Ask Lemmy

Regular watch. Don't need to be hounded by any more notifications and don't care about fitness data. However, it may be useful for people who need to keep track of texts, and fitness data.

I like both, but I mostly wear a smartwatch. I don't always hear notifications on my phone. Having my watch vibrate at the same time has been a huge improvement. It is also nice to be able to view and dismiss notifications without pulling out my phone.

I started experimenting with smartwatches soon after they first appeared. There were a lot of limitations, but having better access to notifications made them worth the tradeoff for me. Over time, the hardware and software have both gotten steadily better. I have owned and used four previous smartwatches. My latest, a Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic, is the first I've had with the battery life, display quality, and speed to make me feel like I'm no longer compromising. It works well as a basic watch, in addition to all the other features.

My other reason for sticking with smartwatches was not something I expected. I was able to build my idea of the perfect watch face for myself, using the Watchmaker app. Getting it to do everything I wanted required some serious programming, among other things, but I can't tell you how satisfying it is to have exactly what I want on my wrist.

I do still wear regular watches, sometimes for particular occasions and sometimes just for fun. I have a Citizen Promaster Skyhawk A-T Titanium that serves as a dress watch and a Casio Pro Trek 3500T for when I'm camping or just need a watch I can't accidentally break. Both watches are solar powered and both set themselves to the Bureau of Standards radio signals.

I would hate to have to choose one type over the other, but my smartwatch get most a lot more wear time than my others.

Neither; I don't like the feeling of something on my wrist. I used to have a pocket watch, but finding a modern one is rather difficult, so I just use my phone.

Regular watches for me. Specifically, relatively cheap automatics. There's a certain kind of beauty to a mechanical watch, they're impressive feats of engineering.

I've worn Fitbits in the past, but just long enough to know I'm not interested. I don't need yet another thing to charge, I'll just grab my phone for things beyond checking the time.

I use a basic analog watch because I want to be able to tell the time with something that is always on my person.

If I understand correctly, smart watches require charging, data connection to a phone, are physically large, and they use displays which are sensitive to impacts.

dumb watch. I really just need a quick glance at the time and date mostly when I can't (or don't want to) whip my phone out.

No batteries, kinetic powered, waterproof, cheap.

Some smartwatches have features I might be interested in (offline GPS tracking) but not at the price I'm willing to pay. Still waiting for prices to drop more.

And aside from Garmins and other high end dedicated expedition/marathon watches, everything else's battery life just seems like crap. Like if I ever leave home for a single night I'll have to pack a charger? That's terrible.

I use a Garmin. It measures heart rate and holds music so I don't have to take my phone put on a run or walk.

Tried various smartwatches and the problems always came down to one thing: battery.

Some of the watches batteries last a few days or a week but the screen remains dark and to see time you have to touch the screen our flip your wrist which gets on my nerves.

Now wearing a regular watch and each time I look at the time I'm in awe of the miracle of seeing the time displayed clearly.

When they come up with a watch that can keep the screen lit for at least a week without recharge I'll reconsider...

Dumb watch. I have a digital Casio watch (A158W) and it's great. The battery lasts years and is easy to replace. It's cheap and looks decent enough.

Maybe in years down the line when Smart Watches become cheap, easier to fix and give more health features, I might be more tempted. But right now, I love my Casio and highly recommend it.

Hybrid watch. Still has the hands for manual time reading but in the middle is an eInk display for notifications. I have to charge it about every 3.5 weeks which is amazing. (Fossil gen 6 Hybrid)

I don't care to have anything on my wrist. But I want to start tracking steps, especially over winter, to prompt myself into enough daily activity. So I'm going to try a ~$50 fitness tracker on my wrist and see how that goes. If I can get past the annoyance at having something on my wrist, I may shop around for a full smartwatch, or more likely wait for the next gen or two. I am deeply unimpressed with the size and battery life of the flagship smartwatches right now.

I've worn both, but I'm just looking for watches that can do 24H time. Smart watches are nice for setting alarms and cooking timers. Regular watchss don't need to be charged and are much more durable and usually less expensive. I'll probably continue to switch back and fourth.

Smartwatches don't really get updated for more than a few years anyways, which is a bummer.

I wear a Garmin fitness/ multi sport watch. It has some smart features (shows notifications) but is not touch screen. I run/work out and use the watch to track that.

I over a week on battery wearing it t 24/7 and running around 20 miles a week.

I always have my phone on silent mode and have messages turned off for most apps, so I'll have to check them manually. This is less stressfull to me. I just get to relax without being bothered.

So I think I prefer a regular watch since I don't see the benefits of a smart watch in my situation.

I've been enjoying my ability to send and receive texts from my Galaxy Watch 5. Running Google Maps through it while driving is also a plus!

I had a smartwatch for a bit and I realized the only things I cared about were the biometrics and clock. I got rid of it and got a nice watch and an oura ring that I only need to charge once a week and I much prefer this setup.

Smart watch. Great for notifications and telling me if I need to pull my phone out and reply or not, whether mid conversation, driving, cooking, etc. Also fitness tracker so I don't need my phone on a run.

I would never wear a dumb watch. I need my watch to do more than tell time.

I would wear mine if i didnt need to recharge it every damn day

I stopped wearing a regular watch when I started carrying a phone around.

I started wearing a smart watch when I found one that I could take and make calls from, so that I didn't have to carry my phone around.

Regular watch, mostly because I hate having one more device to constantly charge up. I liked my Pebble Steel back in the day because I only had to charge it like once a week, plus I think it looked really good. I now have a Huawei GT2 Elegant that I used for a while, now only use it as a fitness tracker when I work out. Daily driver is a Gucci Tornabuoni because it's cute and comfortable but it's almost useless for telling the time, it's just a fashion piece.

Regular analogue silver/black self-winder 99% of the time.

Also, an offline smart-watch with gadgetbridge to record bike riding and badminton(heart rate, steps, GPS, duration, date, etc)

The simple smartwatch I have is older but does the job OK. Amazfit Bip. No need to pair it with a website to enable, just record sport and lift data off to gadgetbridge app.

I tried a cheap smartwatch to test out the concept to see if a smartwatch would add anything of value to my life before I spent hundreds on a good one.

I liked that I didn't have to reach in my pocket to take my phone out to check the time, see what a text was, and take calls on speakerphone. The best use case was while I was working and that was very handy. The problem was that my job destroyed that cheap smartwatch in a couple weeks. I don't have anywhere near the same utility outside of work. So no smartwatch for me despite wanting one, because technology.

I wanted a smart watch for notifications etc but didn't like any of them; too shiny and short battery life

Ended up buying a Fossil Hybrid watch; the screen is kinda like a Kindle, and it has physical hands too so is always visible. Battery lasts three weeks plus

Really good except for having to sync it with the app every couple of days

I wear a basic watch so that I can keep track of the time without opening up my phone all the time. I discovered that when I wore a smart watch I was constantly peaking at my notifications and paying less than quality attention to my family. When I gave up the smart watch I was less distracted but still found myself wasting time when all I intended to do was check the time

I wear a hybrid watch made by kronaby. I just need to keep my phone unlocked and it lets you change/pause music so I'm more than satisfied. It even tracks your steps and whatnot but I don't ever use that.

I forgot to mention the battery lasts months so there's also that going for it

I use a cheap, lower end Fitbit. I like the cheap one because it's low profile, the screen is nice and small.

I do use it for time constantly but the other features are nice too. I can read, but not reply, to texts. I'm notified of an incoming call. I do use the step counter and hourly activity reminders to make sure I move enough at my sedentary job. The stopwatch feature is great for in-between sets at the gym. I like knowing my heart rate too when I'm working out.

I've always worn a watch. I got myself a smartwatch when my kids kept insisting on texting me, while I was cycling home - usually while I wasa half way up a hill. Much better than rummaging to get my phone only to find it was some bit of nonsense.

Subsequently bought an Apple Watch 4 which I still have today and wear daily. I find it very sndy for reminders, as a fitness tracker and like the Apple Maps haptic direction prompts

I got a galaxy watch thinking I'd do all these cool things with it. Ultimately I only used it to set alarms to let me know my tea is ready..

I only really use the mechanical watch now.

I never really liked watches to begin with. I sweat a lot and it would always smell funky under my band. The last watch I had I got a machine washable nylon band to prevent this and had to wash it every other day.

Regular watch.

I find myself bombarded by notifications all day anyways, I don't also want my wrist buzzing along with my pocket. Since I work from home, I have my phone out on my desk most of the time anyways, smartwatch doesn't really add any value for me as I don't care about the fitness data.

I'm also a watch enthusiast, so smartwatches don't scratch that same itch as a traditional watch.

I wear Mi Bands with Gadgetbridge but when this thing dies I might switch back to a Casio F91W.

I use mine more as an mp3 player and I do find the vibration alarm feature very useful as sometimes a normal alarm clock doesn't wake me. Apart from that don't really see to much benifit over a normal watch.

It is nice to have things like maps etc on your wrist bit I can't say I've ever actually used really used them.

I have a pixel watch, but I usually just wear my regular watch. I forget to charge the smart watch, and that annoys me. I always sleep wearing my watch so it's hard to remember to take it off at night and charge it.

What timing! I am so pissed at my smartwatch right now.

I got a smart watch because I was having some sleep problems, and I found that some Apple watches can monitor your oxygen levels while sleeping. I suspected it was related to other things like stress, but I wanted to be a bit more comfortable and say that it's probably not sleep apnea.

So, the point is that I must wear it when I'm sleeping. Also, like any reasonable person, I have my phone set up not to disturb me at night. But at least on Apple watches, this means that my alarm goes off only on my watch. I can't figure out any way for it to not go off on my watch, and only go off on my phone, unless I simply take off the watch.

It's the MOST ANNOYING THING. First, because it means that you can't have your alarm go off across the room. You can always turn it off on your watch, which means that you can even turn it off without waking up. And then, you have no alarm at all. So, if I absolutely have to wake up for some meeting or airplane or something, I can't wear my watch to bed.

Also, maybe this is just me, but I hate when my watch vibrates on my wrist. I hate the feeling. Every time it vibrates, I have the urge to smash the thing. If I had to choose a set up, I'd have my phone always vibrate, and my watch never vibrate. But I can't figure out how to make that work on Apple.

This morning was an absolute nightmare, though. Now, I'm used to turning off my alarm on my watch, but when I went to turn it off this morning, the watch was deep in some shitty menu. I couldn't figure out how to turn it off. And it was just vibrating on my wrist non-stop. Obviously, this was made much more difficult because I was just waking up.

I eventually figured it out, but the point is that the UI is obviously less refined than, for example, the phone UI, where this sort of alarm hiding has never happened in all of my years owning a smart phone.

Anyways, to answer your question, I prefer to wear a smart watch, because a regular watch doesn't do anything for me. But goddamn do I hate my smart watch right now!