Besides just notifications, what tips or advice can you give to using the watch to the full potential?
Garmin Fenix 6 sapphire, this has been the best watch I’ve ever har. At this point I’ve had it for like 6 years and the battery still lasts a week at max power and a month on battery saver. It can record GPS for like 2 straight days on one charge
No touch screen which is excellent because the button input is extremely intuitive to the point where I can often use it without looking if I’m running or working on something.
The spO2 and HR monitors are nice to haves for me for working out but I use them more for differential readings more than absolute.
I keep wanting to upgrade to the newer ones especially to have mobile Internet connectivity but I can’t justify it cause this thing has been bulletproof.
Also been using a Garmin Fenix 6 Pro since 2020 and agreed with everything you’ve said. 10 day battery life still holding strong and the screen is essentially bullet proof (non-saphire version here). It’s smart enough to where I’ll get notifications from my phone but not smart enough that I’ll be composing a fully fledged out response through it, that’s what the phone is for. Thought about the newer ones, but I think at this point I just want to run this one until it’s dead.
I’ve got a refurbished Samsung Galaxy Watch 3. I picked it up for $30 a few years ago, and I love it.
Mostly just use it to tell time and track fitness. It can do speech-to-text, so I’ll occasionally use it to respond to a text message while my hands are full.
Watch6 Classic.
Use it as a watch/for maps/step tracker.
Its pretty nifty. Although I had to disconnect work apps as the notifications were stressing me out
Same here (Samsung Galaxy Watch 6 Classic 47mm now). I had the 43mm but the battery time difference is notable, barely above 1 day with the 43mm, comfortably 2 days with the 47mm. I got it refurbished for 100 euros a few months ago, the model came new a year or two ago.
I use it for alarms, notifications, occasionally for payment or calls, sleep and fitness tracking (no GPS), quick glance for the day’s agenda (I’m in meetings all day). And time, obviously.
Oh, and one cool thing: it has a rotating bezel around the screen and it can be used to control PowerPoint presentations. Very nifty trick for when you forget your clicker.
EDIT: for completeness, I just had one smartwatch before (OG Galaxy Watch with rotating bezel), similar uses without payments. Failed after 5 years due to water ingress at a water slide. Also a Galaxy Fit 2 before that (smartband), for time notifications and steps. My wife has now a Galaxy fit 3, it’s like 30 euros and does the basics.
Yeah, we have/had a bunch of samsung devices, but I wouldn’t blindly recommend it to everyone, they just work for us.
I quite like samsung stuff tbh. I know we’re not meant to on here but it all just works.
Multiple Refurbished Apple Watch SE
80% setting timers.
15% exercise tracking.
5% finding phone, checking weather and compass.
I’ve tried to go without it - but the ease of setting common timers pulled me back.
Refurb SE2 here-
50% Telling the time! (no clocks within view at work)
50% kilojoule/exercise tracking.
Garmin fenix pro 6, I track my runs, bike outings and heartrate during weight training. It also lets me listen to music without carrying my phone.
I dont know if a MiBand9 really count as a smartwatch but i use it to trigger home assistant events either manually or automatically
On my old MiBand5 I could have an automatic alarm after falling asleep during the day, so I wouldn’t have too long naps, I miss this feature
I also use it to get the current time.
Ohh, how do you do that? That sounds cool!
Not with the official app “Mi Fitness” but with “Notify for Xiaomi”, there is a feature to connect to HomeAssistant and other services
Cool, thanks! I never really gave it a chance, since Gadgetbridge exists, but it seems to have some cool features
I have a Garmin Vivoactive 6, and I use it for the following:
- sleep quality tracking. It judges me in the morning.
- steps and calories burned so that I can justify eating or drinking something shitty.
- whether or not to pull out my phone and respond to a text message
- how far from the green I am
That’s… about it. Would love other ideas.
How you judge your sleep massively influences how you feel, so I always judge how I slept, then check the watch if it agrees. If I think I slept well and the watch says no, I say technical malfunction. If I felt I slept bad and the watch says I slept well, I feel better about my sleep. Win win
I have the Garmin instinct 1, and will be getting the 3 sometime soon.
I love it, because it gives me all of the features I want in a smart watch without all the bells and whistles that I’ll never use. The battery still lasts for nearly 2 weeks, and this is 6 years after purchase. It’s great if you do any nature activities, and even comes in a version that has a solar panel in the face to extend the battery.
The one thing I did wish it did is broadcast BLE packets so I could use it in my smart home setup to track my movements around the house and turn lights on and off and such
Samsung Galaxy 6 Classic in 47mm. I’ve had Wear OS watches since the early days, but this is the first one that didn’t involve any obvious compromises. Readability, responsiveness, performance, and battery life are all excellent.
For a long time, my favorite thing about it was that I could design and use my own personal taste in watchfaces. Unfortunately, Google broke that, when they switched watchface formats. The new one simply can’t do what the old one made possible.
Making Android and Wear less useful and more annoying seems to be the only thing Google does these days. And Microsoft is doing exactly the same things with Windows. I’ve begun the move to Linux, but I don’t see an equivalent option for smart watches, which is sad.
These days I use my smart watch primarily as a way of not missing notifications on my phone. It is convenient, but the fun has gone out of it.
I have two very nice non-smart watches that I would like to wear, but I do need alarms and timers. The sound on both watches is far too quiet for me to hear, even when there is very little ambient noise. That may be partly my aging hearing, but younger people assure me that they really are too quiet to be reliable.
My next move is likely to be switching to one of my non-smart watches and using my phone for alarms and timers. So basically, giving up and going back to what I was doing fifteen years ago. Thanks for all the forward progress, Google.
Apple Watch 11
I mostly use it for convenience, so I don’t need to pull my phone out
- Apple Pay
- Weather
- Music controls
- timers. Lots of timers
- Reminders/notifications/texts
- random search questions
- occasionally phone calls
In theory I track
- exercise
- sleep
Feature I’m most interested in
- any health sensor
I upgraded from an Apple Watch 3 because I could no longer update in place, only reset and reinstall.
I’ll upgrade again when a compelling health sensor is added. Probably blood pressure
everything that runs well with gadget bridge
I have a Garmin Fenix 5 Plus. I track my activities whether it’s a long walk, a hike, or paddle. It helps when hiking because if I get a bit lost, I can look at the map to see the trails I’ve walked, or how fast I’ve paddled/hiked/etc. It also has an emergency function so if my heart rate suddenly spikes or if I quickly drop in height (like a cliff, though it has been triggered once when I climbed down a water fall), it’ll send an emergency message to my emergency contacts with coordinates.
I have it set to remind me to move every hour if I haven’t moved from my desk. This in addition to step counts.
Sleep tracking, though Garmin is/was notorious for poor sleep tracking, so I don’t really count on it too much.
Date and time. I also have a little clock on the bottom to tell me what time it is back home so I know when to not call.
I like seeing my fitness go up on the dial. Not so much the other way around.
I also use it for my morning wake up alarm. It vibrates on my wrist instead of an audible alarm to wake up the +1. He doesn’t have a smart watch, so I wake up every morning at stupid o’clock.
Badges. I love collecting the badges.
I had a pixel watch 2, and my main activity with it was charging. Then I got a OnePlus watch R2, and that thing is way better. I mainly use it to track my activities, sleep, etc. But another benefit I wouldn’t want to miss is to quickly check what has been ringing up my phone without taking my phone out. Oh, and having a quick look at the temperature/rain forecast before I go out has saved me thousands of times.
Have a Pixel watch. I use it mainly for, to no ones surprise, check the time. Other than that, sleep tracking, setting timers, silent alarm and exercise/calorie tracking.
Garmin Instinct Solar: I use it for regular watch stuff, finding my phone when I misplace it, controlling music, and checking notifications.
It can do more, but that’s mostly what I use it for. Also, the battery life is great compared to other smart watches, including the efficient ones like the OG Pebble. I charge maybe once a month.
