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Comment by mikestew | Hacker News Reader

I was waiting to see what Apple had in store but...oh, what the hell, I'll pull the trigger. Fact is, I'm pretty satisfied with my original KS-backer edition Pebble. Apple is going to have to have a pretty convincing story for me to charge a watch every single day. I spend enough time away from 5VDC power sources that such short battery life could become occasionally annoying.

The original Pebble does what I want it to do. In fact, it does more than it promised pre-shipping (counts steps, as one example). I'm hardly one to be brand-loyal to a watch, but ignoring late shipping to KS backers, Pebble has exceeded expectations, so I'll give them another whirl. Apple, OTOH, is going to have to do a hell of a job to convince me to spend almost twice as much on a new platform that needs daily charging. And I say this as one with a house full of Apple gear, much of it pre-ordered on the day of announcement.

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I really just want a "normal" watch that has some "smart" features. I already have a sports tracker (Garmin Forerunner), and I have given up wearing my Moto360 because it's almost never useful in compelling enough ways that I don't just pull my phone out after seeing a notification ... and I have to charge it nightly.

If you want a normal watch combined with a fitbit, check out: http://www.withings.com/us/withings-activite.html

They have a lower-end version of that now too: http://www.withings.com/us/withings-activite-pop.html

That's a sexy watch, not sure how i didn't see it before. Thanks for the link.

Very sexy.

Though the band ruins it for me, as I wear my fitness tracker while doing actual fitness. The rubberized Garmin Vivofit can handle the beatings.

They do a cheaper version called Activite Pop which ships with a silicone band.

"In the box: Sports strap. A set of silicone straps for sports activities"

Wow, that's a smart watch I could actually use. 8 month battery life, doesn't look awful, not priced terribly (for the version with silicone band). The only thing holding me back is that it seems to require a phone app. Right now my phones are Windows and Blackberry; it'd be nice if I could just use a web app in the browsers on those.

Yeah, I agree. It's a possibility that their android app might not require play services, though, and will work on your Blackberry (and my CyanogenMod).

That's one sexy watch. Seems a lot like one of my fav watches [0].

Although:

> Android not compatible now

> Coming in end of February 2015

[0] http://www.baume-et-mercier.com/en/classima-10144.html#wf

This reminds me of the movie Her. This is the direction I want wearable tech to go.

That looks amazing. Why haven't I seen this until now?

Wow, that's a beautiful watch first and foremost, and a "smart" accessory second. It reminds me of the Bauhaus style of Nomos and later on Stowa, both held in extremely high regard by the watch community.

$450 is high for a smartwatch, but low for a watch in general. Nomos watches cost thousands. Granted, that's in large part to their in-house mechanical movements. But $450 is certainly not unreasonable for a high quality quartz watch -- see Seiko and Citizen. And this has the aesthetics to compete with the best of them in my humble opinion.

I have a Moto 360 and I stopped wearing it a bit over a month in. The extra features it has aren't very useful to be completely honest, and it's a bit bulky, having to charge it daily was really a drain, and it just felt flat-out fragile. I was afraid to even wash my hands while wearing it.

Lack of Android support is unfortunately a deal breaker for me right now, as I don't have an iPhone.

Something like this?

http://engineeredby.hp.com/michael-bastian/index.html

Another option is the latest Fenix from Garmin... https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/on-the-trail/wrist-worn/feni...

While it isn't a true smart-watch, it does provide alerts from your phone. I imagine for many users, that's enough.

If I hadn't stopped wearing a watch completely a few years ago, I'd probably buy this one.

I hate to say it, because they're local here in Kansas City, but I'd stay away from Garmin if you want your device to integrate with anything else. I bought a GPS of theirs last year. I've never experienced frustration like I did trying to download a map from the internet and put it on this device. I now have SIX Garmin applications on my computer that I have to use to manage the device. (I'm not kidding.) Garmin BaseCamp, Garmin Express, Garmin MapInstall, Garmin MapManagaer, Garmin POI Loader, and Garmin Web Updater. Every one of them is buggy and hard to use.

Run far and fast.

Wow. That is awful. I use their fitness devices (Edge 500 and one of the ForeRunners) and they've had some issues (bugs in the firmware), but nothing like that. Both integrate with Garmin Connect (the web site) using the Garmin Express app (OSX).

If that did sleep and activity tracking, then I would be in. Also, I didn't see battery life, but that might be an issue also. All I want is to log my heartrate throughout the day via my phone along with good sleep tracking. I'm ok with wearing a heart rate band.

What sort of features?

My biggest problem with the Apple watch is that I don't want to have an expensive, high-demand Apple device on my wrist...it's going to be a bigger thief-magnet than a new iPhone. For that reason alone it will be a while before I consider getting one.

Thefts of iPhones actually dropped massively since iOS 7 introduced activation lock. Some cities published stats. Interestingly thefts of Samsung devices went way up as the market for useless stolen iPhones dried up.

The peeble seems to be mainstream ready, watching their videos, I felt like buying this just like buying a casio watch in the 90s. It seems sturdy, functional, fits the trends of the day just enough, not too expensive.

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