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edent 11 hours ago [-]
I overheard a conversation between someone on the Pixel Watch team and a woman I know. He was quizzing her at a party about what features she used - which were pretty much step counter and payment. He somewhat dismissively sneered, "Well, you're not exactly a power user, are you?"
I'm trying to imagine what being a "power user" of a watch is like. Can anyone enlighten me?
I think smart-watches are much like Alexa. What the user wants to do with it is almost totally at odds with what the company is selling. Alexii are mostly kitchen timers, song players, and light switches. No one is a "power user" constantly installing skills and using it for anything which increases the product team's engagement metrics.
The same is probably true of watches. Alerts are nifty - but cumbersome for replies. The health stuff is useful - but only for a subset of users. Seeing the time is great - but if the battery lasts less than a week, who wants to keep that screen on?
futureshock 9 hours ago [-]
This. Totally.
I would say I'm quite a power user usually. I very carefully explored every feature my apple watch has and tried to incorporate as many of them as I could. Very, very few features stuck because they were genuinely helpful. Almost everything being pushed is a gimmick or a feature bullet point from some product manager.
The actual good stuff:
Time
Workouts
Payments
The occasionally useful stuff:
Notifications
Noise DB levels to see if I need to put on ear protection
Workoutdoors app for on-device maps and path breadcrumbs
The once in a blue moon stuff:
Music controls and on device playlists
On device audiobooks
Weather complication
Voice memos
Alarm
Shortcut to call my husband
The feature I tried to get working but gave up on:
Tap to talk to ChatGPT and get a 100 word or less reply
com2kid 9 minutes ago [-]
I listen to lots of music. Music controls are super useful to me.
I mainly own my watch for notifications and calendar reminders.
Timers, again every day.
To each their own.
eisa01 3 hours ago [-]
This, but the music and podcast functionality is just frustrating. In my more than 5 years of being an Apple Watch user, I have been let down too many times
It seems just unwilling to sync anything to the watch, so there’s nothing to listen to when I go for a run without my phone
It’s just baffling, the watch has like 32 GB of storage?
armaansarkar 7 hours ago [-]
Personal favorite: unlocking my laptop
ValentineC 5 hours ago [-]
I keep laptop unlock off. Touch ID on the MacBooks more than suffices for this.
NetOpWibby 6 hours ago [-]
The only thing I miss from switching to a Casio
mertd 6 hours ago [-]
Walking navigation is immensely useful for me when I am going somewhere in an unfamiliar town or neighborhood.
system7rocks 8 hours ago [-]
Truth! I bought my Apple Watch so I could skateboard with my AirPods in and not lose connection. But the connection is a pain to make happen, not intuitive, and sometimes just doesn’t work. I like the watch for trying to keep me reminded to stay fit and active, but I have been considering just not ever buying another one and going without. I turned off all notifications on it because it’s useless.
vladgur 3 hours ago [-]
Find my phone
Camera remote
belZaah 3 hours ago [-]
Maybe it’s niche, but if you do endurance sports like triathlon, you can easily become a power user. I think I did. You constantly look at your watch during workouts. It does navigation on trails, it measures your heart rate, tracks workouts, keeps pace during races. The metrics it gathers about hrv, sleep, rest hr etc are vital to adjusting the routine. It acts as a data recorder for multiple sensors: hr strap does a million running metrics, a separate strap does hydration, on a bike there’s a power meter. It supports my routine alerting me about the fast, timing my morning porrige (14 min). It’s my payment method on long rides when I need water and could play audio if I wanted to. I care about advanced features like multi-band gps and handover with my bike computer. It’s a vital tool, I need it for so many things. But vast majority of smartwatches do not cater for this crowd at all. Even the Apple Ultra feels like a toy. Garmin upper end stuff is where it is.
semi-extrinsic 3 hours ago [-]
Yes, before I read the last sentence I was going to comment that this niche seems entirely taken by Garmin/Suunto/Polar.
nradov 2 hours ago [-]
Exactly. Beyond all that, I also use my Garmin smartwatch as a scuba diving computer to track depth, time, and decompression.
pjmlp 49 minutes ago [-]
Spot on, my smart watch is an Amazfit, the built-in apps for sport, driving the music player, and reading msgs are enough.
I agree reply is useless, it isn't even possible on this one, however it is good only as a reminder as sometimes I miss relevant calls or msgs.
I have used smart watches since the Timex and Casio had agendas, or games, never cared for an app ecosystem beyond what was already on the phone.
Also never changed the Amazfit skin since the day I bought it, and settled on a classical analogue view.
Often I rather use a plain mechanical watch, or no watch at all, don't get the app ecosystem on a miniature screen.
Kirth 31 minutes ago [-]
"Power user?" Having a Pixel Watch 2 (or 3), I keep thinking no one working on this device really uses it. It's supposed to be a sports and health device but the stopwatch app doesn't even support laps.
coolg54321 1 hours ago [-]
Yes exactly, what i regularly use are: track workouts, steps, sleep, card payments (sometimes a backup), flashlight, hiking navigation (convenient than checking phone), alarm and camera remote. I cant stand anything with less a week battery life. so far Garmin works fine for me
Godsend69 5 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
timoth3y 56 minutes ago [-]
I love my analog watches too dearly to give them up for a smart watch.
However, I just realized that analog watches also have "power users", and I am definitely not one of them.
My favorite watch (excuse me, "chronograph") has a stopwatch with lap memory, a tachymeter, support for multiple time zones, and a bunch of other features I have not thought about since the week I purchased it.
I don't really know how to use it all. I just like the watch.
jbarberu 24 minutes ago [-]
Was going to reply that I would probably consider myself a power user of my Casio W-736. Features I use:
- Check the time (many times daily)
- Count-down timer (many times daily)
- Stop watch (weekly)
- Check date (a few times per month)
- Secondary time zone (rarely, since the people I care about are in the same time zone or 6h behind and easy enough to convert in my head)
I've had a fitbit in the past but had a hard time with having to charge it regularly, which often resulted in forgetting it at home. The added features did not outweigh the risk of being without it every now and then.
encom 34 minutes ago [-]
>My favorite watch (excuse me, "chronograph")
EXCUSE me... It's a time-piece!
Escapade5160 7 hours ago [-]
Pebble is the ultimate smartwatch because it knows what it is. Its a watch first and foremost, readable in any lighting conditions, waterproof, battery lasts for weeks. They made a watch first then added only the QOL features that most people need.
wraptile 31 minutes ago [-]
I've been really enjoying the reboot of Pebble with their new Time 2 for a few months now. I'm using ForecastWatch 2 watch face which crams calendar, watch and weather data into one screen and it's perfect. Lasts weeks on charge too. For apps their built-in workout apps etc are perfectly fine and I built some of my own apps quite easily.
My only complaint is that app limitation are apollo moon lander level of bad, like 128KB code and 256kb resources. I'm not particularly versed in optimizations patterns in here, but building fun stuff is really hard with these limitations. So what you have to do is roll a "companion app" android app that does all compute on the phone and streams it to the watch but that sucks.
rf15 13 minutes ago [-]
> but building fun stuff is really hard with these limitations
What is your idea of fun stuff? Code and data is cheap enough with these constraints, though fancy graphics are what will eat your budget.
storywatch 19 minutes ago [-]
I assure you it's most certainly not waterproof in any reasonable sense of the word. The seals and glue on that thing is nowhere up to the standard of modern smartwatches.
nradov 2 hours ago [-]
Many of the Garmin smartwatches also have all of those features.
trimethylpurine 5 hours ago [-]
Interesting. I'll check it out. Thanks!
Zigurd 10 hours ago [-]
Listening to power users is the product management equivalent of armoring the places on the fighter plane where you find bullet holes. You should of course be looking for where the planes that didn't come back have damage.
Smart watches become shelfware pretty easily. Especially when you don't have the Apple Watch cachet.
ortusdux 9 hours ago [-]
Great analogy - This phenomenon irks me, and I would never have thought of using survivorship bias as an apt description. Some of the most valuable feedback you will ever receive is from people that don't use your product/feature.
encom 24 minutes ago [-]
But if you go too far in that direction, you end up at the Mozilla school of design. Alienating your core users, and designing a product for users that aren't there. Look at them now.
pandaman 5 hours ago [-]
The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. Health stuff like sleep tracking is likely useful for the vast majority of population, at least to everyone who needs time and thus lives on a schedule of some sort, without the possibility to fall asleep and wake up whenever one feels like it.
I too don't see how the ability to run apps is of any value so I use "sports" watch instead of a "smart" watch, which gives me better screen and better battery life in exchange of a smaller number of apps I won't ever run. Though the battery life is not an issue and smartwatch users I know charge their watch while in the shower.
markdown 3 hours ago [-]
> The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you.
I came here to say exactly this. That's not the reason I bought a smart watch in the first place (I didn't even know that was a feature), but it's the only reason I still use a smart watch now over my old Seiko.
maccard 10 hours ago [-]
I love my Apple Watch. Alerts mean I don’t look at my phone which means I don’t unlock it and get sidetracked. I have plenty of ways to tell the time so it’s actually kind of useless for that. It’s a passable golf watch, a passable fitness tracker for running and it pairs with earphones so I can not bring my phone with me. I’ve occasionally used Apple Pay with it but that novelty wore off pretty quickly.
I don’t care that the battery doesn’t last, I’ve got a wireless charger at my desk and at home and 30 minutes on that a few times a week keeps it alive for my usage.
lenova 10 hours ago [-]
> I love my Apple Watch. Alerts mean I don’t look at my phone which means I don’t unlock it and get sidetracked.
I've noticed and interesting social shift in recent years: friends who get distracted mid-sentence by an Apple Watch notification, pause the conversation to check the alert, and then continue the conversation afterwards without realizing they had paused/were momentarily not present. It's fascinating because these people will not realize they were momentarily sidetracked, and remain convinced a watch keeps them more present than their hone.
There's a term waiting to be coined for this concept, but I'm not clever enough to come up with one...
rootusrootus 8 hours ago [-]
I think it depends on the alternative. Compared to no interruptions, this kind of behavior is annoying. But if the alternative would be pausing to pull out their phone and look to see why it just buzzed/dinged, the watch glance may be the lesser evil.
More important to me, in either case, is to tame the notifications no matter where they go. It is your choice what gets to the phone screen or the watch, and if you are pausing a conversation to glance at the watch and then it does not cause you to need to do something else urgently, this is a strong indication that you should have that notification turned off. Let it go to a low priority queue you can look at later when you have time, not something that buzzes or dings at you.
birdsongs 9 hours ago [-]
I started noticing this with smartwatches in 2019-2020, with my coworkers. They would just stop mid convo, check watch, and resume talking.
It's only about 5 seconds but it feels so weird on the other side. Like, sure, I'll wait for you. But it feels really rude when you do it 3 times in 5 minutes.
> I think smart-watches are much like Alexa. What the user wants to do with it is almost totally at odds with what the company is selling. Alexii are mostly kitchen timers, song players, and light switches. No one is a "power user" constantly installing skills and using it for anything which increases the product team's engagement metrics.
Nothing new here, but I have several friends who do this with their phones, and I honestly wish they had a watch instead, so they'd be absorbed for 3 seconds instead of 30 seconds.
mc3301 7 hours ago [-]
People do the same thing with phones, too.
My reaction: I'll stop speaking once they are looking at their phone/watch. And I actually wait to start speaking again until they prompt me with a "what were you just saying," or similar. This awkward feeling of "oops, I stopped the conversation, so now it is I who must get it going again" works well. And if they don't "prompt" to continue the conversation? They weren't listening in the first place, or don't realize they were being kinda rude.
Zigurd 10 hours ago [-]
Horolophasia?
stavros 8 hours ago [-]
It would be "horologoaphasia", you need the go and the a.
speed_spread 9 hours ago [-]
Wristrot
blltprfmnk 9 hours ago [-]
I loved my Apple Watch at first but due to exactly these sort of distractions no longer wear it and have more recently turned off most of the notifications on my phone. I am sick of my attention being stolen away by everything around me.
rootusrootus 8 hours ago [-]
Why not just turn off the notifications on the watch, so you can enjoy it for what it's good at? I won't give up the functionality, but I am extremely selective about what it notifications it can put in front of me.
blltprfmnk 8 hours ago [-]
Because it's ultimately not very useful. Sleep tracking - I've become convinced this is actually a bad idea, and since I stopped I stress less about sleep and ultimately sleep better. Step tracking? Phone does that adequately.
I do wear it for workouts, but once it's closer to end of life will replace it with something dedicated for workouts like a Garmin that holds a charge for 14+ days.
blltprfmnk 8 hours ago [-]
I’ll add that if you care about working out with a watch to track heart rate, the Apple Watch is pretty dismal. I moved to pairing mine with a Polar H10 strap so that I could get much faster feedback on heart rate recovery post sprint. In addition to using an optical sensor, the Apple Watch may also be doing something to smooth out the signal. I just know that the Polar seems much more responsive and matches how I am feeling.
alternatex 1 hours ago [-]
Chest straps work with ECG, so they're hard to beat for heart rate tracking. That said, Apple watches are some of the best wrist wearables for heart rate tracking. Most other brands aren't as accurate and many don't come even close.
Check out the Quantified Scientist on YouTube, he does some interesting testing on health devices.
rootusrootus 6 hours ago [-]
Agreed on the sleep tracking, I don’t bother with that. I use it primarily for time, timers, outdoor temperature, workouts, Apple Pay, Tesla key card, and EKG. I have started leaving my phone at home fairly often. Which then leads somewhat regularly to me needing to use another feature of the watch - find my iphone.
next_xibalba 9 hours ago [-]
I worked with a woman who, in 1-on-1 meetings no less, would stop mid-sentence when she received text messages and reply via her Apple Watch. It was maddening. I finally had to kindly ask her to be present and stop playing with her watch.
etrautmann 10 hours ago [-]
The novelty of Apple Pay on watch wore off? I use this all the time but it’s not noteworthy or interesting, just a great feature that’s seamless and doesn’t require pulling out my phone.
kurthr 9 hours ago [-]
You know the other killer feature of the Apple Watch?
Find my phone!
See someone with an Apple Watch on frantically looking for something, just say "Hey you know your watch knows where it is". Just press the button, DING.
rootusrootus 8 hours ago [-]
Guilty as charged. It helpfully points the direction and distance, so even if I cannot hear the phone ding I know how to get close enough.
paulgerhardt 9 hours ago [-]
> that’s seamless
I wish it were. The double click to pay is pretty annoying compared to “express mode” Apple Watch apps like Suica and UniFi Touch Pass.
kurthr 9 hours ago [-]
It does give you the option to change cards when you double tap, before you pay.
But I think the real reason is that people would walk around with card readers and scan peoples watches to collect cash. I can only guess it doesn't happen in Japan for cultural reasons. You could try and do that with purses/wallets too, but since most people are carrying multiple cards, they interfere and largely prevent RFID skimming.
basisword 9 hours ago [-]
This is one of those things I thought would be great and never use. When I see people do it (very rarely) it gives 'glasshole' vibes (no offence). I can't bring myself to do it and I've been using Apple Pay on my phone since day one. It's a me problem obviously but given how people use phone payments for everything and so many people I see wear Apple Watches I'm surprised how infrequently I see people use it for payments.
wlesieutre 9 hours ago [-]
I found it was even better to turn off all the notifications entirely, then you don’t get distracted by the watch interrupting you either. There are very few things I actually need to know about right now.
jakogut 4 hours ago [-]
This is the core of why I've enjoyed my Garmin watch. It tells time, displays texts, has a quick and easy flashlight, tracks workouts, even acts as a dive computer. I get minimum two weeks of usage between charges. It's not something I have to think about on the daily. Now, on the rare occasion I'm not wearing it, I notice its absence.
snapplebobapple 7 hours ago [-]
Power users are buying the pebble time 2 because they can modify it to do whatever they want with high sp#cificity
dmaa 2 hours ago [-]
^ Great observation.
I have a Garmin Fenix 8, but if it would not have a flashlight, vibration alarm and sleep tracking, I'd happily swap it for a mechanical watch as a daily driver.
(obviously still using the Garmin for workouts)
mrgaro 2 hours ago [-]
How do you like the AMOLED screen? I have a Fenix 6, which has the old screen. While it doesn't have a flashlight, I'm very happy with the ability to toggle the backlight on with a single button, which is more than enough for me to see in the dark where I'm going.
I feel that I'm lucky as my Fenix 6 still works as I would not want to switch to an AMOLED screen, which draws too much power to be kept on 24/7.
MezzoDelCammin 2 hours ago [-]
Kinda curious why You didn't go for the Fenix 7 / 7Pro line? AFAIK the "big" addition on the 8 was phonecalls/microphone on the watch and some increased water resistance for diving. All that for maybe 200-300USD price hike.
phil21 10 hours ago [-]
I think you're mostly right. I use it for a few extra things though. Stuff I can think of:
* Timers
* Alerts
* Step counter/fitness tracker
* My fitness app for weight training - I can start a workout on my phone and enter my set/rep/weight counts without needing to pull my phone out
* Phone calls when I'm on walks and do not want to the "full phone" experience, but also cannot be totally disconnected. This paired with Airpods is a pretty nice balance
* Ditto the above but for podcasts/music streaming - especially if wearing workout clothing and I don't have a comfortable place to carry my phone along.
* Basic replies to my "important people" texts - via Siri dictation mostly
* My "RFID" security badge to get into my home/office/etc. using Apple Pay
* Apple Pay
* Quick glance to check the weather w/ a main screen widget
* Quick glance to check calendar
I liken it to having a mini iPhone 4 strapped to my wrist. Useful here and there, and very nice for when I want to get away from my phone or it's too bulky to bring somewhere. Essentially a basic flip-phone for comms, and a connected streaming media player.
semiquaver 10 hours ago [-]
> Alexii
Assuming “Alexa” is first declension, plural is “Alexae”
cedilla 1 hours ago [-]
Given the letter X it's probably Greek, so it would be Alexai. Which is coincidentally about pronounced the same.
RobinL 3 hours ago [-]
Surprised no one has mentioned Gemini. That's the highest value add feature for me. I have pixel watch 3, which I got cheap second hand. Gemini is a little laggy but still useful. If the experience was similar to the latest open AI voice model when used on a phone, it'd be incredibly useful
ValentineC 5 hours ago [-]
> He was quizzing her at a party about what features she used - which were pretty much step counter and payment. He somewhat dismissively sneered, "Well, you're not exactly a power user, are you?"
If everyone on the Pixel Watch team was like that, that could explain why they haven't found any success breaking out from the crowd. Smart watches should discreetly enhance one's life, not be a list of features to be built and used all the time.
I've been an Apple Watch user since Series 5, and I mostly use the watch as a normal-ish smart watch, with silent alarms, iPhone music control, and two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly as the "power user" features I'd use most often. I barely use any of the apps, and still have trouble navigating the grid.
AnonHP 5 hours ago [-]
> two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly
What is this “two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly” and how does it work?
The more power user things I do would be to change the complications on my Apple Watch to keep it in context such as AQI and or something like an ETF I want to look at or setup a world time. I frequently use the timer function on my watch and read my email and reply to emails on my watch. Less obvious is the synergy with the ecosystem such as iPhone and Mac unlocking and keeping track of the weather and using Apple Music on my watch instead of my iPhone to keep tracking my battery and flight tracking.
I also use it to keep track of ChatGPT and Claude and I think one of them I can approve tasks with.
bogdan 2 hours ago [-]
The ii plural is for Latin words. Alexas is perfectly fine in English. And so is octopuses, where you probably first heard about it. No need to over complicate things.
anticorporate 10 hours ago [-]
Some of this lack of features is self-imposed by Google.
Until they allow Gemini to use MCP servers directly, it's hard to be a power user with a Google Watch. I still dream, thwarted by Google, of being able to actually talk to my watch to have it do useful things. But since "do useful things" for me mostly requires triggering actions outside of the Google ecosystem and their very small approved list of integrated partners, it's pretty useless for anything more advanced than setting a timer.
toasty228 38 minutes ago [-]
> I'm trying to imagine what being a "power user" of a watch is like. Can anyone enlighten me?
When you're deep in a conversation with someone and suddenly their wrist vibrate, they lift their hand up slightly, tilt their head down, seem to stare in the void and keep saying "uhu, uhu hmm, uhu" while pretending to still listening to you.
That's my experience with smart watches power users
zeryx 7 hours ago [-]
My Garmin instinct is kind of the perfect dumb smart watch, it has a very simple calculator style rendering and the simplest speaker possible. Alarms are vibrations and water proof to a reasonable depth, battery lasts 2 weeks. Really have no reason to upgrade
schainks 3 hours ago [-]
I bought a Slow Watch precisely because a real watch power user only needs a one handed watch for the 24 hour day.
</s> but not really, I do own one and it's _amazing_.
saghm 9 hours ago [-]
My hot take is that the "killer feature" of a smartwatch is that it's quicker (and less disruptive in social contexts) for glancing at notifications. I can't look at my phone in a meeting (nor should I!), but I can spend literally a single second glancing at my watch without anyone batting an eye.
enquirewithin 9 hours ago [-]
If you can’t use your phone in a meeting, what utility does seeing a notification serve anyway?
Other than to distract you.
saghm 8 hours ago [-]
Some things are important enough that I don't want to have all notifications turned off (e.g. in the case of emergency), but I'm much more distracted by a lingering notification that I haven't been able to glance at, determine that it's not urgent, and then move on.
As for distractions, I think you're both underestimating how long I'll be distracted by glancing at my watch and overestimating how interesting something has to be for me to find it distracting.
(I'm sure some people reading this will have the urge to chime in with claims that the only reason I ever have trouble focusing is because of all the notifications and devices in my life. They're free to believe what they want, but unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be able to make myself available to them for diagnosis like I did for doctors who saw me for the 18 years of my life when I had no laptop, smartphone, or smartwatch and treated my ADHD)
kibwen 9 hours ago [-]
To be clear, reducing the friction to becoming mentally enslaved to notifications is not a good thing.
saghm 9 hours ago [-]
That seems extremely overdramatic for what amounts to a personal choice that doesn't disrupt anyone else.
kibwen 9 hours ago [-]
Whether or not it disrupts anyone else isn't relevant to the point here. Your mind and focus are sacred, and surrendering to notifications is damaging to your brain. You have the right to damage your brain all you want, and I have the right to think less of anyone who does so thoughtlessly.
saghm 8 hours ago [-]
You're certainly welcome to whatever religious beliefs you want. Ultimately you have no clue how much I think about or don't think about anything, which means the only real thing you're describing here is a dogmatic view of how everyone else should live their life based on what you think is "sacred".
Personally, preaching and condescending to people about one's subjective worldview feels like a far worse thing than what we're talking about here.
enos_feedler 6 hours ago [-]
I had about 3 apple watches before i was smart enough to stop wearing them. i recognize the health needs for some people so no disrespect, but for myself and I am sure many others the S curve peaked on them pretty quick and it's not worth having another device you need to keep charged on you.
xicheng1 4 hours ago [-]
I agree with personal experience. I also noticed that many nurses were Apple watches. I guess they are more convenient for people who need to work with their hands.
rddbs 8 hours ago [-]
I would have agreed on instinct but everyone replying with which features they actually use seems like it pretty much makes up all the major available features. Maybe having all these features is necessary to appeal to every individual’s needs rather than one power user who uses them all?
NeutralWanted 8 hours ago [-]
I stopped wearing my pixel watch as soon as fitbit air came out and I could put my real watch on again
riantogo 10 hours ago [-]
Your observation is spot on. I wear my Apple watch all day everyday. Put it on charge every night without fail. Some years back I used to use it as step counter and for payment. These days I don't count my steps and use the phone for tap payment. I guess the watch is just an ornament or habit or ritual. I'm not sure.
modeless 7 hours ago [-]
This is why Pebble watches are great. They do the basics better than Google and leave out the expensive battery drains.
0x457 11 hours ago [-]
to me main use case of a watchin is setting (cooking) timers. Maybe play 2048 if I'm bored and cant pick up my phone for some reason. Plus notifications about upcoming meetings.
I guess approve claude things. Plus regular fitness watch stuff that happens in the background. Idk what else can you do with it? I don't do payments because its awkward to tap wrist on the terminal, but I do have cards on it just in case.
I'm glad Pixel Watch got better since gen 1 because gen 1 sucked at being smart watch and at being a fitness tracker.
gillesjacobs 10 hours ago [-]
The custom complications on WearOs watch faces do it for me. I can see my investment portfolio value change right from my wrist.
BigTTYGothGF 9 hours ago [-]
> I can see my investment portfolio value change right from my wrist
Great way to drive yourself crazy.
shric 9 hours ago [-]
If you need (or want) to see your investment portfolio that often then I don’t think you and I have the same definition of “investment”
mrcwinn 4 hours ago [-]
Garmin Fenix 8. Love it. It’s for trail running, payments in a pinch. Love the industrial design, far more than Apple Watch Ultra or certainly any Android watch.
I’m a power user given its narrow focus, but no, I don’t expect it to have my airline pass or auto download ABetterRoutePlanner. I’m happy it doesn’t or can’t.
efxhoy 11 hours ago [-]
Yeah I sold my apple watch after about 6 months and got a good old F-91W instead. The most useful thing about it for me was having an animated memoji unicorn on my wrist to amuse people. Wasn’t really worth the trouble of charging it every night. I just want to know what time it is.
knorker 39 minutes ago [-]
I don't feel like power users are catered to either. Like if you have a Google workspace account (if you're not a company, that's a power user) then you can't do "remind me to X". That's reserved for non-power users.
... At least last I checked.
slopinthebag 5 hours ago [-]
Ahh to be an arrogant Google employee. Must be nice to have such confidence from getting hired for a company which made a good product 25 years ago.
trimethylpurine 5 hours ago [-]
Location (room number) of next event/meeting/lecture can be useful.
izacus 8 hours ago [-]
I don't have a Pixel Watch, but I do have a Garmin one which I use for:
- Watch stuff (alarms, etc.)
- Health stats tracking (HRV, sleep, steps, training readiness)
- Offline navigation when hiking in the mountains (its really nice to have a route available right there on your wrist)
- Workout tracking - the watch can receive accurate HR data from my strap during swimming or other activities.
- Scuba diving - the Descent is a diving computer tracking nitrogen loading and making sure I don't get decompression sickness. It also receives tank pressure information from the air tank and calculates consumption and air time left. It can send messages to other divers and show their air status as well.
- I can read notifications so my phone is permanently set to silent.
- On the new models (sadly my Descent doesn't support that yet) you can call for help through Garmin's satellite network if you get hurt away from coverage.
I don't think these features are gimmicks - they make my sports activities safer, help me communicate with folks in dangerous environments and prod me to do more sports.
KPGv2 9 hours ago [-]
> Alerts are nifty - but cumbersome for replies.
IME this is the best use case. My wife uses her Apple Watch for this throughout the evening while she's cooking dinner or feeding our 1yo. For a couple years now, she's been doing this bc her job comes home with her since she's kind of a big deal at her large institution, so text messages all the time.
varispeed 11 hours ago [-]
I can imagine a power user could tell time down to femto second if you asked them.
MiroslavPokorny 6 hours ago [-]
Almost nobody needs these psuedo fitness devices.
Just walk outside, enjoy the sun, fresh air, talking to family and friends, walking the dog.
It doesnt matter how many steps you take, Do what is right for you.
Enjoy your life, life is not spreadsheet or powerpoint.
microtonal 2 hours ago [-]
I like cycling against my previous speed or do a cycling trip guided by a GPX track.
I like to be able to call my wife when I'm on the bike without stopping and taking my phone out (often I cycle without my phone).
Sure, you do not need it like food, but it is pretty handy.
I do turn off pretty much all notifications though. Getting distracted by a watch is annoying.
somehnguy 6 hours ago [-]
Obviously nobody needs these devices. I enjoy having the stats.
gavinray 14 hours ago [-]
Most useful bit of the announcement, coming to all Google wearables it seems:
Blood pressure, sleep breathing, and insulin sensitivity trends
> Built on state-of-the-art Health Foundation Models trained on billions of minutes of sensor data from opted-in users and rigorously validated against gold-standard clinical measurements, these models power three new monthly trend summaries: blood pressure trends, sleep breathing quality trends, and insulin resistance trends. Rolling out soon — with your first detailed summary arriving after one month of wear — these reports illuminate metabolic, respiratory and cardiovascular shifts early, giving you clear insights to help you take control of your long-term health. Plus, monthly summaries will soon be available across our wearable portfolio, including the new Google Fitbit Air.
ChemSpider 11 hours ago [-]
"insulin resistance trends" - whaaaaat? how would they do THAT? That would be huge for so many people, including diabetics, obese people or women with PCOS (PCOS alone affects more than 10% of women of reproductive age)
Is that measurement accurate? Like, a person starts taking Metformin -> and a few days later the watch detects a drop in insulin resistance?
croemer 38 minutes ago [-]
No, it's not a glucose sensor. Extrapolating from the Google research published in Nature a few months ago on how they estimate insulin sensitivity using wearables (and not just BMI, age, etc): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10179-2
Insulin sensitivity correlates with obesity, activity, sleep, etc. so it's not impossible that a wearable can give some degree of prediction. I guess it's mostly good motivation to support habits that increase sensitivity (physical activity, low stress).
obmelvin 10 hours ago [-]
I'm quite curious. Friends I've talked to have been very pessimistic about accurately measuring blood sugar via a watch.
If they are actually able to get an optical measurement which is good enough for MoM or WoW trends, I'd agree it's pretty big even if they can't provide anything precise enough for real time / daily use. Just being able to roughly validate diet changes for women with PCOS could be very impactful and that's the smallest of the 3 populations you called out.
ortusdux 10 hours ago [-]
FDA compliance has been tough for optical measurement of blood sugar and blood pressure. I'd imagine that this is why they are doing a monthly averages and keeping their claims subdued.
That image also implies that not only does it know trends, but it also has an absolute good/bad value.
Someone1234 11 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I was researching this just last week and there is tons of funding going into wearable blood sugar monitors but nothing wearable sized coming out (several lab sized ones though).
I’d love to read more about what this is, and what technical signals / data they’re using.
basisword 9 hours ago [-]
Yeah I find this one interesting. It's been rumoured for pretty much every Apple Watch for a decade, so they're clearly throwing tonnes of resources at it, and every year nothing materialises. This is one sensor feature that could really impact a lot of people.
jeffbee 14 hours ago [-]
That is pretty interesting. I am keen to know in the end whether better models or better sensors win this game.
varispeed 11 hours ago [-]
Combined with poor battery life, this is quite pointless.
I can imagine that would be okay if the watch lasted for a full month, then you could buy two watches and swap them out every now and then.
hbbio 5 hours ago [-]
This. I don't see the point of using a Pixel Watch or an Apple Watch or any watch that has 1 or 2 days of battery max.
My 3 year old Garmin has 2+ weeks battery life and is tracking activity, ox (ok, it's not medical grade), sleep, etc.
Also it does _not_ have a mic (something we're going to pay extra in a few years the way things go) and is not connected to anything wirelessly. No need for another device to set it up and you decide when you get data out using USB.
sagarm 4 hours ago [-]
I just charge my watch while I'm in the shower. It's more than enough.
ValentineC 5 hours ago [-]
> Combined with poor battery life, this is quite pointless.
Seems like it'll work with the Fitbit Air too. That has a 7 day battery life.
croemer 33 minutes ago [-]
[dead]
Markoff 2 minutes ago [-]
Can someone please bring back original Amazfit Bip? I am now on the 3rd one in 8 years (the first body popped out, 2nd I cracked the screen and then ruined it with water).
It was superthin with MIP display requiring no backlight and could last 30-40 days on one charge, even now using 6-8 years old piece it can still last 4 weeks, which should probably answer my question why nobody wants to produce long lasting nice watch, you can sell it only once.
Imagine what we could do with MIP and new baterries in same body + imagine if it had open system...
Yeah yeah I know about Pebble, but it's thicker at 11mm + it cost way way more (225USD vs like 80-99USD) for pretty much same specs Amazfit Bip had 8 years ago. Why something which cost in 2018 at worst 99USD now cost 225USD? It's not like it's much easier and cheaper to produce it now...
ihaveone 10 hours ago [-]
Pebble Time 2 is still miles ahead being a watch, and only a bit behind being a computer. BUT, it has a sunlight readable ALWAYS on display, really good battery life and is open source. I still don't understand people charging their battery every 2 days or less. It's a problem guys. My Wear OS watches, even my fancy 2 screen one that got about 4 days or so, eventually ended up in a drawer. Never to be used again. Not so with my pebble, where I literally made an automation to remind me to charge it, because I charge it so rarely.
danilafe 9 hours ago [-]
For me, the appeal of the smartwatch is more advanced health tracking, custom applications, NFC, and GPS. As far as I know, Pebble lacks most if not all of these features. I really want to want a Pebble, but it's far closer to a customizable watchface than even a Fitbit. On the other hand, daily charging of smart watches is completely outrageous.
subarctic 5 hours ago [-]
I canceled my pebble preorder when I found out it can only record audio for a couple minutes at a time. A big use case for me is to record voice notes without going into the distraction center that is my phone, but often they can be 20+ minutes
gleenn 8 hours ago [-]
They have some heart-rate and some health tracking an as others have mentioned, so many of the more fringe features are way less useful than a watch that lasts anywhere from a week to a month on a charge versus a daybor two with the ultra
danilafe 8 hours ago [-]
Well, right, that's why I said "advanced" health tracking. A pedometer is enough to measure steps.
And then, I dunno. We've clearly made this trade-off before with mobile phones. As much as I like the Nokia I had that went weeks without a charge, I also rarely notice the charging time of my phone.
Lately I've been thinking about a mode in which a "smartwatch" serves as a fitness tracker, heads-up display, and wallet, while a real, mechanical watch, which never runs out of battery, becomes the timepiece (and fashion piece?)
lawn 4 hours ago [-]
Pebble's custom applications is far better than Google or Apple. It's much more hackable.
The other features are indeed worse or missing.
cyberax 7 hours ago [-]
PebbleTime 2 has a pedometer, HR monitor, and sleep tracking. You can set it to do continuous HR measurements during activities. This covers all the basics.
GPS is covered by the phone that you're going to be carrying anyway.
Really the only missing part is NFC payments.
hutattedonmyarm 1 hours ago [-]
> GPS is covered by the phone that you're going to be carrying anyway.
I leave my phone at home when I go for a run. Connect my headphones to ma watch (which as my podcasts and audiobooks on there), remove the house key from my keychain and carry nothing with me besides key, watch and headphone. Feels so much better than having a phone with me
VertanaNinjai 7 hours ago [-]
OP specifically called out GPS in relation to a watch as a desired feature. You can’t just summarily dismiss that with a hand wave of “you have a phone don’t you?”
cyberax 7 hours ago [-]
It can mean different things: support for fully autonomous GPS or for the phone-assisted GPS.
danilafe 7 hours ago [-]
> GPS is covered by the phone that you're going to be carrying anyway
Unless you go for a run, for example.
> Really the only missing part is NFC payments.
And custom applications, not the least of which are navigation tools like Google Maps or Citymapper.
cyberax 7 hours ago [-]
> Unless you go for a run, for example.
You can bring your phone with you! Then you can combine its GPS tracks and the information from Pebble.
> And custom applications, not the least of which are navigation tools like Google Maps or Citymapper.
They won't work without the phone connection because Pebble does not have a cellular modem.
You can, but it's pretty awful. put it in a pocket and it flops around. Wear a band that slides in your phone in and get it soaked (i'm a sweat monster).
I own a pebble, but I'll gladly just run without a phone.
cyberax 3 hours ago [-]
Have you tried one of these upper arm holsters?
Actually, you gave me an idea!
There are button-sized Bluetooth GPS loggers. They can record a GPS track, and you can later download the data from them. Since it's freaking GPS, it automatically has timestamps, so it's easy to correlate with other activity.
As a bonus, I think it should be possible to connect them directly with the phone.
BRB, I think I have a ESP-based Tiny Arudino somewhere...
basisword 9 hours ago [-]
>> I still don't understand people charging their battery every 2 days or less. It's a problem guys. My Wear OS watches, even my fancy 2 screen one that got about 4 days or so, eventually ended up in a drawer.
It's funny because I can't understand this from the other perspective. You get up, take your watch off to shower (i.e. put it on charge) and by the time you've got ready it's done. I actually had issues when I got the Apple Watch Ultra and the battery lasted longer. I got out of the charging routine and ran out of battery at inconvenient times.
tuckwat 15 hours ago [-]
30 hours of battery life is a deal breaker. I don't want to charge my watch every day.
I've been using the Garmin Forerunner for a few years now and the battery life is 2 weeks!
saidinesh5 12 hours ago [-]
I tested out Pixel 3 (or 4 .. i don't remember at this point). The 30 hours is when you have all the functionality enabled all the time. Like the always on display, always on notifications etc ...
I used to auto set the watch into DnD / battery saving mode at night, and used the "raise hand to turn on the display" functionality.. I used to get 3-4 days of continuous use.
Charging used to be like "put the watch into charger after waking up. It'll be ready by the time you get ready for office".
I did miss the 30 day battery life of my Amazfit bip and 2 week battery life of Pebble before that.. but charging once a week wasn't all that bad...
But again, I mostly used my Pixel watch as a fitness tracker. Didn't really care for most of the apps - except maps.
Mogzol 10 hours ago [-]
I have all the features enabled on my Garmin watch (vivoactive 5), including always-on display, and still get at least 4-5 days of battery.
mrheosuper 6 hours ago [-]
AOD is a must for me, other thing can be disable, a watch that i cannot tell time at a glance is no more than a brick to me
moleperson 14 hours ago [-]
Daily charging for normal use isn't so much an issue once it becomes a habit, but battery life during extremely long (24+ hour) activities is pretty much a make-or-break feature for me.
I've done some 50ks and while truthfully I may never do an ultra that requires that much battery life, choosing a device that can't almost feels like admitting defeat. It's kind of stupid but I know I'm not alone in that thought process.
kelvie 14 hours ago [-]
I felt like you as well: I like to track sleep and my heart rate during sports and with the pixel watch it felt like I had to almost plan these events (and more annoyingly while travelling) around the charge state of my watch, until I realized I had two separate requirements: notifications (which I don't care about during sports or sleeping), and fitness tracking.
Unfortunately the solution ended up being paying google more money and getting a Fitbit air (which I can use for sleep tracking for an entire week-long trip without bringing a charger)
And only wear the pixel watch for my awake hours, which a 30 hour battery life is more than enough for, even if I forget to charge it for a night or two.
Another bonus is the Fitbit air is a lot more comfortable to sleep in, but of course I no longer care about the charge of my devices.
theappsecguy 13 hours ago [-]
I love how light and comfortable the fitbit air is, but I find that the data quality blows. Both steps and sleep (pretty much the only two things it can really track) are not super accurate when comparing to other devices. Hopefully they can sort it out with software updates
drewg123 14 hours ago [-]
The problem is that 30 hours slowly becomes far less over time with software bloat and battery degradation. What I hated when I had a watch with a tiny batter like this is that if I wanted both sleep tracking AND the ability to track my morning workout, I absolutely had to remember to charge before bed. If I forgot, I'd wake up with a dead or almost dead watch and have to delay my workout.
I went though a number of android wear smart watches ~10 years ago and had the same problem with all of them. I absolutely loved my Garmin 945M. I had it for years with hardly any battery degradation and it typically gave me 70-80% of the advertised battery life for many years until it was accidentally physically destroyed (caught the watch on a heavy backpack I was taking off, which ripped off the watch pin anchor from the case).
The Fenix 6 I have now is not nearly so good. It advertises 2 weeks of battery and I'm at 53% after only 4 days or so. I blame this partially on their crappy iOS support where you cannot filter apps out, so every #$%#$%^ slack message I get buzzes my watch. I had a Pixel phone when I had the 945, where you can filter out garbage notifications. This is really Garmin's fault, since apparently Coros and Pebble can filter notifications on iOS. I'll switch to one of those when this Garmin dies unless they fix their iOS support.
doobiedowner 14 hours ago [-]
The charger on the 4 both sucks and blows. Countless times I’ve taken it off the charger to find 0%.
The nice strap they showed in the adverts broke instantly when I took it out of the box. Two pins sheared right off the in the middle of the band.
WearOS Apps are trash.
I wish I had gone garmin. ;(
maleldil 7 hours ago [-]
My experience is so different from this. I love the stock strap. I've never found the watch at 0% on the charger. The charge is magnetic, so it's really obvious when it's actually charging. The apps do everything I need them to do, but maybe you're asking more of the watch than I am?
My only complaint is that the charger has its own cable instead of a plug that I can use with whatever charger I want.
gucci-on-fleek 6 hours ago [-]
> > Countless times I’ve taken it off the charger to find 0%.
> The charge is magnetic, so it's really obvious when it's actually charging.
It's possible to dock it in the charger enough for the charging display to start showing, but not enough for it to actually charge. But the watch notices this itself after about 5 seconds, and it switches to "not charging" display and sends a notification to your phone. I've had my Pixel Watch 4 since January and I've only had this happen twice, so it's fairly rare, but certainly possible.
impulser_ 14 hours ago [-]
If it charges fast enough this shouldn't matter. You just charge it while you take a shower and as long as it charges enough for the day it fine.
bravura 14 hours ago [-]
You sound like the sales rep at the Apple store. I was perplexed.
Meanwhile, I had to wonder how many people take showers that are over half an hour every day.
SirMaster 14 hours ago [-]
I leave my apple watch on a charger for at most 15-20 minutes in the morning and that gets it from the 10-20% in the morning to about 80-90% which is enough to go the whole next 24 hours even with a 30 minute lunch walk and 2-3 hours of pickleball fitness tracking as well as having the always on display on.
Never once has this seemed like a problem or that I would want to wear my watch in the shower for some reason. It's shower plus getting dressed and brushing my teeth etc.
wmichelin 13 hours ago [-]
Apple Watch has never lasted the full night for me. I'm super happy with my Garmin Instinct 3. A full blown iOS device on my wrist was too stimulating anyways. I'll take charging once every ~25 days-ish over the color + capacitive touch screen.
The Garmin Instinct 3 is my favorite tech purchase I have made in a very very long time.
SirMaster 13 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I dunno, I have a S10 42mm. I charge it to 80-90% in the morning while in the bathroom, and it lasts me until the next morning with 10-20% left.
I have always on display on, and all the tracking stuff on like Afib, sleep apnea, wrist temperature, noise levels, fall detection, etc. I typically do a 30 minute walk during lunch that I do a fitness activity for, and a 2 hour pickleball session most days of the week where I also fitness track it. I do not use low power mode, and by the next morning it's got the 10-20% left. It only takes about 15 minutes to charge from 10-20% to 80-90%.
impulser_ 13 hours ago [-]
I usually wake up place my watch on the charger grab the clothes I'm wearing go brush my teeth take a shower get dress and get ready for the day then grab the watch off the charger and it fully charged everytime.
I don't get the people that need to wear it 24/7 for days at a time.
InitialLastName 12 hours ago [-]
My watch (Garmin VivoActive 4) lasts ~1 week. The charger is one less thing I have to:
- keep on my nightstand
- take with me if I go away for a few days
It wouldn't be the worst thing to build charging it into my daily routine, but it sure is liberating to not need to.
breppp 11 hours ago [-]
> I don't get the people that need to wear it 24/7 for days at a time.
I think that's kinda expected when the device itself is supposed to give you the illusion it is always there tracking your health (even when sleeping)
impulser_ 11 hours ago [-]
Missing 15min of data isn't going to change anything.
tshaddox 11 hours ago [-]
With these health-tracker watches with weeklong battery life, and people leaving their watch on when they shower??
tshaddox 11 hours ago [-]
I'm perplexed how anyone would have trouble charging their smart watch 30-45 minutes per day, unless they have an unusual schedule like (near-constant travel). This is something I almost never think about or have issues with.
xur17 5 hours ago [-]
For me it's a mix of 2 things:
1. If I do end up traveling, I now have to deal with remembering to charge my watch while sleeping on the airplane or something
2. If I go on a camping trip, extra long hike, etc, I can end up with a dead watch (12 hour hike with navigation, early start, so I don't get my morning charge, etc)
With my Garmin, I just charge it once a week or so, and all is good. I do think it comes down to what you're looking for though - mini phone strapped to your risk vs adventure companion.
boelboel 11 hours ago [-]
Many people with long hair and lengthy (body) skincare routines take showers which take half an hour daily. Probably depends on what you include in the shower time.
drusepth 13 hours ago [-]
This is almost fine until god forbid you forget to charge it. My old phone had to be charged every night (or occasionally every other night). Charging once a week at most is night and day difference. Charging every other week would be wonderful.
Rotdhizon 14 hours ago [-]
I still have the Pixel Watch 2 and it's much the same, battery barely lasts a day, if even that. I didn't know this going in. I had purchased the Pixel 8 I think it was and saw the watch was heavily discounted if I bundled it in so I did. Will never buy another one. I'm a heavily sleeper and need multiple alarms sometimes to wake up and would often use my watch alarm to supplement my phone. So it became a nightly routine of making sure I didn't forget to charge my watch before bed, lest it dies in the middle of the night.
ortusdux 14 hours ago [-]
I was very surprised by work put into making replacing the battery easy on the Pixel Watch 4. They designed in screw actuated clamps for the back face. Hopefully this carries over to the 5th edition.
> I still have the Pixel Watch 2 and it's much the same, battery barely lasts a day […] Will never buy another one
The later models are way better. When I switched from a Pixel Watch 1 to a Pixel Watch 4, my battery life increased by at least double. And this is me comparing both watches when they were new, before any battery degradation. The charging is also twice as fast with the newer models, so it's much quicker to charge if you forget it.
LoganDark 14 hours ago [-]
I don't like having to charge my Apple Watch. I don't want to charge it when I'm asleep because I want sleep tracking. I don't want to charge it when I'm away because then I can't keep an eye on the time without getting my phone. I don't want to charge it when I'm at home because I could forget to put it back on before I go out or to sleep. If only there were a way to supply it power without having to take it off... or it could charge in less than like two hours...
thevillagechief 11 hours ago [-]
I decided I was just gonna get the Fitbit air as an accessory to a smart watch for sleep tracking. 7 days of battery life and a 5 minute charge for a full day battery is enough for that. And it's not nearly as clunky as a smart watch.
thewebguyd 14 hours ago [-]
Yeah, Apple Watch definitely needs faster charging. It wouldn't be as big of a deal if it both lasted longer, at least 3 days to get through a weekend, and could charge to a meaningful level in 15 minutes or less so I could just throw it on the charger in the morning and by the time I'm out of the shower and dressed have it be at ~80%.
SirMaster 14 hours ago [-]
What series are you using? I have the S11 and in 15 minutes it easily charges from 10-20% to 80-90% which gets me through the next 24 hours.
thewebguyd 13 hours ago [-]
Series 9, which I'll probably be upgrading this fall anyway.
SirMaster 13 hours ago [-]
The 10 and 11 definitely charge faster than the 9, but also you need a decent power supply too, like 25W at least to reach the max speed.
LoganDark 13 hours ago [-]
Not the parent but I have the Ultra 2 and it lasts around two to three days on a charge, which is nice, but there's no charging routine that looks attractive to me. I end up sucking it up and trying to place it on the charger when I wake up, under the assumption that I'll pick it back up once it's fully charged (and not only the next time I go out or to sleep)
13 hours ago [-]
hurfdurf 49 minutes ago [-]
I still have the Pixel Watch 2 and it's much the same, battery barely lasts a day, if even that.
Good news: PW2 will reach End of Support come October, perfect time to buy the PW5! /s
My Apple Watch broke, I replaced it with a Casio with an Ollee Watch board. It doesn’t have the fancy features but it’s so nice to not have to ever think about the battery life! I wish the firmware was open source, there is a few features I would like to tweak a bit
woodson 14 hours ago [-]
If all you're looking for is a step counter in your watch, check out Casio ABL100WE. The battery lasts for two years (CR2016).
mminer237 11 hours ago [-]
Yeah, I bought a Pebble Time 2, and I can't imagine buying any other watch now. Having a 3+ week battery life is a game-changer.
Plus its screen is practically always-on, I've never seen any lag, it's half the price, and I have yet to feel like I'm missing any features over Wear watches.
summermusic 11 hours ago [-]
I'm enjoying 20 days of battery life on my Pebble Time 2
spike021 10 hours ago [-]
I had an Apple Watch Series 6 for about five years and the battery degraded to the point it needed just about two charges a day.
Then I found out about the new Fitbit Air in June and picked one up. Advertised battery life is 7 days; I tend to get closer to 6. It does the sleep/activity tracking I want (though not quite as good as the AW if I'm honest).
The extra benefit is I've cut out smartwatch features from my wrist. I got tired of having notifications on a watch and rarely needed special apps or anything either. I really only used the AW for telling time, date, temp/weather conditions, and payments; but most of the time I have my phone or I'm near a computer anyway.
venzaspa 11 hours ago [-]
I've been using a Withings Steel HR for 10 years now, the battery still easily last a month, activity tracking is good and has some basic notification support. I can't imagine having another thing to charge daily.
NelsonMinar 14 hours ago [-]
My WiThings ScanWatch lasts a full month. But it's not a phone-on-my-wrist, it looks more like an analog watch and just has some sensors in it.
perarneng 14 hours ago [-]
I have the pixel watch 4 and I also hate charging stuff. But I put some double sided tape under the charging cradle and I just put it there at night which I think is good because then I always know where it is as well. So im used to it now. Plus you can buy an extra for travel ex. So im happy with it so far.
dzonga 11 hours ago [-]
garmin watches are unbeatable for battery life - my Pixel 5 - would last close to a month. now it's close to 2 weeks since it's pretty old now :(.
but Garmin software sucks. my next watch will be an Apple Watch.
xandrius 11 hours ago [-]
Apple watch, even with most things disabled barely makes it to the next day. Pretty but etrash.
Neil44 14 hours ago [-]
Same my 4 year old Huawei watch still goes 2-3 weeks. It seems to be the devices with simpler OS's that last longer and the wearOS and apple equivalent struggle to do more than a day or two.
mandeepj 12 hours ago [-]
> I don't want to charge my watch every day
Apple Watch SE 2 has a life of barely 8 hours :-)
etchalon 15 hours ago [-]
It's less of a big deal than I thought it'd be.
I switched from a Garmin to an Apple Watch - which has less battery life - for some development work I had to do and it turned out I barely noticed.
Charge phone, charge watch, charge headphones just became a nightly checklist.
nxbdbsjdns 14 hours ago [-]
But unlike headphones and your phone, you want to wear your watch at night to monitor sleep
At least that's a major selling point for these smart watches
Marsymars 10 hours ago [-]
> But unlike headphones and your phone, you want to wear your watch at night to monitor sleep
Some people do. Personally I've had a smartwatch for some years and have never been interested in sleep tracking.
I only put it on when I'm leaving the house, so it generally has plenty of time to charge.
tetromino_ 14 hours ago [-]
I charge mine (older Pixel Watch model) when sitting down and coding. Or when showering if on the weekend and not coding. It charges very quickly.
basisword 11 hours ago [-]
Just charge it while you're doing something lazy at night (reading, watching a show). 30mins and you're set.
snayan 14 hours ago [-]
I guess it's dependent on what you're using the watch for. I like the sleep tracking and various overnight metrics. Find keeping an eye on RHR and HRV is one of the best early signals for overtraining.
Saris 14 hours ago [-]
Especially when Garmin and some other watches last a week or more.
b8 12 hours ago [-]
The Garmin Tactix with solar is good.
quickthrowman 11 hours ago [-]
My watch charges itself while I wear it and it only has three hands. That’s all I need from a watch.
dismalaf 13 hours ago [-]
Keep in mind Google owns Fitbit and Fitbit has watches with 7 day battery life.
Pixel is for techies, Fitbit is their health tracking product.
jerlam 11 hours ago [-]
Fitbit is probably gone by the end of the decade.
The Fitbit app has been replaced by the Google Health app. Other than the Fitbit Air released this year and the Fitbit Ace for kids, the last Fitbit device was released in 2023. Both of those newer devices are reduced functionality versions of older Fitbit products.
dismalaf 8 hours ago [-]
Maybe. If they do kill it I'm sure they'll keep something sport oriented though.
preisschild 13 hours ago [-]
Yeah I've been using Gadgetbridge[1]-compatible Amazfit watches and they last at least a week and have most functions I want from a smartwatch. For more complicated stuff I just use my phone.
Also quite funny considering they are highlighting the sleep features of the watch quite a bit:
"When it's time to recharge, Pixel Watch 5 and Google Health Coach elevate sleep tracking with 15% more accurate sleep stage detection, bedtime automations that automatically pause audiobooks when you drift off, and a dedicated bedtime watch face. When morning comes, Smart Wake ensures you wake up feeling refreshed. By monitoring your heart rate and movement during the 30 minutes leading up to your alarm, Smart Wake identifies optimal moments of lighter sleep to gently wake you before your set alarm time."
Sounds neat, but uh, how are you supposed to use any of that and also use the watch as a watch with a 30 hour battery life?
diflartle 13 hours ago [-]
I just charge mine as part of my nighttime routine, sometimes it's only five minutes, sometimes it's 20. In the morning I just throw it on the charger while I'm showering/brushing my teeth. It's almost never full, but it never dies.
I thought about the Fitbit air, but being able to see your heart rate is kind of nice.
hlynurd 10 hours ago [-]
>Pixel Watch 5 and Google Health Coach elevate sleep tracking with 15% more accurate sleep stage detection
It's more accurate than what? Which is how accurate? This does not feel like a meaningful statement.
maleldil 7 hours ago [-]
I'm not sure it's what Google does, but on YouTube, The Quantified Scientist compares smartwatches against a dedicated EEG headband.
anon7000 7 hours ago [-]
So I kinda hate smart watches, a lot. Mainly because they are about notifications and apps, both of which SUCK to use on my wrist. Notifications are especially horrible (looking at you Apple, not able to disable reaction notifications in iMessage…), distracting, stressful, make it hard to stay present and focused.
What I actually want:
- sleep tracking
- basic health tracking
- maybe basic GPS to track hikes/runs etc
And potentially an easy way to see certain pertinent info. Like if I’m doing water sports, basic tide info, or my next calendar event, or when I need to get off the bus. But I don’t want an app, and I almost never want notifications. And definitely no clunky app to be distracted by.
Plus, I don’t want a big old screen. I don’t want to charge it a lot. I like my digital Casio a lot.
Feels like this doesn’t really exist
izacus 5 minutes ago [-]
Garmin literally made their highly successful wearable business around your requirements.
HaloZero 7 hours ago [-]
This is kind of why I’m still using a Fitbit. Google doesn’t really pay attention to them but they do the basics of fitness and sleep.
abraxas 6 hours ago [-]
I need something basic to keep track of swimming pool laps. Is there a simple fitbit that can do it reliably and holds a charge for at least a couple of weeks?
MBlume 5 hours ago [-]
I'm coming around to the possibility that I may want a Fitbit Air on one wrist and a dumb watch on the other.
donw 7 hours ago [-]
What you want is a Garmin Instinct, or equivalent. Not sure if it does the pertinent-info bit -- mine has Bluetooth off almost all the time -- but it does the rest of what you want, and will run for over a month per charge.
floppydive 14 hours ago [-]
I reluctantly use a pixel with grapheneos, but anything that can only run google or manufacturer provided software without an independent 3rd party is trash, having looked at wearos while trying to refuse Samsungs terms/integration I also consider it a worse grade of trash than a phone since it can intentionally create codependency on other devices for management despite having more processing power than android 2-4 phones had.
bhelkey 10 hours ago [-]
Pixel Watches have an unlocked bootloader [1] and publish factory images [2].
That being said, it appears that the main open source version of WearOS (AsteroidOS) only supports watches that are 5-10 years old [3].
I suspect that if you did try to flash this watch, you would experience a whole host of rough edges.
Edit: past pixels watches have an unlocked bootloader, I assume this one will as well. I don't see this information in the announcement post.
rcMgD2BwE72F 10 hours ago [-]
I'm pretty happy with a Pixel 9 running GrapheneOS and a Garmin that I never connected to a Garmin account. I use https://codeberg.org/Freeyourgadget/Gadgetbridge instead (then synced to my computer with syncthing), and I don't miss anything from Garmin.
I'm 100% Google free, and far happier with tech that I ever was.
floppydive 10 hours ago [-]
Gadgetbridge is great and can even recover a pretty good experience from the touch oriented watches/bands that look deceptively like smartphone equivalents.. But I think the actual smart OS level watches would need a replacement firmware first and the an implementation for talking to gadgetbridge.
sporedro 14 hours ago [-]
It really does feel like such a waste. If I switch to Android I might as well toss my Apple Watch out and vice versa. Along with the fact they basically require the phone to do nearly anything.
tlhunter 11 hours ago [-]
I like how the footnotes are all broken. Like the repairability footnote links to charging. Lots of money was spent making that website.
tw04 11 hours ago [-]
I’m willing to bet AI made that website and nobody bothered to verify.
Electricniko 10 hours ago [-]
The accuracy tracks with my experience as a Gemini user.
kstenerud 4 hours ago [-]
Why aren't any smart watches incorporating e-paper displays? Seems like a perfect tech to use there, especially now that newer display tech allows pretty quick refresh rates.
rootusrootus 4 hours ago [-]
Modest gain in battery life for a tremendous drop in capability.
russdill 3 hours ago [-]
I want all the things. Overlay an OLED display on top of e paper.
aliasxneo 12 hours ago [-]
I've mostly moved on to screen-less wearables for health metrics now. Not only do you get a ridiculously large battery life (measured in days) but I also found that it means more time and attention was put into the things I care about versus trying to support whatever garbage wearable OS they try to integrate with (or worse, roll their own).
shrx 11 hours ago [-]
My Garmin Instinct 3 Solar watch (which has a display) has a battery life measured in _weeks_.
mrheosuper 6 hours ago [-]
> Pixel Watch 5 packs 50% more RAM
a surprise, especially in this current market. But at the same time, why tf they need so much ram.
ihaveone 10 hours ago [-]
Pebble Time 2 is still miles ahead in being a watch and only a little behind in being a full computer. But it gets way way way more battery life WITH an always on , sunlight readable display. AND it's open source.
whatcd 8 hours ago [-]
My favorite Apple Watch feature is Camera Control for group photos. I love how you can see a live preview of the photo and it gives you the ability to zoom.
I also enjoy tracking my workouts, my steps, and heart rate.
Sleep mode is great to monitor my breathing, heart rate.
Quick notifications are great in case I have an important and timely email.
Pinging my misplaced phone is helpful too.
robotburrito 7 hours ago [-]
I just use garmin watches to track health stuff. I would literally jump for joy if there were a free alternative software and hardware stack to replace this watch or at the very least a cycling computer.
phazerfamza 1 hours ago [-]
Not sure, when it happened, or why, but, from always buying the latest iphone, and apple watch, tracking my "everything" from steps, to weight, to calroies, slack, mail etc. etc. on my write and phone, I find myself wearing just normal watches (g-shock square in my case), and just not caring about upgraing my iphone, and instead carrying my kobo with me instead of my iphone, paying with...a physical card, instead of apple pay. Don't get me wrong all of the tech is amazing, and I am a geek, but I am so sick and tired of alwayss being connected, and then paying a subscription for every little thing in my life, it's so freeing to disconnect. Been reaching for pen and a notebook more than notion, biggest hurdle there is, my handwriting have really gotten quite bad.
Ikr, I've been holding out with my 2020 Garmin venu thinking this would be a big refresh
dfee 11 hours ago [-]
i was wondering recently if i could ditch my iPhone for (just) an Apple Watch. i know i can't fully ditch it (an Apple Watch needs an iPhone for management). but, i'm curious about the concept nonetheless: what would it be like to ditch a smartphone for a smartwatch?
hnlmorg 11 hours ago [-]
I have a friend who misplaced his iPhone for a weekend while away in another country and used his Apple watch eSIM for everything.
It wasn’t as convenient as having a phone but it was still far far better than being without anything entirely.
usern20260720 8 hours ago [-]
My eSIM didn’t work abroad innerhalb der EU, where roaming is otherwise seamless and free
semiquaver 10 hours ago [-]
An Apple Watch doesn’t need a SIM-enabled iPhone for management. You can just use an old one if you have any laying around, or your current one after you’ve deactivated service on it. Just get a standalone watch plan, something like $80/year from US Mobile or other MVNOs.
Marsymars 10 hours ago [-]
Depends what you need to do.
I basically only use my phone if I need to do something that can't wait until I'm at a computer. I've got an LTE-enabled Pixel Watch that sometimes I'll wear without my phone.
If anyone messages me and I need to talk to them before I get home, I call them from my watch.
shikshake 11 hours ago [-]
I tried it a few years ago and it was just annoying enough that I went back to my phone after a couple weeks. If you search online I’m sure you can find write ups from people who tried this out.
tolugenius 15 hours ago [-]
Genuinely I'm more curious what amount (or lack of) governance their is in this version of gemini for health vs asking gemini directly.
SirMaster 14 hours ago [-]
Interesting they are still going with round. Most of the UI shots look awkward on a round screen with anything not in the very center getting cut off a bunch.
Zigurd 9 hours ago [-]
In some basement at Google there's a group of traumatized engineers who were flogged mercilessly until they made a smart watch UI work on a round watch face because...??? I've developed Wear OS apps in the amount of effort that it must've taken to get to a sort of alright implementation of a UI that still depends on a lot of lists of things seems crazy to me.
mvanbaak 11 hours ago [-]
I was discussing this with my wife 10 minutes before I saw this comment.
watch / time / clock looks and works so much better on a round interface.
notifications / text / buttons look and work so much better on a square interface.
So, use a watch on one wrist (round, good looking, etc), and a smartwatch on the other wrist (square, functional, 'computer')
There's no way you can mold the two together into one 'have it all' form factor
Zigurd 9 hours ago [-]
There are a lot of mechanical watches that have rectangular watch faces, some of them very attractive and expensive.
partiallypro 11 hours ago [-]
The round just looks better and far fewer people actively use the interface on the watch other than looking at the time or marking a workout. I think the squircle watches like Apple's look odd.
astr0n0m3r 9 hours ago [-]
It's disappointing that this is downvoted when the Apple Watch is an obvious example that rectangular works and is winning.
When it comes to watches, I have to admit that I don't understand 99% of what is sold.
usern20260720 8 hours ago [-]
The Apple Watch design is probably horrible (at least I am ashamed of mine) but they get away with it because the design decisions are reasonable (bigger screen real estate) and the hardware and functionalities are ok. Battery is very limited but charges fast, etc
zuhsetaqi 2 hours ago [-]
That’s called making the right trade offs and I think Apple especially has a very good track record of making the right trade offs in their products.
floppydive 13 hours ago [-]
Google is an ad company. They don't actually want to lose any of the phone screen time on something with lower revenue real estate.
jeffbee 15 hours ago [-]
Only $250 for the LTE version for Google Fi subscribers. But having to charge every day seems like a major regression compared to Garmin. I do appreciate that they are competing on location accuracy, though.
> Only $250 for the LTE version for Google Fi subscribers
Where are you seeing that? I only see $499 with up to $125 off for trade-in.
jeffbee 11 hours ago [-]
On credit its $10/mo for 24 months.
0gs 13 hours ago [-]
i gotta say that new pebble is nice enough and integration cozy enough that this is less tempting than ever
t1234s 10 hours ago [-]
Is there any plans to have a Graphine OS variant on one of these?
boredumb 14 hours ago [-]
i spent an hour the other week looking for my pine watch charger, this may inspire another 20 minutes digging around the house
OttoVonBizark 14 hours ago [-]
Once again another watch with a utterly useless one day battery, the absolute minimum acceptable should be 3 days to cover a weekend away, only really the ultras (apple and samsung) of the full fat smart watches seem to be doing this.
bahmboo 8 hours ago [-]
Still no camera
system2 9 hours ago [-]
$500 Android watch that will be obsolete in 2 years. What a dumb idea.
halyconWays 10 hours ago [-]
WearOS watches are trash for me personally as they all require you to run Google Play Services on your phone, which I won't do. The only smartwatch I've had luck with is the Garmin series (Venu, Fenix), and since I really only wear a smartwatch when exercising, it's perfect for me. I find myself happier when I go with an analog watch, and all the notifications I get are never so important that I need to check them the second they come in.
varispeed 11 hours ago [-]
I never understood these watches. I have Galaxy Ultra Watch and I found it is pointless (bought 2 years ago). Doesn't last a full day. So I cannot e.g. track sleep because it is charging or I cannot track something else because it is charging. Then too much information on tiny screen. I can just whip out my phone for that. I even preferred checking time on the phone.
Now, I got Pebble Time 2 and I think this is it. Just enough bells and whistles and battery lasts for weeks. Love it!
timpera 10 hours ago [-]
My Pixel Watch 4 lasts me two days (with AOD turned on), and I charge it while I'm in the shower, so sleep tracking is convenient that way.
colordrops 12 hours ago [-]
Too bad all your health data gets sent to Google.
Marsymars 10 hours ago [-]
You can disable all the health data stuff.
colordrops 10 hours ago [-]
then what's the point of the watch? Can you see the data without a cloud connection? Can it be uploaded to your phone without going to the cloud?
Marsymars 3 hours ago [-]
I'm not saying you can disable the cloud upload (though apparently you can?), I'm saying you can disable the health tracking entirely.
I've never had any use for the health tracking - I use my watch for notifications, emergency contacts, and displaying the time/sunset/sunrise/weather/UV index. Different people use their watches for different things.
beart 9 hours ago [-]
Yes you can see most of your data without a cloud connection. But some features are limited and require the subscription. A google account is required though to use the app I believe.
Of course, getting more than a snapshot of the data is a bit of a pain. Fitbit has a developer portal and you can create a dev app key to export your data. There is at least one open source project that pulls this data down regularly and feeds it into grafana. I'm not sure if the pixel line of watches provides a similar developer portal.
EDIT: actually, you said cloud connection. I think in this case the data is still being sent to the cloud, hence the API to fetch it. But you don't have to enable sharing with other services or purchase the health subscription. So maybe the answer is still that no, you can't really do much without the cloud connection.
tredre3 8 hours ago [-]
> I think in this case the data is still being sent to the cloud, hence the API to fetch it.
Correct. In every case all the data is sent to the cloud. That is where the data is crunched and transformed in actual metrics. You can do the test and block the internet to the companion app. You'll see that only instantaneous data is updated (heart rate, steps), but nothing else. There is no way to use a fitbit or pixel watch without the cloud. Google eventually gets all your health information, minute by minute.
Gadgetbridge can do some things, but not many (and nothing at all for most of Google/Fitbit's products). Which is fine if all you want is HR and steps and possibly notifications, but then there is no point in paying for a smart watch, just get a fitness tracker that is cheaper and has better battery.
cyberax 14 hours ago [-]
Still no rectangular phone option. WTF is wrong with Google?
Round watches are not cool. They end up inconvenient and uncomfortable.
pigeons 13 hours ago [-]
I love the rotating dial UI round Samsung watches used to have.
mathgeek 11 hours ago [-]
This was my thought as well. That round watch gif that shows rectangular widgets is painful to look at.
diego_moita 14 hours ago [-]
> * Up to 30 hours of battery life on the 41mm (40 hours on the 45mm) with fast charging.
Is this a typo? I get 20 days on the Pebble Time 2.
nomel 13 hours ago [-]
It would be neat to see the power budget breakdown. I suspect power draw is primarily the oled display, with the "more difficult" health sensors being second.
surajrmal 3 hours ago [-]
For devices that are entirely controlled via an MCU and lack wireless connectivity, that is probably true. However that's not true for the pixel watch. The cpus and dram take significant power.
exabrial 11 hours ago [-]
I don't think I want anything google attached to my body. I don't need AI training on my heartbeat or whatever bullshit they'll come up with.
Their brand is so toxic with the forceful rollout of their AI stuff. Staying far far the hell away.
manlymuppet 10 hours ago [-]
Google is a great company with some of the most capable engineering talent in the world.
I will never understand why they take this great resource and continually waste it on copying other companies (mostly Apple) and making such unoriginal products. Surely Google can pioneer on more than just the technical side of things?
tty456 10 hours ago [-]
Where specifically do you think they lack, and what do you suggest they focus on?
I'm trying to imagine what being a "power user" of a watch is like. Can anyone enlighten me?
I think smart-watches are much like Alexa. What the user wants to do with it is almost totally at odds with what the company is selling. Alexii are mostly kitchen timers, song players, and light switches. No one is a "power user" constantly installing skills and using it for anything which increases the product team's engagement metrics.
The same is probably true of watches. Alerts are nifty - but cumbersome for replies. The health stuff is useful - but only for a subset of users. Seeing the time is great - but if the battery lasts less than a week, who wants to keep that screen on?
I would say I'm quite a power user usually. I very carefully explored every feature my apple watch has and tried to incorporate as many of them as I could. Very, very few features stuck because they were genuinely helpful. Almost everything being pushed is a gimmick or a feature bullet point from some product manager.
The actual good stuff:
Time
Workouts
Payments
The occasionally useful stuff:
Notifications
Noise DB levels to see if I need to put on ear protection
Workoutdoors app for on-device maps and path breadcrumbs
The once in a blue moon stuff:
Music controls and on device playlists
On device audiobooks
Weather complication
Voice memos
Alarm
Shortcut to call my husband
The feature I tried to get working but gave up on: Tap to talk to ChatGPT and get a 100 word or less reply
I mainly own my watch for notifications and calendar reminders.
Timers, again every day.
To each their own.
It seems just unwilling to sync anything to the watch, so there’s nothing to listen to when I go for a run without my phone
It’s just baffling, the watch has like 32 GB of storage?
Camera remote
I agree reply is useless, it isn't even possible on this one, however it is good only as a reminder as sometimes I miss relevant calls or msgs.
I have used smart watches since the Timex and Casio had agendas, or games, never cared for an app ecosystem beyond what was already on the phone.
Also never changed the Amazfit skin since the day I bought it, and settled on a classical analogue view.
Often I rather use a plain mechanical watch, or no watch at all, don't get the app ecosystem on a miniature screen.
However, I just realized that analog watches also have "power users", and I am definitely not one of them.
My favorite watch (excuse me, "chronograph") has a stopwatch with lap memory, a tachymeter, support for multiple time zones, and a bunch of other features I have not thought about since the week I purchased it.
I don't really know how to use it all. I just like the watch.
- Check the time (many times daily)
- Count-down timer (many times daily)
- Stop watch (weekly)
- Check date (a few times per month)
- Secondary time zone (rarely, since the people I care about are in the same time zone or 6h behind and easy enough to convert in my head)
I've had a fitbit in the past but had a hard time with having to charge it regularly, which often resulted in forgetting it at home. The added features did not outweigh the risk of being without it every now and then.
EXCUSE me... It's a time-piece!
My only complaint is that app limitation are apollo moon lander level of bad, like 128KB code and 256kb resources. I'm not particularly versed in optimizations patterns in here, but building fun stuff is really hard with these limitations. So what you have to do is roll a "companion app" android app that does all compute on the phone and streams it to the watch but that sucks.
What is your idea of fun stuff? Code and data is cheap enough with these constraints, though fancy graphics are what will eat your budget.
Smart watches become shelfware pretty easily. Especially when you don't have the Apple Watch cachet.
I too don't see how the ability to run apps is of any value so I use "sports" watch instead of a "smart" watch, which gives me better screen and better battery life in exchange of a smaller number of apps I won't ever run. Though the battery life is not an issue and smartwatch users I know charge their watch while in the shower.
I came here to say exactly this. That's not the reason I bought a smart watch in the first place (I didn't even know that was a feature), but it's the only reason I still use a smart watch now over my old Seiko.
I don’t care that the battery doesn’t last, I’ve got a wireless charger at my desk and at home and 30 minutes on that a few times a week keeps it alive for my usage.
I've noticed and interesting social shift in recent years: friends who get distracted mid-sentence by an Apple Watch notification, pause the conversation to check the alert, and then continue the conversation afterwards without realizing they had paused/were momentarily not present. It's fascinating because these people will not realize they were momentarily sidetracked, and remain convinced a watch keeps them more present than their hone.
There's a term waiting to be coined for this concept, but I'm not clever enough to come up with one...
More important to me, in either case, is to tame the notifications no matter where they go. It is your choice what gets to the phone screen or the watch, and if you are pausing a conversation to glance at the watch and then it does not cause you to need to do something else urgently, this is a strong indication that you should have that notification turned off. Let it go to a low priority queue you can look at later when you have time, not something that buzzes or dings at you.
It's only about 5 seconds but it feels so weird on the other side. Like, sure, I'll wait for you. But it feels really rude when you do it 3 times in 5 minutes.
Nothing new here, but I have several friends who do this with their phones, and I honestly wish they had a watch instead, so they'd be absorbed for 3 seconds instead of 30 seconds.
My reaction: I'll stop speaking once they are looking at their phone/watch. And I actually wait to start speaking again until they prompt me with a "what were you just saying," or similar. This awkward feeling of "oops, I stopped the conversation, so now it is I who must get it going again" works well. And if they don't "prompt" to continue the conversation? They weren't listening in the first place, or don't realize they were being kinda rude.
I do wear it for workouts, but once it's closer to end of life will replace it with something dedicated for workouts like a Garmin that holds a charge for 14+ days.
Check out the Quantified Scientist on YouTube, he does some interesting testing on health devices.
See someone with an Apple Watch on frantically looking for something, just say "Hey you know your watch knows where it is". Just press the button, DING.
I wish it were. The double click to pay is pretty annoying compared to “express mode” Apple Watch apps like Suica and UniFi Touch Pass.
But I think the real reason is that people would walk around with card readers and scan peoples watches to collect cash. I can only guess it doesn't happen in Japan for cultural reasons. You could try and do that with purses/wallets too, but since most people are carrying multiple cards, they interfere and largely prevent RFID skimming.
I have a Garmin Fenix 8, but if it would not have a flashlight, vibration alarm and sleep tracking, I'd happily swap it for a mechanical watch as a daily driver.
(obviously still using the Garmin for workouts)
I feel that I'm lucky as my Fenix 6 still works as I would not want to switch to an AMOLED screen, which draws too much power to be kept on 24/7.
* Timers
* Alerts
* Step counter/fitness tracker
* My fitness app for weight training - I can start a workout on my phone and enter my set/rep/weight counts without needing to pull my phone out
* Phone calls when I'm on walks and do not want to the "full phone" experience, but also cannot be totally disconnected. This paired with Airpods is a pretty nice balance
* Ditto the above but for podcasts/music streaming - especially if wearing workout clothing and I don't have a comfortable place to carry my phone along.
* Basic replies to my "important people" texts - via Siri dictation mostly
* My "RFID" security badge to get into my home/office/etc. using Apple Pay
* Apple Pay
* Quick glance to check the weather w/ a main screen widget
* Quick glance to check calendar
I liken it to having a mini iPhone 4 strapped to my wrist. Useful here and there, and very nice for when I want to get away from my phone or it's too bulky to bring somewhere. Essentially a basic flip-phone for comms, and a connected streaming media player.
Assuming “Alexa” is first declension, plural is “Alexae”
If everyone on the Pixel Watch team was like that, that could explain why they haven't found any success breaking out from the crowd. Smart watches should discreetly enhance one's life, not be a list of features to be built and used all the time.
I've been an Apple Watch user since Series 5, and I mostly use the watch as a normal-ish smart watch, with silent alarms, iPhone music control, and two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly as the "power user" features I'd use most often. I barely use any of the apps, and still have trouble navigating the grid.
What is this “two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly” and how does it work?
I also use it to keep track of ChatGPT and Claude and I think one of them I can approve tasks with.
Until they allow Gemini to use MCP servers directly, it's hard to be a power user with a Google Watch. I still dream, thwarted by Google, of being able to actually talk to my watch to have it do useful things. But since "do useful things" for me mostly requires triggering actions outside of the Google ecosystem and their very small approved list of integrated partners, it's pretty useless for anything more advanced than setting a timer.
When you're deep in a conversation with someone and suddenly their wrist vibrate, they lift their hand up slightly, tilt their head down, seem to stare in the void and keep saying "uhu, uhu hmm, uhu" while pretending to still listening to you.
That's my experience with smart watches power users
</s> but not really, I do own one and it's _amazing_.
Other than to distract you.
As for distractions, I think you're both underestimating how long I'll be distracted by glancing at my watch and overestimating how interesting something has to be for me to find it distracting.
(I'm sure some people reading this will have the urge to chime in with claims that the only reason I ever have trouble focusing is because of all the notifications and devices in my life. They're free to believe what they want, but unfortunately I don't think I'm going to be able to make myself available to them for diagnosis like I did for doctors who saw me for the 18 years of my life when I had no laptop, smartphone, or smartwatch and treated my ADHD)
Personally, preaching and condescending to people about one's subjective worldview feels like a far worse thing than what we're talking about here.
I guess approve claude things. Plus regular fitness watch stuff that happens in the background. Idk what else can you do with it? I don't do payments because its awkward to tap wrist on the terminal, but I do have cards on it just in case.
I'm glad Pixel Watch got better since gen 1 because gen 1 sucked at being smart watch and at being a fitness tracker.
Great way to drive yourself crazy.
I’m a power user given its narrow focus, but no, I don’t expect it to have my airline pass or auto download ABetterRoutePlanner. I’m happy it doesn’t or can’t.
... At least last I checked.
- Watch stuff (alarms, etc.)
- Health stats tracking (HRV, sleep, steps, training readiness)
- Offline navigation when hiking in the mountains (its really nice to have a route available right there on your wrist)
- Workout tracking - the watch can receive accurate HR data from my strap during swimming or other activities.
- Scuba diving - the Descent is a diving computer tracking nitrogen loading and making sure I don't get decompression sickness. It also receives tank pressure information from the air tank and calculates consumption and air time left. It can send messages to other divers and show their air status as well.
- I can read notifications so my phone is permanently set to silent.
- On the new models (sadly my Descent doesn't support that yet) you can call for help through Garmin's satellite network if you get hurt away from coverage.
I don't think these features are gimmicks - they make my sports activities safer, help me communicate with folks in dangerous environments and prod me to do more sports.
IME this is the best use case. My wife uses her Apple Watch for this throughout the evening while she's cooking dinner or feeding our 1yo. For a couple years now, she's been doing this bc her job comes home with her since she's kind of a big deal at her large institution, so text messages all the time.
Just walk outside, enjoy the sun, fresh air, talking to family and friends, walking the dog.
It doesnt matter how many steps you take, Do what is right for you.
Enjoy your life, life is not spreadsheet or powerpoint.
I like to be able to call my wife when I'm on the bike without stopping and taking my phone out (often I cycle without my phone).
Sure, you do not need it like food, but it is pretty handy.
I do turn off pretty much all notifications though. Getting distracted by a watch is annoying.
Blood pressure, sleep breathing, and insulin sensitivity trends
Is that measurement accurate? Like, a person starts taking Metformin -> and a few days later the watch detects a drop in insulin resistance?
Insulin sensitivity correlates with obesity, activity, sleep, etc. so it's not impossible that a wearable can give some degree of prediction. I guess it's mostly good motivation to support habits that increase sensitivity (physical activity, low stress).
If they are actually able to get an optical measurement which is good enough for MoM or WoW trends, I'd agree it's pretty big even if they can't provide anything precise enough for real time / daily use. Just being able to roughly validate diet changes for women with PCOS could be very impactful and that's the smallest of the 3 populations you called out.
That image also implies that not only does it know trends, but it also has an absolute good/bad value.
I’d love to read more about what this is, and what technical signals / data they’re using.
I can imagine that would be okay if the watch lasted for a full month, then you could buy two watches and swap them out every now and then.
My 3 year old Garmin has 2+ weeks battery life and is tracking activity, ox (ok, it's not medical grade), sleep, etc.
Also it does _not_ have a mic (something we're going to pay extra in a few years the way things go) and is not connected to anything wirelessly. No need for another device to set it up and you decide when you get data out using USB.
Seems like it'll work with the Fitbit Air too. That has a 7 day battery life.
It was superthin with MIP display requiring no backlight and could last 30-40 days on one charge, even now using 6-8 years old piece it can still last 4 weeks, which should probably answer my question why nobody wants to produce long lasting nice watch, you can sell it only once.
Imagine what we could do with MIP and new baterries in same body + imagine if it had open system...
Yeah yeah I know about Pebble, but it's thicker at 11mm + it cost way way more (225USD vs like 80-99USD) for pretty much same specs Amazfit Bip had 8 years ago. Why something which cost in 2018 at worst 99USD now cost 225USD? It's not like it's much easier and cheaper to produce it now...
And then, I dunno. We've clearly made this trade-off before with mobile phones. As much as I like the Nokia I had that went weeks without a charge, I also rarely notice the charging time of my phone.
Lately I've been thinking about a mode in which a "smartwatch" serves as a fitness tracker, heads-up display, and wallet, while a real, mechanical watch, which never runs out of battery, becomes the timepiece (and fashion piece?)
The other features are indeed worse or missing.
GPS is covered by the phone that you're going to be carrying anyway.
Really the only missing part is NFC payments.
I leave my phone at home when I go for a run. Connect my headphones to ma watch (which as my podcasts and audiobooks on there), remove the house key from my keychain and carry nothing with me besides key, watch and headphone. Feels so much better than having a phone with me
Unless you go for a run, for example.
> Really the only missing part is NFC payments.
And custom applications, not the least of which are navigation tools like Google Maps or Citymapper.
You can bring your phone with you! Then you can combine its GPS tracks and the information from Pebble.
> And custom applications, not the least of which are navigation tools like Google Maps or Citymapper.
They won't work without the phone connection because Pebble does not have a cellular modem.
But there are mapping apps for the Pebble that use the phone's GPS: https://apps.repebble.com/maptastic_52e7521679f937c182000004 or https://apps.repebble.com/maps-nav_99279aadf6df4c0fadfdb39a
You can, but it's pretty awful. put it in a pocket and it flops around. Wear a band that slides in your phone in and get it soaked (i'm a sweat monster).
I own a pebble, but I'll gladly just run without a phone.
Actually, you gave me an idea!
There are button-sized Bluetooth GPS loggers. They can record a GPS track, and you can later download the data from them. Since it's freaking GPS, it automatically has timestamps, so it's easy to correlate with other activity.
As a bonus, I think it should be possible to connect them directly with the phone.
BRB, I think I have a ESP-based Tiny Arudino somewhere...
It's funny because I can't understand this from the other perspective. You get up, take your watch off to shower (i.e. put it on charge) and by the time you've got ready it's done. I actually had issues when I got the Apple Watch Ultra and the battery lasted longer. I got out of the charging routine and ran out of battery at inconvenient times.
I've been using the Garmin Forerunner for a few years now and the battery life is 2 weeks!
I used to auto set the watch into DnD / battery saving mode at night, and used the "raise hand to turn on the display" functionality.. I used to get 3-4 days of continuous use.
Charging used to be like "put the watch into charger after waking up. It'll be ready by the time you get ready for office".
I did miss the 30 day battery life of my Amazfit bip and 2 week battery life of Pebble before that.. but charging once a week wasn't all that bad...
But again, I mostly used my Pixel watch as a fitness tracker. Didn't really care for most of the apps - except maps.
I've done some 50ks and while truthfully I may never do an ultra that requires that much battery life, choosing a device that can't almost feels like admitting defeat. It's kind of stupid but I know I'm not alone in that thought process.
Unfortunately the solution ended up being paying google more money and getting a Fitbit air (which I can use for sleep tracking for an entire week-long trip without bringing a charger)
And only wear the pixel watch for my awake hours, which a 30 hour battery life is more than enough for, even if I forget to charge it for a night or two.
Another bonus is the Fitbit air is a lot more comfortable to sleep in, but of course I no longer care about the charge of my devices.
I went though a number of android wear smart watches ~10 years ago and had the same problem with all of them. I absolutely loved my Garmin 945M. I had it for years with hardly any battery degradation and it typically gave me 70-80% of the advertised battery life for many years until it was accidentally physically destroyed (caught the watch on a heavy backpack I was taking off, which ripped off the watch pin anchor from the case).
The Fenix 6 I have now is not nearly so good. It advertises 2 weeks of battery and I'm at 53% after only 4 days or so. I blame this partially on their crappy iOS support where you cannot filter apps out, so every #$%#$%^ slack message I get buzzes my watch. I had a Pixel phone when I had the 945, where you can filter out garbage notifications. This is really Garmin's fault, since apparently Coros and Pebble can filter notifications on iOS. I'll switch to one of those when this Garmin dies unless they fix their iOS support.
The nice strap they showed in the adverts broke instantly when I took it out of the box. Two pins sheared right off the in the middle of the band.
WearOS Apps are trash.
I wish I had gone garmin. ;(
My only complaint is that the charger has its own cable instead of a plug that I can use with whatever charger I want.
> The charge is magnetic, so it's really obvious when it's actually charging.
It's possible to dock it in the charger enough for the charging display to start showing, but not enough for it to actually charge. But the watch notices this itself after about 5 seconds, and it switches to "not charging" display and sends a notification to your phone. I've had my Pixel Watch 4 since January and I've only had this happen twice, so it's fairly rare, but certainly possible.
Meanwhile, I had to wonder how many people take showers that are over half an hour every day.
Never once has this seemed like a problem or that I would want to wear my watch in the shower for some reason. It's shower plus getting dressed and brushing my teeth etc.
The Garmin Instinct 3 is my favorite tech purchase I have made in a very very long time.
I have always on display on, and all the tracking stuff on like Afib, sleep apnea, wrist temperature, noise levels, fall detection, etc. I typically do a 30 minute walk during lunch that I do a fitness activity for, and a 2 hour pickleball session most days of the week where I also fitness track it. I do not use low power mode, and by the next morning it's got the 10-20% left. It only takes about 15 minutes to charge from 10-20% to 80-90%.
I don't get the people that need to wear it 24/7 for days at a time.
- keep on my nightstand
- take with me if I go away for a few days
It wouldn't be the worst thing to build charging it into my daily routine, but it sure is liberating to not need to.
I think that's kinda expected when the device itself is supposed to give you the illusion it is always there tracking your health (even when sleeping)
1. If I do end up traveling, I now have to deal with remembering to charge my watch while sleeping on the airplane or something
2. If I go on a camping trip, extra long hike, etc, I can end up with a dead watch (12 hour hike with navigation, early start, so I don't get my morning charge, etc)
With my Garmin, I just charge it once a week or so, and all is good. I do think it comes down to what you're looking for though - mini phone strapped to your risk vs adventure companion.
https://youtu.be/3pQWBFBIU2U?si=HEefZLDiIurcBj5K&t=61
https://www.ifixit.com/Guide/Google+Pixel+Watch+4+Battery+Re...
The later models are way better. When I switched from a Pixel Watch 1 to a Pixel Watch 4, my battery life increased by at least double. And this is me comparing both watches when they were new, before any battery degradation. The charging is also twice as fast with the newer models, so it's much quicker to charge if you forget it.
https://support.google.com/product-documentation/answer/1279...
Plus its screen is practically always-on, I've never seen any lag, it's half the price, and I have yet to feel like I'm missing any features over Wear watches.
Then I found out about the new Fitbit Air in June and picked one up. Advertised battery life is 7 days; I tend to get closer to 6. It does the sleep/activity tracking I want (though not quite as good as the AW if I'm honest).
The extra benefit is I've cut out smartwatch features from my wrist. I got tired of having notifications on a watch and rarely needed special apps or anything either. I really only used the AW for telling time, date, temp/weather conditions, and payments; but most of the time I have my phone or I'm near a computer anyway.
but Garmin software sucks. my next watch will be an Apple Watch.
Apple Watch SE 2 has a life of barely 8 hours :-)
I switched from a Garmin to an Apple Watch - which has less battery life - for some development work I had to do and it turned out I barely noticed.
Charge phone, charge watch, charge headphones just became a nightly checklist.
At least that's a major selling point for these smart watches
Some people do. Personally I've had a smartwatch for some years and have never been interested in sleep tracking.
I only put it on when I'm leaving the house, so it generally has plenty of time to charge.
Pixel is for techies, Fitbit is their health tracking product.
The Fitbit app has been replaced by the Google Health app. Other than the Fitbit Air released this year and the Fitbit Ace for kids, the last Fitbit device was released in 2023. Both of those newer devices are reduced functionality versions of older Fitbit products.
[1]: https://gadgetbridge.org/
Also quite funny considering they are highlighting the sleep features of the watch quite a bit:
"When it's time to recharge, Pixel Watch 5 and Google Health Coach elevate sleep tracking with 15% more accurate sleep stage detection, bedtime automations that automatically pause audiobooks when you drift off, and a dedicated bedtime watch face. When morning comes, Smart Wake ensures you wake up feeling refreshed. By monitoring your heart rate and movement during the 30 minutes leading up to your alarm, Smart Wake identifies optimal moments of lighter sleep to gently wake you before your set alarm time."
Sounds neat, but uh, how are you supposed to use any of that and also use the watch as a watch with a 30 hour battery life?
I thought about the Fitbit air, but being able to see your heart rate is kind of nice.
It's more accurate than what? Which is how accurate? This does not feel like a meaningful statement.
What I actually want:
- sleep tracking - basic health tracking - maybe basic GPS to track hikes/runs etc
And potentially an easy way to see certain pertinent info. Like if I’m doing water sports, basic tide info, or my next calendar event, or when I need to get off the bus. But I don’t want an app, and I almost never want notifications. And definitely no clunky app to be distracted by.
Plus, I don’t want a big old screen. I don’t want to charge it a lot. I like my digital Casio a lot.
Feels like this doesn’t really exist
That being said, it appears that the main open source version of WearOS (AsteroidOS) only supports watches that are 5-10 years old [3].
I suspect that if you did try to flash this watch, you would experience a whole host of rough edges.
[1] https://9to5google.com/2022/10/21/pixel-watch-bootloader-unl...
[2] https://developers.google.com/android/images-watch
[3] https://asteroidos.org/watches/
Edit: past pixels watches have an unlocked bootloader, I assume this one will as well. I don't see this information in the announcement post.
I'm 100% Google free, and far happier with tech that I ever was.
a surprise, especially in this current market. But at the same time, why tf they need so much ram.
I also enjoy tracking my workouts, my steps, and heart rate.
Sleep mode is great to monitor my breathing, heart rate.
Quick notifications are great in case I have an important and timely email.
Pinging my misplaced phone is helpful too.
It wasn’t as convenient as having a phone but it was still far far better than being without anything entirely.
I basically only use my phone if I need to do something that can't wait until I'm at a computer. I've got an LTE-enabled Pixel Watch that sometimes I'll wear without my phone.
If anyone messages me and I need to talk to them before I get home, I call them from my watch.
watch / time / clock looks and works so much better on a round interface. notifications / text / buttons look and work so much better on a square interface.
So, use a watch on one wrist (round, good looking, etc), and a smartwatch on the other wrist (square, functional, 'computer')
There's no way you can mold the two together into one 'have it all' form factor
Apparently the GPS is computed in the cloud, which means this only works given LTE coverage or if you also carry your paired smartphone. https://blog.google/products-and-platforms/devices/pixel/pix...
> From the 2026 article: "But you also need really good AI to do it right"
So a feature from 2020 (albeit a cool one) is now brand new and AI powered? Did Google have good AI in 2020 and replace it with Gemini?
Where are you seeing that? I only see $499 with up to $125 off for trade-in.
Now, I got Pebble Time 2 and I think this is it. Just enough bells and whistles and battery lasts for weeks. Love it!
I've never had any use for the health tracking - I use my watch for notifications, emergency contacts, and displaying the time/sunset/sunrise/weather/UV index. Different people use their watches for different things.
Of course, getting more than a snapshot of the data is a bit of a pain. Fitbit has a developer portal and you can create a dev app key to export your data. There is at least one open source project that pulls this data down regularly and feeds it into grafana. I'm not sure if the pixel line of watches provides a similar developer portal.
EDIT: actually, you said cloud connection. I think in this case the data is still being sent to the cloud, hence the API to fetch it. But you don't have to enable sharing with other services or purchase the health subscription. So maybe the answer is still that no, you can't really do much without the cloud connection.
Correct. In every case all the data is sent to the cloud. That is where the data is crunched and transformed in actual metrics. You can do the test and block the internet to the companion app. You'll see that only instantaneous data is updated (heart rate, steps), but nothing else. There is no way to use a fitbit or pixel watch without the cloud. Google eventually gets all your health information, minute by minute.
Gadgetbridge can do some things, but not many (and nothing at all for most of Google/Fitbit's products). Which is fine if all you want is HR and steps and possibly notifications, but then there is no point in paying for a smart watch, just get a fitness tracker that is cheaper and has better battery.
Round watches are not cool. They end up inconvenient and uncomfortable.
Is this a typo? I get 20 days on the Pebble Time 2.
Their brand is so toxic with the forceful rollout of their AI stuff. Staying far far the hell away.
I will never understand why they take this great resource and continually waste it on copying other companies (mostly Apple) and making such unoriginal products. Surely Google can pioneer on more than just the technical side of things?