this post was submitted on 27 Jan 2024
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(page 2) 27 comments
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[–] [email protected] 23 points 9 months ago (1 children)

With the state of wearos where both the os maker and the chipset maker aren't believing in the platform, it's difficult to blame them.

The best way to do a smartwatch is using an embedded dedicated os that uses minimal resources to save battery. It's the reason a ten year old pebble smartwatch with 128k of ram and a 64 MHz CPU feels faster than a brand new wearos smartwatch with 2gb of ram and a 2 GHz CPU.

If for example you want to show a barcode for a membership card on the watch screen, you shouldn't run a full 100mb app on your watch with a database, internet connection, 2mb high res PNG files for icons and other shit. There's a powerful smartphone in the pocket that can do all the hard work like syncing, adding, editing or deleting cards and so on, and when a card need to be showed on the screen the phone just tells the watch "ok so using the embedded library just show this barcode, and to make it fancier use a green border because it's Starbucks"

But when people are purchasing it they're directly comparing it to the Apple Watch with beautiful display, fancy animations, and the numbers on the spec. "What? This watch only has 128k of RAM? LOL this other one with 16000 times more memory gonna be much better"

So, instead of doing it the right way and investing millions on an embedded os with fancy animations everyone took the shortcut of using wearos. "The chipset and the operating system is already done for us, just need to customize it!" And spend millions in customizing it.

But then, those Qualcomm "smartwatch" chipset are just ten year old smartphone CPUs in disguise and the operating system it's the full android os with a different skin. Congratulations, you got a ten year old smartwatch sized smartphone with bad performance and short battery life! Good luck selling that shit. Ah, forgot to mention that the company that is selling you the operating system is directly competing with your sales and at the same time it's holding exclusive features for themselves and/or delaying them for months. And they're using an exclusive chipset that's way better than whatever you can get. Yeah, customers gonna be pissed that your expensive smartwatch sized smartphone doesn't have all the features of the pixel watch.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago (5 children)

My pebble was the only "smart" watch I've had that I liked. I've given up on wearing a watch for now.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 9 months ago

Loved owning Fossil watches growing up and when I discovered that they came out with smartwatch, I decided that I should try the Carlyle the had. Unfortunately, the charging connection stopped working after a year and then the watch itself got kinda bugged. Turned me off from owning a smartwatch all together tbh.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I loved the design of their watches, they looked like a watch first and foremost, but their speed and battery life was atrocious and I owned 3 generations of them before switching to Apple.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Exactly why I never pulled the trigger on them. They always looked so nice, but they just couldn't get the tech to match. I'm not going to wear a watch that doesn't even make it through a workday.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago

That's the story of Fossil: great looking watches, that are subpar quality. I've owned 4 Fossil watches over the past 30+ years and I've regretted each one. The last was the Carlisle smartwatch, and that will be my last a Fossil.

[–] [email protected] 50 points 9 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Second the hybrid. I had a nice one - bronze face and the gold hands would move to indicate notification type etc. had some complications for step count etc. It looked great, I reckon it'd be even better with a small eink screen to show who the message was from etc. Kind of like the withings

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago

Their 6th gen hybrid does indeed have a 1.1in 240x240 E-ink display that can display the message! :)

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 9 months ago (4 children)

I personally quit smart watches. I owned an Apple Watch 2 and 'downgraded' to a Garmin Instinct. Couldn't be happier.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (2 children)

How is the Garmin? I personally downgraded to a β€œdumb” Casio watch for my daily watch, but I still want something to at least track my heartrate and steps for whenever I exercise.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 9 months ago

Garmin makes good watches, and the data capturing goes to Garmin connect without any subscription fee / pay wall to see all the data it tracks.

I've had a bunch of them (as a runner). I currently have a Fenix 6X partially because I was doing long runs and wanted the battery to last without worrying. I recently tried a pixel watch 2 for a few weeks and did really like the extra "smarts" but the battery life sucked.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Honestly all I want from my "smart watch" is to see notifications as they come in, and to see my upcoming events from my calendar(s) from a quick glance. That doesn't require a powerful CPU or an hi-res LCD display.

I don't want to do voice commands either.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

You want a hybrid watch. I had one, a withings for a couple of years before it decided to stop charging (completely unrepairable of course). Does precisely what you describe and lasts for a month on a single charge

[–] [email protected] 22 points 9 months ago (3 children)

Damn straight! I miss pebble. :(

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Love my Pebbles! Thank goodness for Rebble.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 9 months ago

I keep buying used ones. The problem is they're starting to get harder to find and the price it's going up.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (3 children)

You and me, comrade.

I went with the Amazfit Bip because it had a similar form factor and there were alternative firmwares for it, but after growing tired of fiddling with what is a hack-ish workaround, I decided to switch to the BangleJS2 when it came out. It's not as polished as the Pebble Timeline UI, but it works well enough and it's open-source.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 months ago (2 children)

I agree I got rid of mine until smart watches can last 2 days minimum on battery I won’t use one the die so quickly.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago

Galaxy watch 5 pro would be best of the Samsung ones for that - lasts two days and does all the stuff. It's got nothing on a Garmin for battery life though.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

I was gifted a Garmin 235 in 2015 and the battery lasted a week. At this point it still lasts 3-4 days. I'm great about always having my devices well-charged, can't imagine what many folks go through with the atrocious battery life on some of these "smart" watches that can barely go overnight.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Agreed. Got the instinct 2 Solar. It does everything I realistically use a smartwatch for, the battery lasts 2+ weeks, and no fiddly little touchscreen to fuck out if I have water or grease on my fingers. Had it longer than I've kept any other smartwatch.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 9 months ago

Sad, but I guess somewhat understandable given the R&D competitors are putting in.

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