Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by StrapMeister »

So a friend of mine suffered a heart attack at work and, by all accounts, he was pretty damn lucky, mainly because the First Aiders on site acted quickly, called an ambulance which took him to Hospital where he immediately underwent a stem op.
He now wears a smart watch on his right wrist for health monitor reasons and a normal watch on his left wrist.
He said it was strange at first but has got used to it.

I occasionally wear bracelets on my right wrist so may be finding a smart watch/device similar in size might work for me
...but I certainly wouldn't want one that kept pinging me every few minutes - I could see myself finding out its aerodynamic properties.
I also occasionally wear rings and really like the idea of the Oura ring.

However, for the time being I won't be going down either route.
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by tikkathree »

Primarily I wear my Garmin when I'm out in the countryside for half a day and moving round woods and agricultural fields. The garmin talks to apps on the android phone and sucks out battery even though I've disabled all the email/text repeaters. In this respect the garmin smart watch is a PITA. I can use what3words on my phone to drop location pins which I can share with others. I went smart watch because google tracking as a means of location sharing through google maps is just plain reliably unreliable in my part of weak signal Suffolk.
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by Mikkei4 »

nbg wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 7:44 pm My initial thought is do you really need an Apple smartwatch?

Neil
My initial thought was "Believe me if you've had a back op and want to recover from it well then you really won't need anybody or anything to prompt you to get up and move".

If there are other reasons or incentives to buy an Apple watch, or indeed any other fitness/smart watch, then fine and it's your choice to spend the money. Getting my back fit after an op didn't require any prompting which was just as well as it was over 30years ago and there weren't many smartwatches around in those days. :lol:
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by sproughton »

I'm one of those people that don't really 'get' smart watches so I can't be of too much help here (no need to count steps, zero interest in getting notifications on my watch, etc.). However I imagine the simple answer is to wear both; no point removing the smart watch if what you need it for is regular reminders.

If smart watches get to the stage of actually tracking your vitals accurately and alerting you/health services when there's a major problem, I may start to get convinced. As it is, I'd rather stare at the piece of jewellery on my wrist and occasional notice the time on it.
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by Murphy20 »

Mikkei4 wrote: Mon Aug 08, 2022 9:40 am
nbg wrote: Sun Aug 07, 2022 7:44 pm My initial thought is do you really need an Apple smartwatch?

Neil
My initial thought was "Believe me if you've had a back op and want to recover from it well then you really won't need anybody or anything to prompt you to get up and move".

If there are other reasons or incentives to buy an Apple watch, or indeed any other fitness/smart watch, then fine and it's your choice to spend the money. Getting my back fit after an op didn't require any prompting which was just as well as it was over 30years ago and there weren't many smartwatches around in those days. :lol:
Definitely very valid points, thank you :thumbup:
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by iain »

Just buy one of these straps from Sinn instead

https://www.sinn.de/en/Dual_Strap_System.htm


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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by Thegreyman »

I remember balancing a smartwatch....at the edge of a very deep precipice and then letting go :escape:
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by ttlpjh »

Apologies for the slight thread resurrection here, but im wondering if it’s realistic to wear a smartwatch occasionally or does it just get confusing.

I’d really like to try a smartwatch but don’t want to give up on my other watches, or wear both at once.

The problem I foresee is forgetting which one I’m wearing and trying to make a contactless payment with my CW or something similarly dumb.
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by Stif »

I wore smartwatches for years, but slowly bought them with less and less features until dropping them entirely last year, as I honestly thought that health tracking and notifications were the only ones worthwhile. Now that I work from home, I didn't care too much for notifications anymore (as the real benefit I got from them at work was when away from my desk).

Now I only pop one on to exercise (I've kept my Garmin Instinct, which is rugged enough to pop on to track riding my bike, and cheap enough that if I do come off and destroy it I'll only cry a little bit...).

I found that the biggest challenge with swapping between a smartwatch and a 'proper watch' were that I'd experience phantom notifications (I was convinced my wrist was vibrating) or I'd hear a song pop into my headphones and instinctively look at my watch to see what had started to play :lol:
That was from wearing them constantly and a normal watch rarely though, if you're swapping back and forth more regularly you might well be fine!

I'm tempted to get a discreet Fitbit or similar to wear on my right wrist, as I do miss step tracking a little, it's a shame they don't do any 'not smart' ones anymore, as I'd be happy enough with a screen-less one, and I'll be disabling all notifications (except perhaps the 'you've turned into a potato, get up and walk' nudge...)
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by Fat-Sam »

I got a cheap fitness tracker from Huawei before going down the Apple Watch Series 7 route, for 6-7 months I double waisted but it was just too big and looked weird to me- I felt self conscious and a few people a week would comment on it.

Another problem I had was that my main watch was a Reverso which is small, so it felt weird having a bigger watch on the right wrist.

Now, finally I’ve got a Fitbit inspire 2 which is small enough to not look odd when double wristing but does the sleep tracking and step counting. On the odd occasion I’m wearing something smarter I got a clip that I can attach to the fitbit on to my belt or on the inside of my trousers so it counts steps but not heart rate/exercise.

TLDR- Apple Watch is kinda all or nothing in my view. But there are plenty of older or smaller fitness trackers that do a lot and can be worn on a clip -like the fitbit inspire 2 which has great sleep tracking and other basic features. The Apple Watch also has a keyring/belt loop type thing but it doesn’t do half the stuff you want when on there so it’s a bit of a waste, and it’s the same size as a normal watch.
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by Murphy20 »

Hi, as this popped up on my ‘top topics’ screen I thought a brief update might be welcomed.

My op went very well, surgeon happy and my recovery is progressing to plan. My mobility is improving and I’ve bought myself a standing desk for working at home.

In the end I picked up a Fitbit Sense at a heavily reduced price, end of run model ahead of a new version being released. I’ve worn it each day since my op and it has proved interesting rather than indispensable. Good to get an idea of movement relative to previous days, but - as another poster rightly pointed out - not an incentive to get up and move in and of itself. Helpful to monitor distances walked, but I’ve quickly adjusted my mindset to ‘how do I feel’ as opposed to ‘how far have I walked’.

The sleep monitor must be faulty however, as it seems to suggest I snore a lot more than I suspect I do :lol:

I’m planning to retire the Fitbit once all my post op consultations and physio sessions are complete, and return to a mechanical watch.
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by stefs »

Murphy20 wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 10:28 am Hi, as this popped up on my ‘top topics’ screen I thought a brief update might be welcomed.

My op went very well, surgeon happy and my recovery is progressing to plan. My mobility is improving and I’ve bought myself a standing desk for working at home.

In the end I picked up a Fitbit Sense at a heavily reduced price, end of run model ahead of a new version being released. I’ve worn it each day since my op and it has proved interesting rather than indispensable. Good to get an idea of movement relative to previous days, but - as another poster rightly pointed out - not an incentive to get up and move in and of itself. Helpful to monitor distances walked, but I’ve quickly adjusted my mindset to ‘how do I feel’ as opposed to ‘how far have I walked’.

The sleep monitor must be faulty however, as it seems to suggest I snore a lot more than I suspect I do :lol:

I’m planning to retire the Fitbit once all my post op consultations and physio sessions are complete, and return to a mechanical watch.
I know what you mean about the snoring! My mrs moans about me snoring but I always thought she exaggerated. However the galaxy watch 5 monitors snoring and so far it has been anything between 48 mins and up to over 3 hours per night!!! I can't even argue it as it records the lot on my phone for me to listen to and be embarrased in the morning :oops:
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by Murphy20 »

stefs wrote: Thu Sep 22, 2022 3:09 pm
Murphy20 wrote: Wed Sep 21, 2022 10:28 am Hi, as this popped up on my ‘top topics’ screen I thought a brief update might be welcomed.

My op went very well, surgeon happy and my recovery is progressing to plan. My mobility is improving and I’ve bought myself a standing desk for working at home.

In the end I picked up a Fitbit Sense at a heavily reduced price, end of run model ahead of a new version being released. I’ve worn it each day since my op and it has proved interesting rather than indispensable. Good to get an idea of movement relative to previous days, but - as another poster rightly pointed out - not an incentive to get up and move in and of itself. Helpful to monitor distances walked, but I’ve quickly adjusted my mindset to ‘how do I feel’ as opposed to ‘how far have I walked’.

The sleep monitor must be faulty however, as it seems to suggest I snore a lot more than I suspect I do :lol:

I’m planning to retire the Fitbit once all my post op consultations and physio sessions are complete, and return to a mechanical watch.
I know what you mean about the snoring! My mrs moans about me snoring but I always thought she exaggerated. However the galaxy watch 5 monitors snoring and so far it has been anything between 48 mins and up to over 3 hours per night!!! I can't even argue it as it records the lot on my phone for me to listen to and be embarrased in the morning :oops:
Ouch, the technology is definitely not helping you there! Mine doesn’t do that (thankfully), however it does calculate the average decibel volume each night (sadly).
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by Lavaine »

Stif wrote: Sun Sep 18, 2022 11:43 pm I'm tempted to get a discreet Fitbit or similar to wear on my right wrist, as I do miss step tracking a little, it's a shame they don't do any 'not smart' ones anymore, as I'd be happy enough with a screen-less one, and I'll be disabling all notifications (except perhaps the 'you've turned into a potato, get up and walk' nudge...)
My wife and I both wear a Fitbit. She wears an Inspire, and I have the Charge. The Inspire is a nice compact tracker with a solid feature set. I went with the Charge for the built-in GPS, but will probably replace it with an Inspire, as I prefer the smaller form factor since I double wrist mine (and I find I rarely run or ride without a phone, so the GPS is overkill).

The other option for a small discreet tracker is the Garmin Vivosmart. If you want nothing more than step counting, the Vivofit is even more compact, and the cheapest of the bunch, but it has a VERY light feature set.
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Re: Balancing smartwatch and ‘watch watch’

Post by elrikos »

In my view, they're totally different things. On the one hand a disposable fitness tracker, brimming with designed obsolescence as soon as the warranty is up, the other hand, a piece of engineering art designed to last forany years
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