I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a Smartwatch fanboy and frankly have very little interest in wearing smartwatches as I would wear “actual watches”. This may surprise some people who think that I am technically forward thinking. The truth is that sometimes I am old fashioned, especiallyย when it comes to what I’ll wear on my wrist. This is because watches mean more to watch collectors than just telling time. If knowing the time was the only concern, we’d all just use our phones that are atomic-clock-accurate.
Smartwatches come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and functionality
There is a reason that a smartwatch review will not appear too often on the Watch Hunter blog. That is because I see them more as transient technological devices for a connected generation and not traditional wristwatches that I and many other watch nerds grew up with. Smartwatches look and behave differently. For example, some smartwatches like the Apple watch have like a dark screen until the user twists his arm upwards to see the time. Then the screen turns on and it looks like a tiny computer monitor on the wrist. By comparison, a traditional watch has actual, physical hands and dial features, not just pixels. The dials of traditional watches react to different lighting conditions in ways that simply cannot be replicated with a simulated digital dial (yet). It is this interplay of reflection and shadow and light that interests me. Watches are jewelry, even if they are not described that way very often by collectors.
Smartwatches put to the test by Reviews.com
It is also the lore of watchmaking that appeals to the history buff in me. Smartwatches have a history too, but their product cycles are measured in short years before they are deemed obsolete. Like mobile phones, they are designed to be used and replaced with annoying frequency. Why would smartwatch companies make something that lasts a lifetime? That would just be a bad business model for them. Besides, technology is progressing at warp speed so turnover is just the nature of the tech sector. By contrast, traditional wrist watches can have collector- and monetary-value decades after they were made. They are cherished as beautiful time capsule objects from past eras, not just electronic gadgets to be replaced when the newest version comes out.
Apple releases new smartwatch models almost every year
I understand that smartwatches will be here for the foreseeable future, and I am not complaining. Just because I do not want to wear one does not mean that I am a Wrist Nazi*. I encourage people to wear whatever kind of watch they want. It’s yourย wrist so you should make up your own mind. However, if you do decide to wear a smartwatch, you should know what to expect. At this point, it would be helpful for me to defer to the experts at Reviews.com who put together a very detailedย comparison of current smartwatches and their recommendations.
A great source of in-depth smartwatch comparison across many brands on Reviews.com
Reviews.com’sย “The Best Smart Watch” article that does a great job of comparing many of the popular smartwatches in the market as of January 2018. It offers different recommendations based on what a smartwatch wearer might value most whether that is looks, size, apps, connectivity, operating system and so on. After reading it, I realized that I knew very little about the nuances of smartwatches. This article helped to distill the vast amount of internet and advertising static into an easy-to-understand guide that may make it easier to decide if smartwatches are right for you, and which one to pick.
Smartwatches behave more like computers than strictly clocks. Image: Reviews.com
I do not hate smartwatches or the people who wear them. There is a side of me that keeps up with the latest gadgets and tech. From this technological perspective, smartwatches are pretty amazing. They pack more computing power than the Apollo space mission computers usedย into a relatively small package. They can do things that traditional watches cannot like fitness tracking, health monitoring, GPS and communications duties. Not to mention any possible watch complication can be digitally recreated from an endless stream of available apps. Some can also be customized to have the look you want.
On the other side of that argument, the past two Apple video events where they showcased their latest watches and phones left me feeling like an old geezer. I did not care about theirย animojis of smiling poop icons and ridiculous “share your heartbeat” demos. Those are just lame and for the 13-year-olds in the crowd. While this technology claims to move us forward, I believe that they are somehow making all of us less social, more siloed in our beliefs and socially awkward.
A few of the complications for Apple watch can be seen on their website
I encourage you to explore the Reviews.com smartwatch article if you have an interest in comparing features of smartwatches in the marketplace as of January 2018. You might like what you see and buy a smartwatch for special duties like tracking your hikes or working out at the gym. Or you may decide the whole smartwatch craze is not for you and you can be a curmudgeon like me who wears an old-fashioned watch. I’ll leave the lights on at the Watch Hunter Blog for you, but then again, if you had a smartwatch… you could just use your “flashlight app” to find your way back here. Maybe there is something to this smartwatch thing after all, but that will be for some one else. For now, I’m sticking to my old fashioned relics.
My Limited Edition Swiss Army Airboss Power Gauge versus Apple Watch
*A Wrist Nazi is someone who tells you what you should do with your wrist space. They are uncompromising in their views and think that the rest of the world should conform to their opinions. At Watch Hunter, we hate Nazis both historic, neo- and wrist- varieties. We say do what makes you happy and let other people find their own happiness.
