POLL: Are smartwatches a waste of money?

Are smartwatches a waste of cash?

  • Yes

    Votes: 35 46.7%
  • No

    Votes: 7 9.3%
  • Depends on price/features

    Votes: 33 44.0%

  • Total voters
    75

tech3475

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Really it depends on the user/watch.

I have had both Apple and Wear OS watches and I find them useful because I don’t always have my phone near me (both at home and work), but like to be able to be notified of calls/texts/notifications and/or use the odd extra function e.g. Contactless payments.
 

Seriel

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Notifications on my wrist, being able to reply without having to pull out my phone, being able to track my sleep time without taking any action myself, and being able to track and record my heartrate and total distance/time/fitness when I go out cycling or running or anything else sporty.

The only thing that sucks is that my watch runs out of battery every day or two and its real annoying.
 
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Notifications on my wrist, being able to reply without having to pull out my phone, being able to track my sleep time without taking any action myself, and being able to track and record my heartrate and total distance/time/fitness when I go out cycling or running or anything else sporty.

The only thing that sucks is that my watch runs out of battery every day or two and its real annoying.
Can't you do that all on a phone?
 
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FAST6191

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How to avoid charging?
Barring some black swan type event where someone discovers super low power computing, super rapid charge batteries that last more than 2 charges or high capacity batteries then it is going to need power to do its job really (if they could have made them remote playback they would have. Some might try robbing power from the wearer (heat, movement, chemical being the main options, and movement is about the only viable one and its limitations are considerable*). Some might get the wearer to have clothes with batteries in them and some kind of inductive charger in that (or even just run the wires along your sleeves). It is not impossible some external chemicals are used but nobody is likely to want mini fuel cells on them really (certainly not radioactive generation and even less likely to be burning aluminium as that is also quite expensive and wasteful).

*though if combined with the clothes of later in the bit then that could do more. Would also be able to be sold as a weight loss aid; computer detects you need more power or have not burned enough calories and all of a sudden it is harder to raise your arm and that resistance being overcome is converted to electricity. Could do it now with motors but I would probably look to some kind of piezoelectric or similar carbon fibre you can change the mechanical properties of it with some small amount of electricity.


But anyway enough of going future tech predictions boy. I generally see smart watches as a solution in search of a problem. Have done since they were game watches (I had Mario), calculator watches, TV remote watches (though the prank options for those made them hilarious) and GPS watches (though they were at least nominally hardened to sweat and nastiness where phones might suffer more if you go swimming or get hot and sweaty. I certainly can't rule out someone finding a use case for a smart watch (notifications/basic reading without pulling phone out of pocket/bag, especially if you have multiple phones/tablets, being the main one that also makes sense to me. If you can tie it to something fun on bluetooth (all sorts of fun sensors there -- blood monitors, I saw a bluetooth machinists indicator the other day, cars have fun things for them...) then that too.) but I am expecting them to be niche and then either be a fashion accessory like normal watches are mostly today, some kind of hipster/technophobe thing when retinal/neural implants get to be good enough.
 

Chary

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I like the one I have but I never use it enough to justify wearing it. I’ve always got my phone onhand and my phone gets blown up by alerts too much as it is. I’d have to turn all the alerts on when I use my watch and then turn them off whenever I’m not using the watch.
 

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How to avoid charging?
Barring some black swan type event where someone discovers super low power computing, super rapid charge batteries that last more than 2 charges or high capacity batteries then it is going to need power to do its job really (if they could have made them remote playback they would have. Some might try robbing power from the wearer (heat, movement, chemical being the main options, and movement is about the only viable one and its limitations are considerable*). Some might get the wearer to have clothes with batteries in them and some kind of inductive charger in that (or even just run the wires along your sleeves). It is not impossible some external chemicals are used but nobody is likely to want mini fuel cells on them really (certainly not radioactive generation and even less likely to be burning aluminium as that is also quite expensive and wasteful).

*though if combined with the clothes of later in the bit then that could do more. Would also be able to be sold as a weight loss aid; computer detects you need more power or have not burned enough calories and all of a sudden it is harder to raise your arm and that resistance being overcome is converted to electricity. Could do it now with motors but I would probably look to some kind of piezoelectric or similar carbon fibre you can change the mechanical properties of it with some small amount of electricity.


But anyway enough of going future tech predictions boy. I generally see smart watches as a solution in search of a problem. Have done since they were game watches (I had Mario), calculator watches, TV remote watches (though the prank options for those made them hilarious) and GPS watches (though they were at least nominally hardened to sweat and nastiness where phones might suffer more if you go swimming or get hot and sweaty. I certainly can't rule out someone finding a use case for a smart watch (notifications/basic reading without pulling phone out of pocket/bag, especially if you have multiple phones/tablets, being the main one that also makes sense to me. If you can tie it to something fun on bluetooth (all sorts of fun sensors there -- blood monitors, I saw a bluetooth machinists indicator the other day, cars have fun things for them...) then that too.) but I am expecting them to be niche and then either be a fashion accessory like normal watches are mostly today, some kind of hipster/technophobe thing when retinal/neural implants get to be good enough.
No I meant how was it useful
 

Shubshub

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The Galaxy Watch series are nice, Although personally I dont think we will see massive spec advancements like phones have as chips can only get so small


I believe if the industry can stop having a hard on for silicon and move to something more efficient (Synthetic Diamond comes to mind) then maybe we can see such advances
 

g00s3y

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I got a fossil sport for $69 brand new a couple years ago. That was worth it at the time.

I bought a Samsung Fit 2 for $29 a few months ago, worth it.

I want to get the Pixel watch, but I can't justify paying anything over $100 for something that I will barely ever "use". I'd rather just get a nice Movado for everyday wear at that point.
 

Seriel

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I download apps to allow it
The appeal is not simply the ability to do any of these things, its the fact that my wrist is significantly more practical for these things. It's *always* with me regardless of whether I leave my phone behind or on a table or whatever, and it's so much easier to glance at for notifications. The fitness tracking stuff takes care of itself without any need for making sure my phone is in the right place at the right time, and it's so much more accurate because it's literally a part of my body. I could go on but there's little point.

What watch do you have?
I have a Samsung Galaxy Watch4 which is a somewhat expensive watch, the only reason I have one is because I got it for free from a friend as a gift. So that's nice.
 

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The appeal is not simply the ability to do any of these things, its the fact that my wrist is significantly more practical for these things. It's *always* with me regardless of whether I leave my phone behind or on a table or whatever, and it's so much easier to glance at for notifications. The fitness tracking stuff takes care of itself without any need for making sure my phone is in the right place at the right time, and it's so much more accurate because it's literally a part of my body. I could go on but there's little point.


I have a Samsung Galaxy Watch4 which is a somewhat expensive watch, the only reason I have one is because I got it for free from a friend as a gift. So that's nice.
I might buy a cheap Amazon watch and see how that goes
 
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Seriel

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I might buy a cheap Amazon watch and see how that goes
It might be okay but you should also consider the cheap ones from big brands, like the Galaxy Fit2 mentioned a few posts above.

Just don't blame the entire smartwatch industry if your cheap Amazon watch is rubbish, that's all I would ask.
 

The Real Jdbye

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Smartwatches are a convenience, they don't do much that your smartphone doesn't already (they do have a couple features your phone probably doesn't though like monitoring your vitals) but they can save you a lot of time over the course of a day, if you consider how many times a day you pull your phone out of your pocket. Far from a waste of money. Good watches are not cheap to begin with, smartwatches are actually priced about on par with decent Swiss watches for example. If you've seen teardowns and how crammed smartwatches are with tech, the price is actually quite reasonable. Especially considering how expensive any other piece of modern tech is.
 

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I really loved my Apple Watch Series 6 when I had it. Pulling out my phone to check the time is a hassle, and being able to get notifications felt great. I often forgret to look at my phone for hours at a time. I returned it because I wanted to wait for the Apple Series 7, which I'm probably going to get.
 

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