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Why does this keep happening? I loved Pebble, they get butchered. I replace it with Fossil, now they quit. All I want is a simple watch with simple features th
by INTPenis 3y ago
Why does this keep happening? I loved Pebble, they get butchered. I replace it with Fossil, now they quit.
All I want is a simple watch with simple features that doesn't require charging every day. Their hybrid line with some sort of e-ink (like) display really is perfect to me.
- kazinator 3y agoMechanical with automatic movement (wound spontaneously by motion of your wrist).
- fsckboy 3y ago>All I want is a simple watch with simple features that doesn't require charging every day casio?
- martyvis 3y agoThe Garmin Instinct range is great. It natively is a smart watch but I guess you can turn it off, and just use the GPS to sync time. I have the original version and it lasts 2 weeks on a charge. The always-on memory-in-pixel is most readable in bright light (and had a back light that can be turned on by button or wrist twist if you like)
- INTPenis 3y ago14 days battery time is pretty good, but nothing compares to the 1month+ my Fossil Machine keeps going. When you only need notifications, and some music control, it works really well.
- morsch 3y agoThey also work well when you want to tell the time, which is more than can be said for some smart watches.
- davkan 3y agoThe solar version can last indefinitely if you’re outdoors for a decent amount of time.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- lloeki 3y agoMy Garmin Fenix 7 Solar happily crosses the 20-25d mark, depending on usage. I have most features enabled though, using it as "just a watch" (which is what the tunable battery saver mode is, which I used a fee times in a bind) it turns 2d remaining into 1w+, so I would not be surprised if it would turn the 20-25d into 50-75d ballpark, possibly more. Instinct Solar and Crossover Solar seem to give the above a run with much longer times, a friend is getting a Crossover this month because of that. Unfortunately if the claim is true he's not going to be able to report success for a looong time...
- 3y ago
- gnicholas 3y agoI’m right there with you. After my Pebble, I tried tons of watches and settled on a garmin forerunner. It is pretty good and I do enjoy the larger screen. But there are still days when I wish I could get the battery replaced in my Pebble and switch back to it. I have been hoping that fossil (whose watch I didn’t pick originally because I found the interface sluggish, text hard to read, and light difficult to trigger) would release an updated model that would be my next watch. Pretty bummed to see this news.
- cglong 3y agoI've never used them myself, but I always thought the Withings watches looked nice and filled this niche well.
- blacksmith_tb 3y agoI wore a Withings for a year, it wasn't a terrible watch, but the tiny round display is really too small to be practical for scrolling notifications. Fossil/Citizen/Skagen all make variations of my current watch[1] which have much larger e-ink displays, are pretty easy to make your own faces for (just PNGs with some circles/transparent holes you can set to show data). Battery life is ~2wk though I don't use the heart monitor much. 1: https://www.skagen.com/en-us/smartwatches/learn-more/gen-6-hybrid-smartwatches/ https://www.skagen.com/en-us/smartwatches/learn-more/gen-6-h...
- rwbt 3y agoIs that really that surprising? The thing about having software everywhere is that it tends to create ecosystems. The one or two companies that control those ecosystems tend to dictate everything which snuffs out a lot of these products.
- happymellon 3y agoIndeed, after my final Pebble died I moved to Fitbit because their Versa line gave me a similar experience, although I miss the eink, then Google picked them up and proceeded to trash it. They should have leaned in to it and made the Versa the equivalent Pixel Watch "a" series. Instead we have nothing good left.
- Moldoteck 3y agoTry Garmin forerunner, for example forerunner 245 music. Not the same as pts but close enough: a lot of buttons, transflective display, some sort of trimmed quick access, big battery life
- graphe 3y agoThe Amazfit BIP does all that and can be hacked. The bip2 is much faster and can't be hacked. Both can have GPS and I ran mine for many weeks at a time with notifications, sleep tracking, pedometer, weather, etc.
- gnicholas 3y agoThe Amazfit GTR4 is also quite nice, with a crisp display, multiple physical buttons, and weeks of battery life. However I found it became unpaired from my phone every week or so, and I didn't feel awesome about entrusting my GPS-based location to a company that I don't know/trust. I also wanted better music controls via the physical buttons, which it didn't really do well. How did you hack the BIP, and what did you do with it then?
- graphe 3y agoIt was a Russian forum, but I can't find it. https://github.com/MNVolkov/libbip https://github.com/MNVolkov/libbip https://likeapp.soft112.com https://likeapp.soft112.com it's called BipOS. The device is safe since on iOS I restrict the Zepp app from any internet, but you need to refresh your GPS with the app. On Android it's much safer with something like gadgetbridge.
- gnicholas 3y agoHow do you restrict an app from internet on iOS? I know how to turn off cellular access but didn’t think it was possible to cut off all access (other than going into airplane mode before opening it, and turning off background refresh).
- graphe 3y agoIt is in cellular, you can disable wifi in the apps when you scroll. Lots of cool features get buried or are unknown in iOS.
- 3y ago
- pjmlp 3y agoAs someone that was into Casio smartwatches back into the day, after they lose their novelty, all what most people want is knowing time. I got a basic Amazfit model now, besides time, I only care about SMS notifications and having it vibrate on calls. A single charge lasts around a month.
- kaliqt 3y agoGarmin, every time.
- TMWNN 3y agoAs others have said, Amazfit Bip is the answer. You want to find the first one (Bip, or Bip Lite); it has the longest battery life. The watch has notifications, weather, and 40,000 third-party faces. I get consistent ~20 days of battery life with heart rate check every minute (automatically speeds up to every couple of seconds during exercise). I bought Bip in 2018. I bought a $20 used Bip Lite as replacement in 2020 after Bip failed because of a known issue with the case's glue (fixed in later models), since I always run with my phone so don't need Bip's own GPS.
- delecti 3y agoOh, the case glue is a known issue? The face on mine popped off a few years ago and I thought that was an utterly bizarre failure. Fortunately the display stayed attached to the guts, so I just superglued it back on and it kept working.
- TMWNN 3y ago> Oh, the case glue is a known issue? <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_--wQvPxyA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_--wQvPxyA>
- Saris 3y agoGarmin. They've got models with various kinds of displays, from transflective outdoor usable ones to the usual OLED. Battery life on the non-OLED models can be very good too, especially on the solar ones, a month or more in most cases.
- linsomniac 3y agoNote it can vary depending greatly on settings, which is kind of nice. I have a Forerunner 745 (sweet spot of features and price on Prime day), and I can get, IIRC, a solid week plus with the default settings. I ended up dialing way up the settings to get better tracking of sleep, which took the battery life to around 2.5 days.
- alephxyz 3y agoYep. I'm willing to pay extra for something dead simple that does what it needs to do and nothing more. No ads or distractions, connecting to sensors over ANT+ "just works", devices are supported for years, and if I think of a useful feature or metric to display I can create a monkey C module in about an hour. Makes me wish all IOT devices were like that. My only gripe with them is their segmentation of devices with nearly identical hardware into different segments (e.g. edge explore vs edge 130) and walling off features.
- Saris 3y agoGarmin is a little bit closed off, that's the main downside. And as far as I can tell their app needs internet to sync data from the watch even though it's connected via bluetooth, I assume it's uploading to their servers for processing before viewing in app. Other than that it works great, I have no complaints about my Venu 2.
- atombender 3y agoI bought my wife a Withings ScanWatch, and it's really sleek. [1] It's among the few hybrids that look like a proper, stylish watch; I compared it with hybrids from Garmin and some other leading brands, and Withings was without doubt the one with the best construction quality and aesthetics. (I didn't consider Fossil, not sure why.) Garmin's models are mostly plastic, but even the higher-end models have a kind of cheap look to them. [1] https://www.withings.com/us/en/scanwatch-2 https://www.withings.com/us/en/scanwatch-2
- mgh2 3y agoSurprised Masimo did not sue them yet for oximeter
- pavlov 3y agoWithings is French, which would complicate Masimo’s legal strategy. They’ve probably got their hands full going after the big fish in America where their patents were originally granted.
- izzydata 3y agoThey sued Apple because it infringed on their patent by implementing their specific method for pulse oximeter. Garmin however, developed their own and didn't take it from Masimo.
- geraldhh 3y agois the temperature monitoring accurate enough to track ovulation cycles?
- atombender 3y agoIt's designed to be [1]. I don't personally know how accurate it is. [1] https://support.withings.com/hc/en-us/articles/18537693429265-ScanWatch-2-Cycle-Tracking-Understanding-your-cycle https://support.withings.com/hc/en-us/articles/1853769342926...
- gklitz 3y ago> that doesn't require charging every day. Why is this an issue? I have an Apple Watch and Every night when i take it off I put it in the charger. At this point it would be more confusing if I only needed to do this every other or every third day.
- brianwawok 3y agoI’m annoyed every time I go overnight somewhere I have to pack a charger. I don’t use many smart features…
- dylan604 3y agothen why have smart watch?
- alternatex 3y agoSo if you don't have to charge every day it's not a smart watch? It's not that difficult to produce a smart watch that can keep a battery for a week so I don't understand why you feel the need to condition people to get used to the horrible battery lives of popular watches as if it's the only way. I'm a big fan of Garmin's hybrid watches that are smart "enough" but provide a 9 day battery life. Recently, Mobvoi made it possible to have an Android Wear smart watch with a multi-day battery (TicWatch). Something that Google Pixel will have you think to be impossible.
- brianwawok 3y agoI actually did do garmin watch for 5 or 6 years before recently jumping to apple. In most ways I did like my garmin better. My only day to day upgrade with apple watch, is it allowed me to stream music to my airpods on a run without my phone. But I think Garmin has since released phones that can store music.. I'm not using my apple watch to run "apps" past podcast/music/running tracking.
- saidinesh5 3y agoHalf the reason i use a "smart watch" is basically to track my sleep. My old Amazfit bip seems like it may give up on me any time now.. but I still can't find something that comes close to this in terms of it's 4 week battery life. Not even fitness trackers. I already have to charge my laptop, smartphone, steam deck daily. If i have to add earphones and smart watch to that list, it would be just too much for me.
- StevePerkins 3y agoThere's still Garmin... but honestly, I don't understand why people insist on paying hundreds of dollars for a "name", when the watch you are describing is only worth $50, give or take. Amazfit, Xiamoni, Pautios, etc. There's a flood of competitors on Amazon selling the functionality you describe at a price level that makes it non-worthwhile for the "name" brands. That's why those famous brands exit the space. There are two leagues of "smart" watches. At the high-end, "cell phone on your wrist" tier, there's Apple and just enough smaller players to keep Apple somewhat honest. It's really more fashion accessory than practical device. At the basic "pedometer, Bluetooth notifications from my phone, and week-long battery" tier, there are tons of options. But margins are razor thin, so the cool names don't play in that space. Down here you're talking about a purely utilitarian device rather than a fashion accessory.
- inkyoto 3y ago> when the watch you are describing is only worth $50, give or take. How do you know that it is «only»? The BOM alone is likely to exceed that for a not very smart watch. There is no «only», as there are other costs of running a smartwatch business: – The cost of engineering the bloody thing: you have to pay salaries to engineers. Smartwatch engineering is a niche skill and not every engineer is capable of creating a good smartwatch design. – The BOM itself: engineering decisions will affect the BOM. Sacrifices might have to be made, which has a risk of the final product becoming less reliable or less clamourable to consumers. – Supply chain management: the cost of a stable supply chain might fluctuate but the supply will be stable. A supplier might be cheaper but flaky which means unexpected repurcussions for the production line; for example, components becoming unavailable and requiring re-engineering thusly. – Integration with smartphones: most users expect a smartphone app, which means actually 2x apps (Android and iOS), which means salaried mobile app developers. Apps require on-going support, so it will become an ongoing expense. If you handwaive the smartphone apps as a nuisance, the watch might be not as appealing to consumers. – Scale: for the product to be sustainable, it has to be produced in significant numbers. The manufacturing line is unlikely to agree to produce the product in the quantity of, say, 1k units either. – Quality assurance: customers will abuse the product. So it will have to be tested within a particularly defined framework to reduce the number of support incidents. QA costs money, too. – Marketing: customers have to discover the product before it can be sold to them and know why they should want this product and not a competitor's. Marketing is not free, even if it is one man show. If the customers can't discover the product, revenue will be zero or close to zero. – Distribution network: resellers will take a cut from each watch sold which will have to factored into a unit's price. Direct distribution channels can do away with that, but you will have to negotiate contracts with postal and courier services to get the preferential pricing, or pass the cost onto the customer (not every customer likes high shipping costs), procure quality shipping packaging in numbers (the smartwatch is fragile) and be prepared to run to the post office yourself, like, daily. – Support: stuff breaks. So you will have to commit to and support the product, and support is not free. Customers will come back to you with all sorts unusual problems and sometimes with zany requests. No or poor support, a backlash from customers and alike will not be conducive to the overall success of the enterprise. – Costs of running the business: accountant(s), sundries, plus your own salary. – Taxation: the government in your local jurisdiction will send a tax man to you to get a slice. – Most importantly: profit. Sustainable profit from each unit sold also has to be factored into the price. The product has to become profitable at some point otherwise it will tank and vanish before it reaches v2. That is a very, very high level breakdown of things that are just on the surface, and there are many nuances and unexpected expenses. All of that defines the cost of a single unit. At the $50 price point it is unlikely to become a successful smartwatch product.
- fsflover 3y ago> All I want is a simple watch with simple features that doesn't require charging every day. Have a look at Pinetime. It won't be discontinued, since it's an open-source smart watch.
- Narann 3y agoWanted to say the same. Don’t get too much expectation on the feature side, but its a no-bullshit hardware. 25 days without charging, I can accept/refuse my calls, read messages and one of the dumbest yet most useful day to day feature is light my path inside my home without turning on lights and annoy the rest of my family.
- fsflover 3y ago> Wanted to say the same. Then you could upvote me to put my comment at a higher position.
- maxglute 3y agoBasically a fitness band with 3 weeks of battery life that does 90% of typical smartwatch usage. IMO this is where huawei watches got it right, they're glorified smartbands with good hardware with a hardware button that adds extra utility (too bad non programmable). But yes to epaper screen and programmable buttons would be nice. Pebble was 10 years ago, I thought we'd be at commodity F91W smartwatch hardware by now. And TBF $50 fitness trackers are close.
- screye 3y agoWatch lovers buy from legacy watch makers. Fitness freaks buy Garmin & smart bands. Tech lovers buy the best integrated software (Samsung/Apple). Quirky product fans aren't volume buyers. What is Fossil's identity ?
- petre 3y agoFashion items, stainless steel jewelry sold for the price of silver. Their smartwatches are hybrids, but I've never liked their baroque designs. If I was buying a fashion watch I'd probably get a Skagen instead, which is also owned by Fossil.
- HumblyTossed 3y agoWhat the hell does Apple’s watch do that it drains the battery in a little more than one day? Seems to me like it’s overpowered for what it is. My garmin lasts 10 days.
- pizza234 3y agoThat really depends on which the "simple features" are, because to every user, they're different, and also, what a "watch" is. The reason I'm making this distinction is because at face value, any fitness tracker will do. They display the timme/date, have many extra simple features, and they last 10/14 days. If one wants something more watch-looking, there are small/budget smartwatches, that are essentially fitness trackers with a larger screen (and in some cases, a GPS). The problem is actually the apps, which are terrible and/or aggressive. Huawei display ads, and very weaselly, they introduce a small delay, so that one can easily click on them by accident; also, for some models, the app is not provided on Google Play (!). Most, possibly all, apps keep warning the user about giving location permissions, even if one doesn't care. Besides very special cases (solar-powered, battery-powered etc.), the smartwatch with the longest battery life was the Amazfit Bip, but it was really, really terrible.
- delecti 3y agoCounterpoint, I've been a very happy user of an Amazfit Bip for about 6 years now, wearing it 24/7 aside from showering and medical procedures. It does absolutely everything I need it to, and even after 6 years the battery gets me multiple weeks. My only complaint is that the UI is a bit sluggish, but it hasn't kept it from being a great device.
- pizza234 3y agoThis works for the use case where the user never uses the companion app, which in turn means never using things like alarms, and so on. Any operation connecting the app to the phone requires syncing first, which takes an inordinate amoujnt of time (I don't have the Bip anymore, but I think it was a minute or so). On top of that, if the app has been recently updated, the AGPS will need to be resynced, which AFAIR, takes a few minutes. Zepp sucks in this department. Modern Amazfit smartwatches still take a disproportionate time (compared to the competitors) to sync, but at least they do it asynchronously.
- delecti 3y agoI agree the app sucks (as does the extended syncing process it kicks off), but the watch works perfectly fine if you almost never use it. Alarms can be enabled/disabled on the watch (for vacations and the like), and my normal "wake up for work" alarm has been set to the same time for years.
- esel2k 3y agoStill using my pebble (I have a PTR and PTS). I gully agree with what you say and would even go further. I am happy with just an eInk screen and some basic features that sync like once a week.
- Moldoteck 3y agoFyi pebble is not eink, it's transflective lcd, similar to some garmin options nowadays. Basically it's an lcd without backlight by default and in daylight the reflected light is enough to make the content clear and readable
- jnwatson 3y agoThe Fitbit trackers last about 5 days on a charge.
- jxf 3y agoGarmin's Fenix line is massively overkill but it's in this category, and I got it for this reason. It can go weeks without charging.
- rrival 3y agoHave you seen the Citizen hybrid watches? Analog hands + eink, 17+ days of battery life.
- infinitezest 3y agoI ended up purchasing a Bangle.js 2. Its definitely not in the same class as any of the premium watches but its very inexpensive, open - source and hackable. To be fair, my list of necessary features was very short: - display the time - display mobile notifications - display weather