Battery life on the non-OLED models can be very good too, especially on the solar ones, a month or more in most cases.
And as far as I can tell their app needs internet to sync data from the watch even though it's connected via bluetooth, I assume it's uploading to their servers for processing before viewing in app.
Other than that it works great, I have no complaints about my Venu 2.
It's among the few hybrids that look like a proper, stylish watch; I compared it with hybrids from Garmin and some other leading brands, and Withings was without doubt the one with the best construction quality and aesthetics. (I didn't consider Fossil, not sure why.) Garmin's models are mostly plastic, but even the higher-end models have a kind of cheap look to them.
[1] https://support.withings.com/hc/en-us/articles/1853769342926...
thx anyways
I'm ready to ditch Fitbit as Google seems to be doing everything they can to kill it. They bricked a bunch of devices and told everyone to just buy a new one.
But it's frustrating that so many companies insist on the huge traditional size watch faces. I don't need or want the time or apps on my wrist, just the health features. All the competitors to Fitbit, especially Garmin, seem to be having their own competition of who can make the ugliest device that they can convince people to buy.
The hardware (at least gen 1) has around a 1 year lifespan due to the quality of the seals. You can only get a warranty replacement once. Mine literally fell apart once when I put it on, then the other one was shorting out in the case.
They don’t allow heart rate sharing over Bluetooth. Kind of a niche feature but this stops you from using it as a heart rate monitor with a bike computer or other exercise equipment.
In the end, after the support refused to service my watch for a warranty repair, I just switched to a Garmin Venu 3S, which I like, but I do miss that semi-analogue design.
Why is this an issue? I have an Apple Watch and Every night when i take it off I put it in the charger. At this point it would be more confusing if I only needed to do this every other or every third day.
It's not that difficult to produce a smart watch that can keep a battery for a week so I don't understand why you feel the need to condition people to get used to the horrible battery lives of popular watches as if it's the only way.
I'm a big fan of Garmin's hybrid watches that are smart "enough" but provide a 9 day battery life. Recently, Mobvoi made it possible to have an Android Wear smart watch with a multi-day battery (TicWatch). Something that Google Pixel will have you think to be impossible.
My only day to day upgrade with apple watch, is it allowed me to stream music to my airpods on a run without my phone. But I think Garmin has since released phones that can store music..
I'm not using my apple watch to run "apps" past podcast/music/running tracking.
My old Amazfit bip seems like it may give up on me any time now.. but I still can't find something that comes close to this in terms of it's 4 week battery life. Not even fitness trackers.
I already have to charge my laptop, smartphone, steam deck daily. If i have to add earphones and smart watch to that list, it would be just too much for me.
I did always try to get a morning bowel movement before starting my runs though.
And if I'm out somewhere and don't have my watch charger handy, I can stick it on the back of my phone and charge it from that.
> Its also pretty ugly.
Subjective obviously but I quite like how they look.
Real reason I got my forerunner though is for backpacking and skiing, so conditions where I’ll be in extreme temperatures batteries don’t like, without cell phone service, without power overnight, and potentially needing to navigate on offline maps. I know this doesn’t reflect the average buyer though.
Amazfit, Xiamoni, Pautios, etc. There's a flood of competitors on Amazon selling the functionality you describe at a price level that makes it non-worthwhile for the "name" brands. That's why those famous brands exit the space.
There are two leagues of "smart" watches. At the high-end, "cell phone on your wrist" tier, there's Apple and just enough smaller players to keep Apple somewhat honest. It's really more fashion accessory than practical device.
At the basic "pedometer, Bluetooth notifications from my phone, and week-long battery" tier, there are tons of options. But margins are razor thin, so the cool names don't play in that space. Down here you're talking about a purely utilitarian device rather than a fashion accessory.
For those running, I can see it being useful as well. GPS for tracking the morning run, with zero need to carry your heavy phone with you. And (talking about apple watch specifically, as that’s the one I have experience with), you can even connect your wireless headphones directly and listen to music too without needing a phone.
so honest they use unlicensed tech?
Another way of saying "paying for a name" is "paying for trust". When you run notifications through a smart watch you give it a lot of sensitive information. For example the contents of texts you receive. Depending on the device/implementation it can be a lot more. If it manages this data via a companion app then it's pretty easy for it to phone home too.
I don't turn notifications on my watch, I'm distracted enough as is, but if I did I'd be careful about the device I use. I suspect some of those bottom of the barrel devices aren't treating this sensitive level of access with the upmost care.
I have simply used the watch since the day I bought it. took it out of the box, put it on my wrist.
I've kept track of my SLEEP, my hiking or running, I've acclimatized to the mountains, I can check my resting heart rate, number of steps, maps, sunrise/sunset, respiration, stress, pulseox, etc..
It is not uploading my sexual activity. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37514355
I've never put it online, connected it to my phone or anything else. I've never had to create an account or upload anything.
I put it on the charger when I jump in the shower and that is all I need. A charge lasts 5-6 days.
It does what I want it to do and it doesn't do anything I don't want it to do.
I bought a watch for myself, my parents and my girlfriend. The prompting and social aspects of the “close your rings” exercise tracking have already led to a ~10 bpm decrease in my girlfriend’s resting heart rate, suggesting a marked improvement in her cardiovascular health.
Personally, I find the Apple Watch somewhat ugly, but the fitness features are worth the sartorial limitations!
The sensors in Garmin, Suunto, Samsung, and many others are equally as good, plus Garmin and Suunto have significantly better battery life than Apple too.
Why do people pay for The North Face, when you can have knock-off brands for 1/5th the price?
Part of it is paying for better quality assurance, more predictable and coherent UX, and so on. But a big part is that yeah, this day and age, watches are fashion / status accessories. They do nothing your phone can't. That doesn't mean they have no value to the buyers: the continued popularity of pricey mechanical watches is proof that there's more to this story.
The problem is that smartwatches never really positioned themselves as particularly... interesting. They don't signal social status, they aren't pretty, they don't do anything mind-blowing. They're just somewhat cheap-looking and oversized black slabs that display messages from your phone, clumsily.
So far, the closest to a "killer" application for the tech is trying to gamify everyday activities by tracking steps, sleep patterns, or heart rate. But how many people stay fixated on this and really keep it up in the long haul? As for the fashion part... there's only so much mileage you can get out of the ability to change wallpapers or bands.
- Send and respond to messages.
- Set timers.
- Set reminders.
This is far easier than getting out a phone and trying to type on a horrid touchscreen keyboard.
Paying for things and timing runs are also useful. The Apple Watch does all these things adequately, though I don't like using an iPhone.
Huh? The simple fitness tracker watches track your heart rate, sleep quality, step count, etc. Your phone can't do any of that stuff; you need something attached to your body for those measurements.
>So far, the closest to a "killer" application for the tech is trying to gamify everyday activities by tracking steps, sleep patterns, or heart rate.
So you just contradicted your earlier statement.
>As for the fashion part...
My cheap Amazfit fitness tracker is not fashionable at all: it's very boring looking, and no new band is going to change that.
For some people, overpriced watches might be a fashion symbol, but for others (esp. anyone spending less than $75) they're really not.
How do you know that it is «only»? The BOM alone is likely to exceed that for a not very smart watch. There is no «only», as there are other costs of running a smartwatch business:
– The cost of engineering the bloody thing: you have to pay salaries to engineers. Smartwatch engineering is a niche skill and not every engineer is capable of creating a good smartwatch design.
– The BOM itself: engineering decisions will affect the BOM. Sacrifices might have to be made, which has a risk of the final product becoming less reliable or less clamourable to consumers.
– Supply chain management: the cost of a stable supply chain might fluctuate but the supply will be stable. A supplier might be cheaper but flaky which means unexpected repurcussions for the production line; for example, components becoming unavailable and requiring re-engineering thusly.
– Integration with smartphones: most users expect a smartphone app, which means actually 2x apps (Android and iOS), which means salaried mobile app developers. Apps require on-going support, so it will become an ongoing expense. If you handwaive the smartphone apps as a nuisance, the watch might be not as appealing to consumers.
– Scale: for the product to be sustainable, it has to be produced in significant numbers. The manufacturing line is unlikely to agree to produce the product in the quantity of, say, 1k units either.
– Quality assurance: customers will abuse the product. So it will have to be tested within a particularly defined framework to reduce the number of support incidents. QA costs money, too.
– Marketing: customers have to discover the product before it can be sold to them and know why they should want this product and not a competitor's. Marketing is not free, even if it is one man show. If the customers can't discover the product, revenue will be zero or close to zero.
– Distribution network: resellers will take a cut from each watch sold which will have to factored into a unit's price. Direct distribution channels can do away with that, but you will have to negotiate contracts with postal and courier services to get the preferential pricing, or pass the cost onto the customer (not every customer likes high shipping costs), procure quality shipping packaging in numbers (the smartwatch is fragile) and be prepared to run to the post office yourself, like, daily.
– Support: stuff breaks. So you will have to commit to and support the product, and support is not free. Customers will come back to you with all sorts unusual problems and sometimes with zany requests. No or poor support, a backlash from customers and alike will not be conducive to the overall success of the enterprise.
– Costs of running the business: accountant(s), sundries, plus your own salary.
– Taxation: the government in your local jurisdiction will send a tax man to you to get a slice.
– Most importantly: profit. Sustainable profit from each unit sold also has to be factored into the price. The product has to become profitable at some point otherwise it will tank and vanish before it reaches v2.
That is a very, very high level breakdown of things that are just on the surface, and there are many nuances and unexpected expenses. All of that defines the cost of a single unit.
At the $50 price point it is unlikely to become a successful smartwatch product.
(1) I see a myriad of products on Amazon fitting the description that parent comment was talking about, the average retail prices being sub-$50.
(2) We are literally conversing in the comments of a post about name brands withdrawing from this space. Because below the Apple level, margins are too thin.
- Feature parity (hardware and software).
- Build quality (again, hardware, software and materials used in the making).
- Overall quality (will it die in 3 days, in 3 months or will last).
- Support (branded products are sold through local reseller channels and are subject to the local consumer protection laws – if it dies 1 month later, can it be fixed or replaced?)
I did have a quick look at the latest Fossil watch product before chiming in, and their watch seemed like a very sophisticated and polished product. I still have my doubts that there is a $50 functional and quality counterpart to it.
2. Apple has taken up the upper end of the niche for a reason – they have an ecosystem that their watch products weave into seamlessly. Their watch can even be used to unlock a MacBook in the direct proximity of it – it is a bonus feature, unrelated to the watch functionality itself but is possible because of the ecosystem.
Non-Apple products would always remain 2nd class citizens on the Apple platform due to having to interoperate with someone else's platform by virtue of being a standalone watch product and not part of their own ecosystem.
Even if the Apple ecosystem was entirely unlocked and open to third party watch products, the competing watch products would still always lag behind due to having to constantly playing a catch-up with new platform features.
I know it's a small thing, but I have to wake up early several days a month to perform a production health check at work, and I love the smooth integration:
1. Roll out of bed
2. Put on my Apple Watch
3. Unlock my iPhone with FaceID as I'm walking to my laptop
4. My iPhone unlocks my Watch by the time I get there
5. I tap a key on my keyboard, and my Watch unlocks my laptop
Unfortunately that smooth integration comes to a crashing halt when I have to log into my work VDI, but the Apple ecosystem is a very warm, welcoming place.
Do remember that I'm replying to a parent comment looking for "a simple watch with simple features". The watches that I'm referring to are basically pedometers and sleep trackers, with Bluetooth notifications from your phone. Of course it's possible to get week+ battery life with that feature set, even with a nice-looking AMOLED display. If you're willing to settle for an TFT-LCD display (I don't recommend it), then you can get nearly a month.
Then additional replies come along, saying, "Oh, but ---I--- need independent on-board GPS and waterproofing to two leagues of depth for my SCUBA hobby, notifications that never ever glitch, and I want a privacy audit trail for all of my super-secret data about how many steps I take per day". Well, okay. Maybe just buy an Apple Watch then? It all depends on your definition of a "smart watch", but I am discussing how I believe that parent commenter and myself define it. If you're incredulous that week+ battery life is ubiquitous in this range, then we may be thinking about completely different things.
What is your current watch? Curious about what model I could confidently recommend to people who have the battery problem.
Honestly, my favorite watch over the past 5-10 years has been a no-name that shows up on Amazon with a search for "EURANS Smart Watch 44mm, AMOLED Fitness Watch". $20, today. Since it uses standard watch bands, it was easy to find an inexpensive steel upgrade band. The phone app for managing this watch is the best I've used, and there were enough decent-looking watch faces available to make me happy. Battery lasts 12+ days.
Unfortunately, I found that with the EURANS, Bluetooth notifications on my phone were sometimes flaky. With Amazfit, notifications are solid, but sometimes syncing steps from the native app to Apple Health can be flaky. In the ultra low-end range, you're going to deal with something, but for me the Apple Health stuff is easier fix with the occasional manual edit.
It’s one of the most practical devices I own but I hadnt considered it a fashion accessory. Nobody who sees my watch thinks that, in fact most think the opposite but I’m ok with it cause I didn't get it to serve that purpose.
Maybe it’s because I own the poor version with a plain black sports band. Maybe if I owned a prettier one I’d get more compliments. However I have real watches when I need something like that which I think look much nicer if I’m going to dress up etc.
edit
To be fair I’m the furthest thing from fashionable and always have been so…I’m probably not the best judge of these things I suppose.
Have a look at Pinetime. It won't be discontinued, since it's an open-source smart watch.
Then you could upvote me to put my comment at a higher position.
But yes to epaper screen and programmable buttons would be nice. Pebble was 10 years ago, I thought we'd be at commodity F91W smartwatch hardware by now. And TBF $50 fitness trackers are close.
What is Fossil's identity ?
The reason I'm making this distinction is because at face value, any fitness tracker will do. They display the timme/date, have many extra simple features, and they last 10/14 days.
If one wants something more watch-looking, there are small/budget smartwatches, that are essentially fitness trackers with a larger screen (and in some cases, a GPS).
The problem is actually the apps, which are terrible and/or aggressive. Huawei display ads, and very weaselly, they introduce a small delay, so that one can easily click on them by accident; also, for some models, the app is not provided on Google Play (!). Most, possibly all, apps keep warning the user about giving location permissions, even if one doesn't care.
Besides very special cases (solar-powered, battery-powered etc.), the smartwatch with the longest battery life was the Amazfit Bip, but it was really, really terrible.
Any operation connecting the app to the phone requires syncing first, which takes an inordinate amoujnt of time (I don't have the Bip anymore, but I think it was a minute or so). On top of that, if the app has been recently updated, the AGPS will need to be resynced, which AFAIR, takes a few minutes.
Zepp sucks in this department. Modern Amazfit smartwatches still take a disproportionate time (compared to the competitors) to sync, but at least they do it asynchronously.
To be fair, my list of necessary features was very short: - display the time - display mobile notifications - display weather
Apple Watch feels like it should be the best, but it's so tightly linked to the Apple ecosystem that if you're not all-in then it's the worst option (cannot update it if you don't also have an iPhone)
Garmin looks great, and their watches are good, but their integrations with Apple or Google is weak, and they have so many strange quirks to them (just yesterday my partner's Garmin was out by 90 minutes for most of the day which baffled me as surely NTP + sync time via bluetooth with the phone!?)
Suunto actually is great, except their heart rate tracking is pretty average to awful, which is a real shame as the devices are otherwise excellent
And then the Google Watch ecosystem... watches that all feel laggy, 2nd class, and just lacking polish and finish, even the Pixel Watch just feels cheaper than it should
There's so much potential, but everyone slightly misses the mark for a different reason. I stick with a Casio G-shock which isn't smart, but works exceptionally well for the little it does, but I check out smart watches a few times a year... and it feels like digital SLRs, for a long time they were worse than a film camera, and eventually they were better... smart watches are still in the territory of worse, I'm hoping they continue to get better
Really? Can't the EU do anything about it?
I keep hearing how much better the Apple Watch is but I still can't see how.
To start with, the GW6 classic looks like an actual classy watch while the Apple watch looks like a tiny phone strapped to your wrist.
Which makes their advice less credible for several possible reasons:
* they may not have the exposure to other products to have an authoritative opinion,
* or they have used the products in a completely different context (eg, within the ecosystem with an iCloud account or other accompanying product),
* or they might be expressing a bit of stockholm-esque sentiment ("it's the best I can easily use due to the limitations in which I can use this particular product and I love living within these limitations, so it's clearly the best option because everyone should love living within these limitations too..")
I use only Apple products (desktop, laptop, phone, ipad), but I've never seriously considered the watch. Battery life less than a day? Come on...
But even 2 is ridiculous for a watch. It's not like a phone or another device that you use occasionally and can even use while it's charging. It's supposed to be there on your wrist.
Useless useless useless, and Apple is martyred and married to it. (can't enter a PIN without the touch screen, can't ask app developers to rewrite apps to be button-focused or button-primary, can't _ever_ introduce something that is less capable, or less pretty than their existing overcomplicated mess)
I use to love being able to skip to the next track while taking a shower from my pebble because it used these things called BuTtOnS, a long lost technology that allows you to reliable perform a limited set of actions while on the go and without looking.
So even if you wanted to, you could not match the experience of being all-in on their ecosystem. That's intended, so that other products do not compete with theirs and look inferior.
The apple watch looks great but it's double the price and only works with iOS. I don't think you can even pair it with android to get notifications which is my main reason to have a smartwatch (the fitness/ activity stuff I don't care about except GPS tracking for hikes)
I like that Garmin seems dedicated to their devices, and I don't expect them to quit the market anytime soon which gives me confidence in their offerings, and their transflective display is IMO the way to go to reduce power consumption and making it readable in direct sunlight.
But the bulky look, that I feel like it would worn by someone in the military doesn't fit my style at all. I want something more casual.
EDIT: Ok it does seem like Garmin makes some sleeker models, but all of them seems to have an AMOLED display. I just want a sleek-looking smartwatch with multi-day/week long battery and an always-on display..
Like they aren't tiny and they have buttons and a digital display, but they aren't really bulky, especially in comparison to some of the fashion watch trends we have seen not that long ago.
Then WearOS 3 unified Android and Samsung’s Tizen. Also, Google makes own Pixel Watch. The new watches had better processors. I got the feeling that the watch makers had a hard time with new tech.
WearOS might have the NDK, but still requires beefy CPUs, as it is almost a full Android for all practical purposes.
Whereas other smartwatch OSes are a mix of C, C++, pseudo JavaScript with SVG like Zepp OS, or Monkey C on Garmin's case.
Most watch makers would rather keep using something like C89 or Assembly, and feeble CPUs, with year long batteries.
Which come to think of it is was also how Pebble SDK was originally.
I got the feeling that watch makers saw Google give Samsung a 6-month head start on WearOS 3 (as a bribe to kill Tizen) and said: yaaaa... we're not playing this game.
https://www.androidcentral.com/samsung-and-googles-secrecy-w...
It's a shame, I really liked the ticwatch, but most watches are just too big for my wrist size. The pixel is not great software-side (it has a sort of wallet garden, without a pixel phone most features aren't available) but ergonomically it's perfect.
I don't know about fossil, but for me it seems like wear manufacturers haven't yet found what users want (except maybe for Apple, but that's probably because there is only one option)
Really? Most reviews I read seemed to indicate the Pixel Watches work fine with any recent Android, contrary to Samsung's watches that require Samsung Android phones for most features.
Wouldn't call that "most features", but they're quite important to me.
They are not most features, I should have used "some", my mistake, but for an android watch connected to an android phone...it's not pleasant.
Still, I have them by using third party apps (one of them open source where I even fixed a bug, the other from tasker) which is why I prefer android to other proprietary os watches.
I was pretty happy with it early on, but the software was always a little hit-and-mis. In particular the Google voice assistant stopped working a year or so ago, and when they finally rolled out the WearOS 3 update a few weeks ago, it just removed that feature (and several others) rather than fixing it.
I am a big fan of the dual-display with a super-low-power, sunlight-readable LCD and a richer OLED behind it.
I also really liked having a user-assignable hardware button, although mine stopped working after a couple of years, and apparently the WearOS 3.0 "upgrade" took away that feature too.
The dual display was my biggest lost. I need always on, and very few watches support it. With the pixel I get 2 days of battery with it, which I've become used to, but I would love to have that lcd display.
As for wear os: I had a moto sport with wear 1. It was basic but functional. Then it was upgraded to wear 2 and it improved a lot, I really liked it. But then the wear 3 was released (which that watch never got) and it's like google forgot everything else. Now I have wear 4, which I don't feel particularly happy about it, mainly because of the horrible material theme (seriously, everything is sized as if you used your full thumb, padding everywhere, wear 2 had almost double the information visible)
That is until I got the Casio G-Shock GD350. I can't hear the alarm of most watches when I sleep, so I needed a watch that vibrates. I also swim so I need something that's decently waterproof. A G-Shock is practically indestructible.
It sounded good in theory: normal watch with the background e-ink that will show your notifications and step count and heart rate and whatever. More of a fancy fitness band but that was good enough to start with. The battery even lasted 2 weeks.
Unfortunately the eink was almost unreadable unless directly in the sun. It had a light you could turn on by tapping the watch but it was weak. Need I mention the software to configure it was pretty limited? Especially in the part where you configured what notifications to get and what not?
But that's not the main problem. The main problem is either the glass front wasn't tight enough or it had humidity under it from the factory. So every time it got cold and humid it fogged up. That never happened to me with any other traditional watch, no matter how cheap it was.
And one day... in about 2 years and some change... it just died on me.
Waiting a few years and then checking hybrid watches again. Maybe this market niche will survive.
I might try a Withings once I get over the Fossil.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fossil_Wrist_PDA
My teenage self wanted one of these so badly, but my married self is glad I never had the opportunity to be seen wearing one.
I loved my Fitbits and they went south post-Google. I was not into charging a watch every day with my Samsung Galaxy watches. Then, enter Withings. I can actually go many days without running for a charger. Notifications are fine. I still get steps and pulse ox and EKG.
I didn't have this problem with older watches, and I don't have it now, with a Fossil.
On the downside the display is really bad and won't actually display anything at this point anymore, the watch is working fine though. Their app and synchronization process is also horrible. Synchronization is only triggered when you open the app, this process then takes what feels like ages to update the information in the app, and here comes the best part: You don't even get any valuable insights in your workout. Just some basic bar charts and sums.
I feel that a Watch like that still is a product I'd like to buy, but the Fossil experience imo wasn't good enough overall.
All other alternatives are too gaudy, bulky and techy. Guess I'll have to keep looking. ...Based on the discussion here, the Garmin Vivomove series looks interesting...
My Fossil Commuter is analog. But can configure notifications from the phone, and configure for each app where the hands point when it vibrates.
Perfect for being able to have the phone on silent and just wear a regular watch. I don't want to read messages on my watch. I just want it to tell me when I'm getting a phone call because my phone is entirely silent.
The battery also lasts for a year like a regular watch.
I'm surprised to see not many mentions of Withings here. Perhaps it's more popular in Europe.
I switched to the Garmin Vivomove and have been very happy with it. It looks fantastic IMO, the transflective screen is big enough to be useful, and it has only the features I want. The only downsides are that the Garmin Android app is not as well designed as the Withings app and the battery life is only 4 days or so instead of a week, which feels like an awkward amount of time.
Will have a closer look at them. Thanks for mentioning it!
The physics of reading off a screen is going to keep smartwatches in the fashion category unless there are some startrek tier breakthroughs.
I think the Apple Watch will become increasingly standalone.
Also own a fossil (gift from wife recently) but whenever I can I always use my reliable and less power hungry Withings Scanwatch
Curious though if there are any
Part of the reason people like tablets as a second device is that you can turn off the screen and it'll maintain a charge for several days. If it had to be charged as frequently as a phone, people would just stick to their phone.
I love my mechanical watches because a few twists on the crown gets it moving and the automatic movement keeps it wound the rest of the day.
I spend a lot of time in front of large screens, so my phone is mostly there in standby either to let someone call me or to do a quick check when away from a better computer.
If I'm going somewhere expecting a call while my phone is pocketed, I might look for call notifications on my wrist. But otherwise I'd rather just poll my phone infrequently. Since I'm not enslaved to notifications, I usually turn on the bluetooth link once weekly to allow the watch to sync health data and refresh its cache of GPS ephemera for quick location fixes.
I’m not as bothered by the charging since it gets enough of a boost while I’m in the shower.
I've never had a problem since I always take my watch off, so putting it on a side table or charging it on a side table is a non-issue.
But I think some people wear it for sleep info? And I've always been baffled at how/when they charge it.
I have a Garmin and I usually charge it once a week.
A friend of mine has a charger in his car, and charges his watch during commute.
You can get a lot of market penetration by having a series of companies spin up, ultimately fail to become profitable, and collapse. Especially with a market that's incredibly price conscious.
Like US is basically Apple takes it all, the rest of the world there are country where only rich kids get iDevices, those country apps companies care about the whole population.
Sure, it's necessary, but it isn't sufficient.
If Apple made a profit by selling standalone devices, I could respect this argument. But especially with the iPad and its fully capable processing power to replace a general purpose computing device, it's easy to see how their business "ingenuity" is set up.
As someone, who fell for it twice, I think frustration and sadness about yet another competitor dropping out is absolutely warranted and relatable.
Incorrect, Apple makes money selling devices (except potentially Apple Vision, in the short term), which have an average gross margin of ~35%. Average gross margin across all products is ~45%.
I am well aware they make and sell hardware. But it's all locked down to some extent.