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The primary use for a smartwatch for myself (and many of my family, friends) is fitness and health tracking. Card payments, notifications, WatchFaces etc. are a

The primary use for a smartwatch for myself (and many of my family, friends) is fitness and health tracking. Card payments, notifications, WatchFaces etc. are all secondary. Basically what Whoop is doing with their strap - but minus the subscription model. I know a ton of people who tried the whoop but felt it was extremely pricey and didn't have the accuracy of an apple watch. I would be happy to pay ~$400-500 up front for hardware that integrates with Apple Health and provides solid, reliable health tracking without a need for a subscription. And by health/fitness - features expected would be sleep tracking, activity (gps), heart rate, Sp02, skin temperature sensors, fall detection. Then secondarily - additional things like ECG/EKG, apnea, AFib detection The in-accuracy of some of the devices in the market is why I still choose to remain with my Apple Watch. This youtube channel may help understand a consumer's perspective on health accuracy - https://www.youtube.com/@TheQuantifiedScientist https://www.youtube.com/@TheQuantifiedScientist

alexbouchard 2y ago
From most watch market positioning I'd assume this to be true. However for me it's the exact opposite, the watch is a tool to cut phone use. All I care about is LTE and the minimum I need to get around the world. SMS, calls, WhatsApp, Gmaps. All existing decent looking watch have atrocious battery life to offer all the health features.
mrzool 2y ago
> I would be happy to pay ~$400-500 up front for hardware that integrates with Apple Health and provides solid, reliable health tracking without a need for a subscription. That price point would make it unaffordable for the majority of the world’s population. Shouldn’t we try and make health monitoring and fitness tracking more accessible? That was one of Pebble’s biggest benefits.
- jgalt212 2y ago
  True, but people who tend to prioritize personal health also tend to be richer than the average bear.
  - mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
    Well yes, because prioritising personal health is expensive. High quality, healthy food is much more expensive per calorie than hyperprocessed, high calorie/low micronutrient, carcinogenic food. Gym memberships are pretty expensive, even without any of the personal coach and flex location fluff. And for someone with a lower paying job, time is more scarce as well, in addition to the job itself likely being more harmful to health. And of course, health care is expensive, and even if you live somewhere with socialised medicine, access to specialists is a lot easier and more expedient if you can afford to pay extra. It's not like poor people don't care about their health, they just have fewer options and less time to spend on it. I support anything that can bring more options to more people.
    - jgalt212 2y ago
      > High quality, healthy food is much more expensive per calorie than hyperprocessed, high calorie/low micronutrient, carcinogenic food. Largely true, but frozen vegetables are inexpensive. And they are healthier than fresh vegetables. Veggies are the key to good health for the poor.
      - hooli_gan 2y ago
        > And they are healthier than fresh vegetables. Citation needed
        jgalt212 2y ago
        from SERP page 1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/4060/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/4060/
        dancc 2y ago
        It sounds difficult to make a definitive statement based on the findings of the referenced paper: "Overall, the vitamin content of the frozen commodities was comparable to and occasionally higher than that of their fresh counterparts. β-Carotene, however, was found to decrease drastically in some commodities." It was occasionally lower, too.
- orzig 2y ago
  You have to start somewhere, and then economies of scale can work their magic. The most inspiring example in the last 30 years is probably photovoltaic solar panels.
- toss1 2y ago
  Of course, lower cost is almost always better. But just because advanced devices with (currently) costly components have higher costs is no reason to not create them. If something works and meets a need, the costs of components and manufacture usually come down as engineering and manufacturing progresses on the learning curve and competition comes into play. (Not true when there is a captured market where extractive pricing becomes the norm, but those are the exception in consumer goods)
coryfklein 2y ago
Can someone explain the point of the health tracking features for watches? I have an Apple Watch and I do exercise regularly, but I found that the annoyance of starting and stopping workouts was bothersome so I turned the feature off. Is it about inducing more exercise? Or is it the timer aspect that it records how long your workout is? (in which case I don’t understand why it’s so much better than a stopwatch?) For me, and those around me, the fitness feature seems vestigial and has very little impact on actual fitness levels of the individual.
- pandaman 2y ago
  It's very useful for aerobic exercise (running, swimming, cycling etc), where you want to pace yourself and keep your heart rate and/or speed/tempo in a certain range.
  - erikig 2y ago
    Also, you can set your watch to auto detect and start your workout tracking with a a subtle notification.
  - coryfklein 2y ago
    Now that you mention it, I have used it for this purpose myself! I turned it on when I was on the elliptical because I wanted to calibrate on what running in "Zone 2/3/4/5" felt like. And once I'd done that once I didn't really need to do it again, though I expect it will be helpful to recalibrate every few months as my capacity changes.
- nym3r0s 2y ago
  I believe the value add is a combination of both factors - ability to measure and (as a consequence) induce more exercise. An example here is how I made sure my parents are getting their exercise in by making completing their Move rings and 10K steps every day. This pushes them to take a walk in the evening instead of doom scrolling / watching TV. Another example - Check trends like resting heart rate to see if my body has fully recovered from covid19, SP02 at night indicating potential sleep apnea etc.
patanegra 2y ago
It sounds a lot like you might appreciate Garmin watch, too.
- nym3r0s 2y ago
  It was an option I considered, but the accuracy of the sensors was way worse than apple for the price.
  - KerryJones 2y ago
    Based on what data? I've found them to be as accurate or more accurate (and the data I've seen says the same) except around sleep tracking, where Garmin is worse. But it's not hard to create a function to correct for that if you really care about it, it is good enough unless you need vanity metrics
  - nradov 2y ago
    That's an odd objection. Garmin's optical heart rate sensor accuracy might be slightly worse than Apple's under certain limited conditions, depending on how you test. But anyone who really cares about precise heart rate uses a chest strap anyway.
- scrapcode 2y ago
  My thoughts were that he was describing my Garmin Fenix pretty closely. GPS on-device means I can use all features un-tethered from a phone. I don't use the sleep tracking so I'm not sure how well it does in that arena compared to the competition.
dakiol 2y ago
It would bother me so much to track my health on a daily basis. Too much paranoia. It’s like looking at the stock price every day. I much prefer to track my health twice or so per year.
- nym3r0s 2y ago
  I agree that a single outlier is more stressful - but many times these aren't medical grade devices anyway so the actual data you're looking for is the trend (not the absolute values. A solution could be to measure it but not really track / visualize it day to day.
  - BigGreenJorts 2y ago
    Dollar cost averaging health metrics :)
trabant00 2y ago
If you watch TheQuantifiedScientist you must have found out by now that optical sensors on the wrist have no chance of ever being accurate enough for health and fitness tracking. No matter how much they massage their algorithms they simply don't have the right sensors at the right positions on the body. At the same time the fitness features add cost, bulk, the uncomfortable sensor bump and cost battery life. The original Pebble didn't have any of that and in my opinion was better for it. I also see little point in competing with the already existing numerous options for fitness tracking, even if you only look at the ones without a subscription.
- iamacyborg 2y ago
  Modern optical sensors are pretty dang accurate on garmin watches.
- nradov 2y ago
  I've watched it and TheQuantifiedScientist is totally missing the point. Current optical sensors on the wrist are plenty accurate enough for general health and fitness tracking. If you don't believe me then you can literally count your pulse with your finger and compare against the watch: very close. Optical sensors aren't great for high-intensity training so for those activities everyone knows you need to use a chest strap if you want accurate data. For a more practical take on heart rate accuracy see the DC Rainmaker reviews instead.
pbronez 2y ago
You are describing the Oura ring, at least for the passive tracking. It has great health tracking fidelity and battery life. It won’t do GPS, but other than that tracking is great.
bdavbdav 2y ago
Surely a Garmin is what you want? No subscription, 7 day+ battery life, smart watch features are there but largely secondary.
- hugs 2y ago
  I wear a Garmin watch every day. It's great. But... I don't love the high price and the fact that the battery isn't easily replaceable. (Feels like Garmin would rather you buy a new watch instead.) There's a huge lane for Pebble to be the torch bearer for the Right-to-Repair movement (especially given it's whole story arc so far.)
  - Neikius 2y ago
    Can you use Garmin without their proprietary app? And if not, is it at least working without some sort of cloud services? Too many products nowadays are bound to some sort of online checks and that is even worse than "battery not replaceable". The second is much easier to circumvent than the first (dependence on cloud infra). And ofc the data security. I will never be comfortable with giving corpos my medical data.
    - Piskvorrr 2y ago
      Yesterday's "oops we bricked it remotely, no user interaction required" definitely doesn't inspire confidence - even though it was not intentional and was since fixed.
hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
I really hope you get your wish, I share it. I gave up with tracking because the short life of a smart watch meant many of the more critical times (sleep/sleep tracking) would be interrupted by charging or dead batteries. I just want a band/strap that is focused on sensors and battery life WITHOUT a subscription. Until that happens I'm staying out of the ecosystem entirely.
- valicord 2y ago
  Garmin is what you're looking for. Battery lasts 1-2 weeks. No subscription.
  - hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
    I'll take another look at them thanks. I'd still prefer a band over a smart watch. When I initially looked at them they were very bulky and only had a few days battery life, but its been a while.
albrewer 2y ago
> The primary use for a smartwatch for myself (and many of my family, friends) is fitness and health tracking. It also needs to be a good watch. Don't forget to not fail at that.
- wodenokoto 2y ago
  I’m with parent. It really doesn’t need to be a good watch. I have my phone on me. My watch doesn’t need to tell me the time.
nradov 2y ago
An SpO2 sensor can be nice to have but it's useless to most people. A healthy person near sea level will always have an SpO2 near 100%. It's only really useful to people with medical conditions like sleep apnea, or athletes at high altitude. And even then you won't be able to get continuous monitoring. Current wrist SpO2 sensors require the wearer to hold still for a while in order to get an accurate reading. I turned mine off to save battery life.
qzx_pierri 2y ago
I have a Garmin Forerunner 255 (which does everything you requested and much much more). I used to be a Fitbit guy, and the sleep tracking and data is 10x better than Fitbit, with no subscription. The battery life is about 20 days. The Forerunner 255 can be found on Amazon right now for $250. Mind you, I also used to own an Apple Watch. Garmin is the best, and second place isn't close.
- 2color 2y ago
  Same here. It's the best smart watch I've had.
- aucisson_masque 2y ago
  If you had checked the link on the comment you answered, you would have seen that he reviewed the forerunner 255 (and if that matters all Garmin watch) and found out that their heart rate accuracy and sleep analysis suck. All of them, some more, some less but nowhere near as good as apple watch or a very few Huawei watch and maybe the latest Google watch.
- caleb-allen 2y ago
  I have the Forerunner 945 and it's the only thing that has ever filled the void left by Pebble. Garmin is so good.
lawn 2y ago
I agree. And for those who recommend a Garmin, an Oura ring or similar: I have a Garmin and it's great but I cannot wear it during martial arts (grappling). I also can't wear a ring doing weight lifting or when I'm grappling. I had a Whoop and it was really good for tracking martial arts (the boxers with the holder was super comfortable) but alas it was expensive and the sleep tracking with it in the boxers was really poor.
Arelius 2y ago
I sort-of feel like maybe Pebble isn't for you, it had always been the smartwatch in a world of fitness trackers. I'm almost the opposite for your, Notifications, then watch functionality, and card payments are primary for me. For me, fitness, and health tracking are barely secondary. Which, IMO, is what I've always loved about Pebble, it was a smartwatch first.

alexbouchard 2y ago

From most watch market positioning I'd assume this to be true. However for me it's the exact opposite, the watch is a tool to cut phone use. All I care about is LTE and the minimum I need to get around the world. SMS, calls, WhatsApp, Gmaps. All existing decent looking watch have atrocious battery life to offer all the health features.

mrzool 2y ago

> I would be happy to pay ~$400-500 up front for hardware that integrates with Apple Health and provides solid, reliable health tracking without a need for a subscription. That price point would make it unaffordable for the majority of the world’s population. Shouldn’t we try and make health monitoring and fitness tracking more accessible? That was one of Pebble’s biggest benefits.

jgalt212 2y ago
True, but people who tend to prioritize personal health also tend to be richer than the average bear.
- mtlmtlmtlmtl 2y ago
  Well yes, because prioritising personal health is expensive. High quality, healthy food is much more expensive per calorie than hyperprocessed, high calorie/low micronutrient, carcinogenic food. Gym memberships are pretty expensive, even without any of the personal coach and flex location fluff. And for someone with a lower paying job, time is more scarce as well, in addition to the job itself likely being more harmful to health. And of course, health care is expensive, and even if you live somewhere with socialised medicine, access to specialists is a lot easier and more expedient if you can afford to pay extra. It's not like poor people don't care about their health, they just have fewer options and less time to spend on it. I support anything that can bring more options to more people.
  - jgalt212 2y ago
    > High quality, healthy food is much more expensive per calorie than hyperprocessed, high calorie/low micronutrient, carcinogenic food. Largely true, but frozen vegetables are inexpensive. And they are healthier than fresh vegetables. Veggies are the key to good health for the poor.
    - hooli_gan 2y ago
      > And they are healthier than fresh vegetables. Citation needed
      - jgalt212 2y ago
        from SERP page 1 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/4060/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/4060/
        dancc 2y ago
        It sounds difficult to make a definitive statement based on the findings of the referenced paper: "Overall, the vitamin content of the frozen commodities was comparable to and occasionally higher than that of their fresh counterparts. β-Carotene, however, was found to decrease drastically in some commodities." It was occasionally lower, too.
orzig 2y ago
You have to start somewhere, and then economies of scale can work their magic. The most inspiring example in the last 30 years is probably photovoltaic solar panels.
toss1 2y ago
Of course, lower cost is almost always better. But just because advanced devices with (currently) costly components have higher costs is no reason to not create them. If something works and meets a need, the costs of components and manufacture usually come down as engineering and manufacturing progresses on the learning curve and competition comes into play. (Not true when there is a captured market where extractive pricing becomes the norm, but those are the exception in consumer goods)

coryfklein 2y ago

Can someone explain the point of the health tracking features for watches? I have an Apple Watch and I do exercise regularly, but I found that the annoyance of starting and stopping workouts was bothersome so I turned the feature off. Is it about inducing more exercise? Or is it the timer aspect that it records how long your workout is? (in which case I don’t understand why it’s so much better than a stopwatch?) For me, and those around me, the fitness feature seems vestigial and has very little impact on actual fitness levels of the individual.

pandaman 2y ago
It's very useful for aerobic exercise (running, swimming, cycling etc), where you want to pace yourself and keep your heart rate and/or speed/tempo in a certain range.
- erikig 2y ago
  Also, you can set your watch to auto detect and start your workout tracking with a a subtle notification.
- coryfklein 2y ago
  Now that you mention it, I have used it for this purpose myself! I turned it on when I was on the elliptical because I wanted to calibrate on what running in "Zone 2/3/4/5" felt like. And once I'd done that once I didn't really need to do it again, though I expect it will be helpful to recalibrate every few months as my capacity changes.
nym3r0s 2y ago
I believe the value add is a combination of both factors - ability to measure and (as a consequence) induce more exercise. An example here is how I made sure my parents are getting their exercise in by making completing their Move rings and 10K steps every day. This pushes them to take a walk in the evening instead of doom scrolling / watching TV. Another example - Check trends like resting heart rate to see if my body has fully recovered from covid19, SP02 at night indicating potential sleep apnea etc.

patanegra 2y ago

It sounds a lot like you might appreciate Garmin watch, too.

nym3r0s 2y ago
It was an option I considered, but the accuracy of the sensors was way worse than apple for the price.
- KerryJones 2y ago
  Based on what data? I've found them to be as accurate or more accurate (and the data I've seen says the same) except around sleep tracking, where Garmin is worse. But it's not hard to create a function to correct for that if you really care about it, it is good enough unless you need vanity metrics
- nradov 2y ago
  That's an odd objection. Garmin's optical heart rate sensor accuracy might be slightly worse than Apple's under certain limited conditions, depending on how you test. But anyone who really cares about precise heart rate uses a chest strap anyway.
scrapcode 2y ago
My thoughts were that he was describing my Garmin Fenix pretty closely. GPS on-device means I can use all features un-tethered from a phone. I don't use the sleep tracking so I'm not sure how well it does in that arena compared to the competition.

dakiol 2y ago

It would bother me so much to track my health on a daily basis. Too much paranoia. It’s like looking at the stock price every day. I much prefer to track my health twice or so per year.

nym3r0s 2y ago
I agree that a single outlier is more stressful - but many times these aren't medical grade devices anyway so the actual data you're looking for is the trend (not the absolute values. A solution could be to measure it but not really track / visualize it day to day.
- BigGreenJorts 2y ago
  Dollar cost averaging health metrics :)

trabant00 2y ago

If you watch TheQuantifiedScientist you must have found out by now that optical sensors on the wrist have no chance of ever being accurate enough for health and fitness tracking. No matter how much they massage their algorithms they simply don't have the right sensors at the right positions on the body. At the same time the fitness features add cost, bulk, the uncomfortable sensor bump and cost battery life. The original Pebble didn't have any of that and in my opinion was better for it. I also see little point in competing with the already existing numerous options for fitness tracking, even if you only look at the ones without a subscription.

iamacyborg 2y ago
Modern optical sensors are pretty dang accurate on garmin watches.
nradov 2y ago
I've watched it and TheQuantifiedScientist is totally missing the point. Current optical sensors on the wrist are plenty accurate enough for general health and fitness tracking. If you don't believe me then you can literally count your pulse with your finger and compare against the watch: very close. Optical sensors aren't great for high-intensity training so for those activities everyone knows you need to use a chest strap if you want accurate data. For a more practical take on heart rate accuracy see the DC Rainmaker reviews instead.

pbronez 2y ago

You are describing the Oura ring, at least for the passive tracking. It has great health tracking fidelity and battery life. It won’t do GPS, but other than that tracking is great.

bdavbdav 2y ago

Surely a Garmin is what you want? No subscription, 7 day+ battery life, smart watch features are there but largely secondary.

hugs 2y ago
I wear a Garmin watch every day. It's great. But... I don't love the high price and the fact that the battery isn't easily replaceable. (Feels like Garmin would rather you buy a new watch instead.) There's a huge lane for Pebble to be the torch bearer for the Right-to-Repair movement (especially given it's whole story arc so far.)
- Neikius 2y ago
  Can you use Garmin without their proprietary app? And if not, is it at least working without some sort of cloud services? Too many products nowadays are bound to some sort of online checks and that is even worse than "battery not replaceable". The second is much easier to circumvent than the first (dependence on cloud infra). And ofc the data security. I will never be comfortable with giving corpos my medical data.
  - Piskvorrr 2y ago
    Yesterday's "oops we bricked it remotely, no user interaction required" definitely doesn't inspire confidence - even though it was not intentional and was since fixed.

hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago

I really hope you get your wish, I share it. I gave up with tracking because the short life of a smart watch meant many of the more critical times (sleep/sleep tracking) would be interrupted by charging or dead batteries. I just want a band/strap that is focused on sensors and battery life WITHOUT a subscription. Until that happens I'm staying out of the ecosystem entirely.

valicord 2y ago
Garmin is what you're looking for. Battery lasts 1-2 weeks. No subscription.
- hmmm-i-wonder 2y ago
  I'll take another look at them thanks. I'd still prefer a band over a smart watch. When I initially looked at them they were very bulky and only had a few days battery life, but its been a while.

albrewer 2y ago

> The primary use for a smartwatch for myself (and many of my family, friends) is fitness and health tracking. It also needs to be a good watch. Don't forget to not fail at that.

wodenokoto 2y ago
I’m with parent. It really doesn’t need to be a good watch. I have my phone on me. My watch doesn’t need to tell me the time.

nradov 2y ago

An SpO2 sensor can be nice to have but it's useless to most people. A healthy person near sea level will always have an SpO2 near 100%. It's only really useful to people with medical conditions like sleep apnea, or athletes at high altitude. And even then you won't be able to get continuous monitoring. Current wrist SpO2 sensors require the wearer to hold still for a while in order to get an accurate reading. I turned mine off to save battery life.

qzx_pierri 2y ago

I have a Garmin Forerunner 255 (which does everything you requested and much much more). I used to be a Fitbit guy, and the sleep tracking and data is 10x better than Fitbit, with no subscription. The battery life is about 20 days. The Forerunner 255 can be found on Amazon right now for $250. Mind you, I also used to own an Apple Watch. Garmin is the best, and second place isn't close.

2color 2y ago
Same here. It's the best smart watch I've had.
aucisson_masque 2y ago
If you had checked the link on the comment you answered, you would have seen that he reviewed the forerunner 255 (and if that matters all Garmin watch) and found out that their heart rate accuracy and sleep analysis suck. All of them, some more, some less but nowhere near as good as apple watch or a very few Huawei watch and maybe the latest Google watch.
caleb-allen 2y ago
I have the Forerunner 945 and it's the only thing that has ever filled the void left by Pebble. Garmin is so good.

lawn 2y ago

I agree. And for those who recommend a Garmin, an Oura ring or similar: I have a Garmin and it's great but I cannot wear it during martial arts (grappling). I also can't wear a ring doing weight lifting or when I'm grappling. I had a Whoop and it was really good for tracking martial arts (the boxers with the holder was super comfortable) but alas it was expensive and the sleep tracking with it in the boxers was really poor.

Arelius 2y ago

I sort-of feel like maybe Pebble isn't for you, it had always been the smartwatch in a world of fitness trackers. I'm almost the opposite for your, Notifications, then watch functionality, and card payments are primary for me. For me, fitness, and health tracking are barely secondary. Which, IMO, is what I've always loved about Pebble, it was a smartwatch first.