Hacker News Reader

Comment by kingnothing | Hacker News Reader

After wearing an analog watch for two years, I'll never buy another smart watch.

I do not need to be so connected to my phone that my wrist vibrates when someone texts me. The little reminders to stand up are ignored. The guilt at the end of a day when I didn't get enough steps in is gone. And I have a newfound appreciation for the pure craftsmanship that goes into making this tiny analog device on my wrist that is powered by tiny springs and gears and somehow crafted well enough to be accurate within seconds per day. It's also the one piece of jewelry that is socially acceptable for every single man to wear and can be a fun expression of self given the sheer variety of watches in the world.

View on HN

100% agreed. I wore an apple watch daily for almost 10 years and have switched back to automatic watches. The notifications caused me to be way too connected to my phone, and the "tracking" aspects of it were kind of useless to me. I know intuitively if I got enough exercise in a given day (did I go to the gym? Did I go on a long walk?), I don't need a computer to tell me that. Same thing with sleep tracking: do I feel like shit in the morning? I probably didn't sleep well!

The one thing it's good for is run tracking, I'll still put it on for that activity.

I stopped caring about wellness trackers ever since the FIRST FitBit. Once you get an idea of what 10K steps feel like, it really becomes redundant at that point.

This personal optimization fad is exhausting. We already get enough "data-driven" at work - I don't need that in off-hours.

Listen to your body and stop converting every minute of your life into numbers. Maybe lift up your head and listen to the world for a second once in a while, instead of planting your face in another screen.

Agreed. It's motivational for some people, and that's great, but the "data driven" information it gives you fails to pass the "use your brain" baseline.

The notifications mostly suck unless they’re related to your heart or oxygen level, though you can choose to turn off what you don’t want. It’s the main reason why I wear an Apple Watch even though I’m a big fan of Pebble; loved my Pebble Steel. The fitness trackers tied to Apple Fitness are also another big feature for me. It’s what keeps me wearing it despite the really terrible battery life where I need to charge twice a day.

I'm surprised that the article even said "but you don’t always have the luxury of sitting down to set the time and get the watch ready for the day".

I wear an automatic all the time, in fact I collect them, and most automatic watches will happily keep ticking for 36-48 hours. If you take it off to sleep it won't need adjusting the next morning.

Even if you did need to fiddle with a watch in the morning (which I do, as I switch watches every few days) it takes seconds to whirl the hands to the correct time. Certainly not a significant timesink.

My automatic has a 3 day reserve and a quartz will stay on time for years

I bought a Citizen dumbwatch with the solar panel dial.

I've never had to charge it. Only thing I do is keep it in the open with the dial facing up when I'm not wearing it.

Well said. "Smart" watches seem to make the argument that somehow your phone was not accessible enough, not ever-present enough, and the best solution would be to build a phone relay and strap it to your body. Although the smart phone did flatten most people's impulse control to near zero, it seems the last little bit of progress in the area of impulse-control-destruction could be achieved by strapping a phone relay to your wrist. Too tough to pull your phone out of your pocket? Good news, now that stupid post / notification / chime / whatever is on your wrist and you can never get away from it.

After 3 attempts at an Apple Watch over the years, I finally had the experience that pushed me over the edge and I sold my Apple Watch 10 for a Coros APEX 4 - a device that has real battery life and a quality build, so no more worrying about my activity tracker dying during a half marathon, no more charging a device 2-3 times during an overnight backpacking trip and no more worrying about every bump and scrape. Apple has truly dropped the ball with their Watch line, with their only solution to the dismal battery life for *active* people being spend another $400 for a few extra hours of battery. No thanks.

I'm quite happy with my Coros upgrade. It's really shown me that Apple Watches are a general catch all with feature bloat that don't do anything super well for serious activity seekers, yet its main requirement is the user be tethered to a charger every damn day - sometimes multiple times. That being said though, once this Coros kicks the bucket, I will being giving a lot of thought into whether I will be purchasing another activity tracker. Even with this new device that lasts 2~ weeks on a charge, I find myself missing the simplicity of my Casio G-Shock - a device that simply works. My phone still functions as a great activity tracker for biking, running and brief hikes, but lacks the real battery life needed for backpacking - which is my only holdout.

I think there is a bit of a spectrum e.g.

- I don't want EVERY SINGLE notification from my phone to go to my watch

- I also don't want zero notifications b/c it's very useful to get notifications from my kids, important calendar reminders, my boss sends me a slack etc

Also, the watch allows me to still be "connected" for important events but not distracted by my phone.

(I should add that Apple watches give you a LOT of control over the notifications from your phone to your watch. Not sure if that's true with other watches)

I prefer to be able to slack my direct reports without thinking “are they going to get this on the toilet? Is this going to make them panic?”

It’s ok to wait a few minutes.

We've set up separate channels in our messaging app: One for random stuff and one for emergencies, and we only leave notifications on for the latter.

I set expectations with my team that it's only an emergency if I call or page them. I don't have Slack notifications on in my personal time, I don't expect my team to either.

I miss async communication. People apparently think it’s rude if I slack them at 4 AM but it’s on them to turn off notifications. I don’t even have slack on my phone. Nevermind people complaining about out of hours emails.. just don’t read them!

The few times I had to Slack someone way out of office hours I simply set a delayed message to be sent in the beginning of the workday.

People have different notification management than we do, I disable any work-related app notification outside of 9-5, others don't so maybe it's better to cater to them and send delayed messages if you aren't expecting them to read right away.

When I had a Pebble Time (dead, waiting on PR2) I basically had notifications turned off. For that matter, I have very few notifications enabled phone too.

It's great as a watch that can tell you if it's going to rain, give you TOTP authenticator codes, and control music playback.

The tiny springs and gears are neat though, in a different sort of way from tiny transistors, can't argue with that one.

I'm with you. I get great joy knowing that the machine on my wrist started out as rocks (ore) and was refined and fashioned into something that keeps time with very little energy input. Just keep them away from some modern devices, like an Air Pods case, which will magnetize a watch making run poorly unless demagnetized!

I've been tempted to go that route: I used to have a transparent self-winding watch and I miss it.

The thing is, I really like seeing text messages on my watch out of the corner of my eye. I don't read them, but I know that so-and-so texted me, and if it's important I figure out how to read the text safely.

Otherwise, I turn off almost all watch notifications very aggressively.

---

I also really enjoy using my watch as an alarm clock and to track sleep, but I could just wear it at night if I wanted to wear a mechanical watch.

For most of my waking hours, my phone is sitting next to me on my desk, couch, or table. Carplay has my back when I'm driving. I honestly don't miss any of the notifications from my smart watches.

Android Auto only shows who texted, it doesn't show any of the message. (IE, it doesn't even show the first few words.)

It's also a hassle to have it "read" messages, it requires far too much interaction with the screen (and then the phone for permissions) for driving.

In contrast, with my Pixel watch, while driving, I can see enough of the message to get an idea if it's important or not.

Cannot relate. I do not have notifications enabled on my Pebble.

I don't have any guilt over not having enough steps at the end of the day. But I am walking more thanks to my smartwatch.

I can start a timer in seconds when I am meditating, when I am cooking, when I am starting the watching machine. Also I have made a little app that shows me the weights and reps and sets I need to do for my powerlifting programme. I don't have to bring my phone to the gym. Lastly, I made a little app that shows me one thing I need to be doing for my morning routine or the next TODO on my todo list. A god send for someone suffering from ADHD.

While there are things like heart rate monitors that can't be replicated on a phone, I've never understood why people bring up step tracking or timers as traits of a smartwatch. My phone tracks my steps and can be used to set a timer just as easily (probably easier as it is has a much larger screen).

I couldn't imagine wasting so much time having to take my phone out of my pocket to see my important notifications (the unimportant ones don't go to my watch).

I can't imagine wasting so much time finding a way to separate important and non-important notifications.

But out of curiosity, what is an important notification for you?

It is pretty damn useful to track your progress if you do any kinds of endurance sports like running or cycling, but yeah I turned those notifications off right away.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com