An Android User's Smartwatch Conundrum
I'm a watch guy who I guess became a smartwatch guy?
I've always been a watch guy. Since I was probably 8 years old, I've had some sort of time-telling device on my wrist everyday. There were times when it was more of a fashion statement, but usually it has been for sheer utility. I hate being late for things, and I genuinely like to know exactly how I'm using all the minutes in the day.
Usually, this meant that I had one watch that I would wear until it inevitably died on me. That could be a battery issue, a cracked screen, whatever. When I was first entering life as an "adult", I recall investing a disproportionate amount of my meager salary on watches.
I had a few eye-catching Japanese watches that were more like flashy bracelets than watches. It would sometimes take a few moments to count up the blinking dots to assess the hour of the day. The example you see below was a one of my favorites from Tokyoflash. You knew it was PM when the martini glass was lit up. Appropriate right? In fact, I loved this particular watch so much that I bought a second one after my original was swiped in a TSA security line. It was an expensive replacement.
Not all of my watches were expensive. I recall a spell where I purchased several cheap plastic watches in a variety of colors. My wardrobe was relatively conservative, but my wrist was always drawing attention and mostly compliments. The cheap watches were my go-to choice as we reached the precipice of a new era. The smartwatch era.
Pebble Ushers in the Smartwach Era
Yes, this rambling preamble is just to set the stage for my take on the current state and past history of smartwatches. Keep in mind that this perspective is coming from an Android user who has never had an Apple Watch. Let's dive in.
The original Pebble smart watch was a revelation for me. I loved everything about it. The fact that it was a Kickstarter project (at the time, the most successful on the platform) made it even more appealing. It was truly a grassroots story of a tiny company that generated a ton of buzz and basically designed a new category of product.
I think I had four or five versions of the Pebble. The colors were excellent, the battery life was phenomenal, and it did all of the smart things I wanted it to. Sadly, after a year or two, it was clear that the product wouldn't survive. You could find steeply discounted pebbles all over the internet. I felt compelled to stock up like Elaine Benes hoarding Today Sponges.
Eventually, the network behind the watch was turned off. Yes, there was a push for open-source developers to keep it going, but we all knew it was over. Flashier, more expensive watches from big brands were coming into the market. I never asked for a smartwatch with a huge color screen and a battery that barely made it through a day, but that's what we were getting.
The Moto 360
Like many Pebble fans, I scrambled to figure out what my replacement watch (or watches) would be. When Motorola announced its Moto 360 watch in September of 2014, I was in love again. This looked like a watch from the future while also maintaining a classic style. It was round! The screen hardly had a bezel! Yes, there was a weird black "flat tire" light sensor at the bottom that broke up its perfectly circular screen, but we could look past that...sort of.
I felt that this watch was the first of many iterations that would lead us into the promised land of wearable technology. I just assumed that Motorola (or someone else) would just keep making this product better. The battery life would get better, it could get a little thinner, and most importantly, the screen would improve and they'd ditch the sensor and give us a perfectly round screen with minimal bezels.
Oh how I was wrong!
Motorola made a few minor improvements to the original version of the 360, but then the product was quickly abandoned. Maybe it was the fact that Google acquired and then sold Motorola. Or maybe it was that they were still trying (and failing) to make flagship phones that competed with Apple and Samsung. They just didn't give their line of watches the time, money, and energy that they deserved.
I still have my Moto 360 and bust it out once in a while to see if it still works. The battery life is just dreadful these days. But it's still eye-catching to wear for a few hours on a special occasion.
I lost a lot of faith in smart watches after the demise of Pebble and Motorola's neglect of the 360. Maybe people just didn't want small computers on their wrist. Or we just didn't have the technology to make battery life and screen resolution good enough for people to wear these things all day.
The Apple Watch
Then Apple released their Apple Watch and everyone loved it.
Well, it may not have been total love at first sight. It took Apple a few generations of upgrades before people really seemed to grasp that a smartwatch could be for them. I won't go too deep into the history of the Apple Watch since I've always been on the sidelines as an Android user.
I will say this. When it first came out, I thought the Apple Watch was an overpriced mess. There were plenty of things that the Pebble and Moto 360 could do that the Apple Watch could not. To me it felt like another example of Apple coming to a product category late. They were making a more expensive, less capable product. And yet, they ended up winning.
Where did that leave Android users? Google was trying to push its Wear OS operating system to a new fleet of watches, but the experience wasn't great. It was a hodgepodge of manufacturers running fragmented versions of software with awful UI skins that crushed battery life and added little value.
Fossil
But I'm still a watch guy and now by default I had become a smartwatch guy. So I bought a new Android smartwatch from Fossil. Fossil has been making non-smart watches for years. They must know what they're doing right? Well, their Gen 5 series of watches is still pretty decent. My model goes by the fantastic name "Carlyle". A quick side note here. I really wish that smart phone product names were words again. Imagine if Apple just named the new iPhone the iPhone Carlyle? I'm so sick of the numerical naming convention. Give me a Moto Droid or an HTC Desire! Anyway, that may be a rant for another day.
The Carlisle looks fantastic and the battery life is pretty solid. It's a perfectly suitable smart watch that I usually enjoy wearing. But it's not an essential gadget and it doesn't really do anything that my phone doesn't do. Maybe it saves me a little time when I can glance at my wrist rather than pull a phone out of my pocket.
Garmin & Amazfit
There are two other smart watches that I own. If you're keeping track at home, I think that makes four smart watches for me in the post-Pebble era. I won't go into a ton of detail here, but they are worth mentioning.
Garmin is still the premier name when it comes to GPS watches for serious endurance athletes. After owning several Garmin running watches, I was happy to check out one of their unique "hybrid smart watches". The Vivomove is basically a regular analog watch with hands that ticks. But then it also has a small lcd screen that digitally fills up as you take steps throughout the day. The battery will last months like any other watch, and yet it gives you some minor fitness/smart tracking features. It's clever and looks beautiful on the wrist. And it's a fun conversation starter to talk about how it melds the old and new worlds of watches.
Finally, I have my Amazfit Bip. I've written about it before. I see it as the spiritual successor to the Pebble. Similar shape, e-ink screen that can last for weeks at a time, and minimal aesthetic. This is actually the watch that I've worn the most over the past few years. It does a great job of tracking steps and sleep (I've since moved on to tracking sleep with an Oura ring, but the Amazfit watch is totally capable) and I never have to worry about the battery life. It's very plasticy which some might say is bad, but you can really toss this thing around and not worry about scuffing it up. Mine still looks brand new and I've taken it everywhere. It's been on countless runs, swims, surfing sessions, you name it. And the vibrating wrist alarm is still by far the best way to wake up. The watch is also so small, light and comfortable that I often forget I'm wearing it.
But it's still a watch from a relatively obscure company for American consumers. The companion app is terrible. The software hasn't been upgraded and some 3rd party connectivity no longer works. I kinda get the same feeling I had with the Pebble. It seems to have a cult following but will it hold up for the long haul? Probably not. And Amazfit does make other watches but the software still looks to be lagging.
Conclusion
So that's my smart watch journey. These thoughts were brought to the surface by the release of Google's new Pixel Watch. I haven't bought the watch yet, but there is a good chance that I will. It doesn't look perfect, but it seems like it may actually be carrying on the legacy of the old Moto 360.
Right now, if I could easily connect an Apple Watch to my Pixel phone, I probably would own one. I bought one for my wife and she loves it. It still seems like the best bet for most people who want a smart watch. While expensive, the Apple Watch Ultra would probably work well for me. We can all wait for the day for Apple and Google to start playing nice with compatible products, but we could be waiting forever.
Let's hope that Google makes a real concerted effort to build a worthy competitor to the Apple Watch. But until then, this watch guy will continue to cobble together different watches for different scenarios. None of them are perfect, but combined they get the job done.
Any other Android users out there feel stuck in the wilderness of smart watches?
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Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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