I had a gear S for 2 years before I gave it away recently. The look attracted some positive comments, and the rotating bezel was a favorite of mine.
Anything software was shit (ie poorly done/buggy), and samsung used a lot of dark patterns (you have to install an app to get the watch paired, which is fair, but it keeps nagging you to install a second app).
My friend and I were one of the first batch of people to get it (preorder a few months before release), and had some issues initially that they quickly resolved (by sending us new watches)
Shoddy development and Samsung go hand in hand. No matter the product - their customizations on top of Android are invariably bonked after an OS update, their watch OS is weird and buggy to develop for, their mobile OS(that they seem to have abandoned) was also weird and buggy to develop for and irritatingly hard to deploy to...
all they seem to focus on is a finished LOOKING end product. i rejected a job at samsung dev based only on that knowledge - who wants to work for a company with an almost institutional disregard for software?
I am wearing one right now and it’s amazing - Especially it’s battery life (easily 1 month+). I get loads of compliments about this watch. The feature set is just enough for my needs, even though I considered getting an Apple Watch. The app is also more than decent.
I had one of the original Withings watches (before Nokia bought them out) and it lasted about a year until it stopped reliably keeping time. It got to the point where I was doing hard resets and changing the battery every few weeks and I gave up in the end. I was really disappointed, it looks beautiful and worked so well for a year and then became totally useless. I spent a good £200 on it as well if I recall correctly.
Withings were empathetic but took a long time to respond to my tickets and eventually I just gave up. I've still got it because I can't bring myself to get rid of it. I loved that it looked like an analogue watch, got lots of compliments on it and everyone was surprised when they found out it counted steps (etc) as well.
Are the recent ones better? I'd consider getting the new one that looks like the old Withings Activite if it holds up to the claims on the box.
> I had one of the original Withings watches (before Nokia bought them out) and it lasted about a year until it stopped reliably keeping time. It got to the point where I was doing hard resets and changing the battery every few weeks and I gave up in the end.
Worse is better. Changing batteries? Failure to keep time? Over 200 Euros for a watch that doesn't last a year? Largely unheard of in the realm of automatic watches.
Yup, same. I love that i have to charge it once every 3 weeks, tracks my bike rides while i commute to work, runs and workouts.
People usually don't believe that it's a smart watch and more surprised when i say that it's Nokia. I usually get the reaction "They are still relevant"
I currently use a Fossil Explorist, but I'm pretty frustrated by the battery life, and honestly it's just... slow. I'm curious to hear your thoughts on run tracking - I don't want to carry my phone with me, and it's really nice to have my watch track distance via gps.
So i have got HR, but i always carry my phone with me (music) while running or biking. So i'm not really sure how it will do without a phone. I can try it out in without phone in couple of days if you want to know about that.
I own an Apple Watch and have yet to find any apps I'd use for it - I currently use it entirely for telling the time and for notifications (and for the record am quite happy with it!).
I have the 4. I regularly use it for most of my music listening (when travelling or working out + bluetooth headphones), Transit tracking apps (here in Toronto I use RocketMan for the most part), use the NHL app to follow scores if I'm not watching the game (not often now that the Leafs... did what the Leafs do...), Maps (on occasion), and news apps—Apple News, News360, and AP. Oh, and the Weather Network app which can also feed a live temp. reading to the watch face (handy in the winter, especially).
Personally the biggest boon for me is workout tracking and health data. It's transformed me over the last six months or so (girlfriend said it changed my life—though that is a bit extreme).
There's even a VO2 max estimate if you track a run or walk outdoors for more than 20 minutes.
Actually I just use it for many of the things I use my phone for except for writing long messages, email, or web browsing. Which is kind of nice. I put my phone in my bag and forget about it most of the time when I'm on the move. It's been good that way.
So I'll end there because I'm sounding like a sales pitch. I wouldn't push anyone hard to get one, but for me it's been fantastic.
Edit: For anyone else reading this comment, my biggest complaint would be battery life. I won't get more than 2 days out of it without charging because I use the battery-intensive heart rate and music functions regularly. Resolved of course by charging it nightly beside my phone.
- WorkOutDoors: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/workoutdoors/id1241909999
If you go hiking outdoors, even infrequently, this app is great. It allows you to store trail maps on your watch, and optionally record workout of your hiking (with GPS data, etc).
- Baby Monitor - https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/best-baby-monitor/id43279139...
Drop an iPhone or iPad near your sleeping baby, check in on them from your watch (with notifications and optionally video). Not sure if you have kids, but this app is a bit of a marvel, especially when out and about or traveling.
- Deliveries
- News
- NY Times
- Starbucks
- Stocks
- Mail
- Homekit
- Carrot Weather
- United Airlines
and a weird checkers program are the ones I use most. But I don't have the fancy new Apple watch. I have the original one, which is much more limited than current models.
Yes, since you can tell the time with a regular, non smart, watch, too -- and some will also do notifications and other stuff.
In fact, even with the apps it's sorta gimmicky. Unless you use it for health purposes (e.g. heart monitoring), a smartwatch is not of the "my life change" category. At best the "I could do the same shit with my mobile phone, now I also have another device for them that I can do them in a worse screen/input method".
Women's clothes don't have pockets. Always having an active LTE modem strapped to my wrist makes me feel safer. It is easy to be separated from my phone because I don't have pockets.
Please show me where to shop then. I've looked everywhere. I can't find pockets big enough to hold my normal sized iPhone. I have a weird body shape, normal pants literally DO NOT FIT.
That's a good question. This comes up every-now-and-then with my wife. She's usually says that pockets don't really matter, and then I point out that I have to carry her goods in my pockets.
I suspect it's something really subtle along these lines: Beautiful women can often get by being useless, so women in general acrew certain trappings of uselessness so as to associate themselves with beauty.
It's sort of like men and commuter pickup trucks (trucks are associated with hard-working men, so men buy trucks and drive them around town, even though they have no hard work to do).
I think the more accurate reason is women carry purses because of the lack of pockets, and since most women have purses, you don't need to put pockets in your clothing. It also used to be scandalous for women to wear pants vs a skirt or a dress, which doesn't lend itself to pockets.
And aesthetically, a pocket stuffed with things, especially in more form fitting clothing, doesn't look good.
i don't think it's "uselessness" as much as aesthetics. form over function is always the primary consideration. there is no demand for pants with pockets and the rest follows. as a dude i've started preferring jeans with comically useless small pockets because i always carry the only things i need(smartphone has a wallet stuck onto it) in my hands
