January 25, 2023
I bought a smartwatch for myself a few months ago, and it isn't really all it's cracked up to be.
On the plus side, it's nice to check notifications without having to dig my phone out of my pocket. Same with checking the time. The exercise monitor that ties into Google Fit also lets me check things like Calories burned as well as being a better step counter for my AR games.
On the downside, it just randomly reverts its settings. I have two things I change from the defaults: Always-on-face is set to off, and tilt-to-wake is set to on. Until they're not. I thought that I was somehow bumping the screen through my sleeve but then it did it one night while I was asleep. Woke up, watch was back to defaults.
Similarly, the exercise tracker sometimes... won't. I'll pull down the screen, pick "outdoor exercise", tap the start button, watch the tracker screen come up in place of the normal watch screen, and go for my walk. Then when I'm done I'll check the screen to find that it just decided somewhere along the line that I could go fuck myself. And it's not that I accidentally stopped it, the watch acts like it never happened.
So, in general I think the watch is nice when it works. I just wish it would work more often.
Then there's the particular model I bought, which is more of a problem I brought on myself. I wanted a larger watch face since I don't see too well, and for what I was going to spend on it I didn't want some 80s plasticky watch strap: I bought one that had a Rolex-style band on it. Problem is, my wrist is apparently a half-size so the watch bounces all over the place and tries to migrate to the other side of my wrist. Or, if I remove a link, it only fits around the absolute smallest part of my wrist and I can't bend my hand all the way back to get up from the couch, push the door open, etc.
And the weight of this giant watch face makes me feel like I've got a bowling ball hanging from my wrist. It's actually uncomfortable to wear for long periods of time, it feels like it's trying to pull my wrist out of joint.
Final verdict: I kinda wish I'd bought a different one. Or just skipped it entirely.
