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This piece of shit is 400 dollars
(hexbear.net)
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this post was submitted on 01 Oct 2025
151 points (100.0% liked)
Chapotraphouse
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Reading pulse and o2 level more reliably than a smartwatch I think and as far as I know that's it. No other reason to not just get a smartwatch instead.
I'm going to show my age too and say smartwatches are worthless garbage.
Hey now it lets me know when I got a text message while my phone is on silent, counts my steps, and monitors how long I sleep. It also cost me like 40 bucks.
I put my phone on silent for a reason...
Bonus points if your employer harvests all that biometric data to sell it to your health insurance company, and they use it to deny coverage because you didn't take enough steps during Q2
I honestly hated the feature that put my notifications on the watch when I briefly had a smartwatch. The wrist buzzing is far worse than having a sound or vibration on my phone. On my cheap watch, the sleep tracking was also laughably inaccurate.
There has only ever been one good smartwatch, the pebble, and it failed as a product
It was actually doing pretty well as a product, and they were literally weeks away from releasing the extemely promising new version, but they got hostile-takeovered by Fitbit who was somewhere between threatened by their success and strip-mining the company for patents or staff.
Fitbit immediately shut down the new release.
Then Fitbit got bought by Google, who obviously has their own interests to maintain in that market.
Garmin watches are pretty great. The only piece of running gear other than shoes that has actually made me faster.
I really like my garmin watch and it doesn’t have a subscription. I use it to monitor my blood pressure because of my POTs. It’s good at warning me if I’m about to pass out.
https://store.repebble.com/
I'll wait to judge that until people actually have them in hand
I'll let you know if they live up to the original once I've got mine in hand 🫡
I had a full set of dice for DND on mine! And I could shuffle through songs. That was about all I used it for
I was thinking that a smart watch with integration for Obsidian or some other note taking app would be nice, you could tell it to take notes while driving for example.
Just tape an ipad to the steering wheel
Most cars already have one at this point
Smartphones while we're at it
Smart phones do more harm than good, but they do have some utility.
retvrn to 3210
They have a lot of potential when they're not mini phones on your wrist like an apple watch. My garmin instinct 3 solar's probably the best $400 I've ever spent
⠀- battery life is great. around 2-8 weeks without solar charging. with a couple hours of daylight per day, it can be practically infinite if you don't use the GPS/flashlight too often
⠀- flashlight is surprisingly bright (and a low red one when I don't wanna wake my roommate)
⠀- the sleep tracking, resp rate, heart monitor, and stress estimate from HRV are very useful as someone with insomnia and mental health issues
⠀- I can quickly start a breathing exercise when I feel like I'm having debilitating anxiety
⠀- has a GPS: when I'm hiking I just download the trail map onto my watch (it buzzed when I went off course!), or start a breadcrumb line to find my back, or use the altimeter/save reference points, etc.
⠀- ref points will point towards the location with a simple compass and the distance remaining. I have my dorm and a bunch of spots around my campus saved on there; helped me several times when I was drunk with a dead phone
⠀- I have ADHD time blindness, so I have things like a shortcut to start a 8 min timer when I shower (it's waterproof)
⠀- my watchface has the time of my next calendar event/class and the temp/weather. useful info from a quick glance at my wrist when getting ready
⠀- I have some notes saved it on with some passwords and info I might need
not as life changing but still cool:
⠀- I can make my phone ring when I can't find it
⠀- detailed fitness and hike tracking, intensity workout minutes, etc
⠀- I can use the compass "sight n go" to point towards something I see up ahead, estimate the distance, and create a GPS ref point in that direction. Used it mountain hiking the other day to make a beacon towards the top of a hill
⠀- it has garmin pay, which works anywhere tap/NFC is accepted
⠀- it's super customizable, so I spent a few hours doing pixel art and making a subtly minecraft themed watchface. the XP bar shows my steps, hearts shows my "body battery" (estimate from things like sleep, movement, and heart rate), combat bar shows the "move bar", inventory shows a torch for bluetooth and more, etc.
⠀- setting alarms that make my wrist vibrate instead of an obnoxious alert. more peaceful way to wakeup
⠀- I made a sundial ring thingy with an arrow rotating it over 24 hours, pointing to the current daylight-time (sunrise, solar noon, blue hour, astronomical dusk, etc)
⠀- I almost always have text notifications off, but I started using it at work when I'm not allowed to use my phone
⠀- I set a button combo to control the music from my phone when i'm driving or can't get to my phone
Sounds like information that would be really useful while boarding a plane
If accuracy is that important to someone, why not just use a chest strap?
because this is a lot more convenient than a chest strap
So when you want expensive and ridiculous for the sake of accuracy, but not quite all the way?
It's also more conspicuous, which I suspect is the real appeal.