"a few seconds a day" why is that accuracy even needed? Sure, if you work with computers (that can tell time too), or are a mariner without GPS. But otherwise, just live with it.

Not sure he researched his options well enough. The Garmin watches that use a MIP display only require a charge about once a month, probably even less if you turn off the Bluetooth, which gives him the other thing he wants, no distracting messages relayed from the phone. Battery life is potentially even longer for the models with solar charging.

I also find the reasoning in "Why track your sleep at all? If you’ve had a crap night, you’ll wake up tired." weird. That's the equivalent of saying "Why track your blood pressure at all? If you've had a problem with high blood pressure, you'll wake up with a stroke." Not that the sleep tracking on smartwatches seems to be worth much but I just don't agree with the logic.

Fun article, and it hits on the main trick: buy old, used watches. eBay, watchuseek forums, wherever. You can get sweet old, mechanical watches for like $20-200 all day long. And they come in reasonable sizes, modern watches are almost always way too big IMO.

I snagged one of these on watchuseek 10+ years ago, remains my favorite watch: https://www.fratellowatches.com/citizen-homer-second-setting...

Best thing is you don't have to charge them every day!

I also love them and wear an analog watch every day. Something funny I've noticed (anecdote warning) is that a lot of tech-savvy people I know wear an analog watch, and a lot of people who are not really tech savvy love to wear every digital gadget they can get their hands on, including smart watches.

I had the casio and loved it. But I now have a garmin instinct 3 solar and wow! Love it even more for tracking sleep and activity. But no notifications of any kind, nor any maps to try to squint and read. Just some more numbers I occasionally want and great battery life!

I'm enjoying my Sensor Watch Pro so far. That's all the sensors I need in a watch as of now

See perhaps the essay ‘The Last Quiet Thinkg’ by Terry Godier on his Casio (and tech generally):

* https://www.terrygodier.com/the-last-quiet-thing

I like mine because sometimes I want to know what time it is without being reminded I have 72093 unread messages....

My parents bought an automatic Orient watch for each of them in the 70s - those that don't require batteries nor anything. My mother's watch was stolen somewhere in the 2010s and my father broke the crystal and kept stored for like 15 years or so. Just some weeks ago I remembered about it and sent it to service - now it looks and works like new and the service itself wasn't expensive. I'm pretty amazed.

I've received many compliments for my Rolexes, and only ever a question about my Pebble. Nobody has ever expressed any interest in my Apple Watch.

Citizen makes great dumb watches. They're built well, reasonably priced, and completely solar powered. Promaster is maybe the best dumb watch you can get for that price point, you just need to put a sapphire glass in it. I wish they'd do a "Promaster Pro" model though, with a higher frequency quartz crystal and magnetic resistance. That would be asymptotic with perfection.

Great, but I like my Apple Watch for its one killer features: not tell time, but tap to pay. I gave up wearing my Tissot watch for this.

This genuinely saves me time and adds fluidity to my day. Tap for subway. Tap to for vending machine. Tap for restaurant bill. Tap for shop purchase.

I genuinely don't look at my phone not much, so it's always deep in my winter coat pocket. Fishing it out takes 2-3 seconds each time.

I love that everybody can enjoy watches differently :-).

There are people thay get a rolex. And good on them and they certainly send a message O:-)

There are people who like obscure Soviet watches, or hyper expensive ridiculously over complicated modern marvels, or just a few solid units from citizen and Seiko, etc etc.

I have a nice citizen blue angels navihawk with a tremendously useful ;) circular slide rule - but have much more enjoyed finding cool weird little Chinese semi-brand-name watches. Most of them will have a Seiko movement anyway, but without the brand / prestige surcharge. They're really the only jewelry / vanity thing I do - I have ten copies of same t-shirt because it's comfortable and fits me well, but I also have a watches for every occasion to match when I want to "dress up", and dozen of them cost me as much as that single citizen.

I was a smartwatch skeptic for a long time but finally traded my Timex out for a Garmin a little over a year ago. I paid way too much money for it but was able to get one that matched the Timex as close as reasonably possible: about the same size and weight, and the MIP display that's always on. It's one of the smaller ("S") models so the battery is fairly crap (physically smaller means way smaller battery), but unless I'm extremely active it does just fine by charging when I'm in the shower. Not charging I get about a week of normal activity (including GPS on for actual activities), maybe a bit less? It does much better if I'm not tracking anything but what's the point of that?

It's made a huge difference in my life, for the positive, and that's really surprised me. I kind of expected to hate it. It only notifies me when my phone vibrates, and I've got my phone set to be particular about notifications, so that doesn't happen often. But it does mean I miss notifications and messages way less often. I used to never notice vibration alerts if I was out walking and my phone was in my pocket. Now I can respond to people moderately quickly!

The sleep tracking is kind of worthless, but it's nice to have stats. It's mostly useful to notice longer-term trends or if something went horribly wrong (as it did last night for me), you just have it there and have something to look at, already collected.

It tells the time accurately: no more mentally compensating in my head for the drift of the watch (admittedly, my last Timex, despite being great in all other respects, was the driftiest quartz watch I've ever owned).

But the fitness tracking... the fitness tracking has genuinely been effective in actually getting me to go out and do things. I really love seeing maps of where I've been when I take a city walk, or getting run stats as I slowly level up as a runner. I don't take it particularly seriously and I think that's just about right.

I really expected to hate this thing, but instead I love it. Maybe that's because I treat it as a dumbwatch plus fitness tracker and notification bell for my phone? The idea of having games, much less a web browser, on it really does sound ghastly.

There's a non-obvious fact that people with good sight might not realise. You need decent eyesight (or spectacles) to actually use smartwatch functions beyond just telling the time. As I've got older, I need reading glasses for small print, which I don't always have on when I'm away from my computer or not reading. That's killed smartwatches for me.

I don’t understand how you can say a smart watch isn’t, on top of all the smart features, also the best watch there is when it comes to keeping time. It keeps perfect time, always, even over DST changes, even when you change time zones. You never even have to set them!

Also your Apple Watch is defective if you have to charge it all night. I’m up to my third, I always wear it while I sleep, I only charge it when I’m getting ready for bed or getting ready in the morning, and the battery never runs out.

I know it's an anachronism, but I just can't like square watches- that round shape is just "right" to me, even though it's a terrible form factor for displaying most things like maps and apps.

To the author I’d recommend a Casio Oceanus. The same tech as a G-Shock (solar, atomic, Bluetooth) with the polish of a Grand Seiko at 20% of the price. Better to get one in Japan as the US retailers charge a lot more.

Found that I prefer mine over watches that cost 5x as much.

Here is my recommendation for a watch that is somewhere between a dumb watch and a smart watch.

https://www.casio.com/us/watches/gshock/product.GW-9400-1/

Casio Rangeman GW-9400 Series

It is solar powered and has a lot of passive sensors including a thermometer, barometer, altimeter, and compass. It sets the time from a radio signal. It is everything-proof. This is my "zombie apocalypse" watch.

This guy disposable incomes

I've had mixed luck with that auto 31 jewel Vostok movement - one still going strong (although it did have to be sent back to RU for attention), and another that completely gave up the ghost

Prior to certain geopolitical events they could be had for under three figures, which is a steal if you got a good one

The danger with the older ones is that the rubber seals might be toast - if it's an Amphibia this kind of defeats the object of a dive watch