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I overheard a conversation between someone on the Pixel Watch team and a woman I know. He was quizzing her at a party about what features she used - which were

by edent 2mo ago

I overheard a conversation between someone on the Pixel Watch team and a woman I know. He was quizzing her at a party about what features she used - which were pretty much step counter and payment. He somewhat dismissively sneered, "Well, you're not exactly a power user, are you?" I'm trying to imagine what being a "power user" of a watch is like. Can anyone enlighten me? I think smart-watches are much like Alexa. What the user wants to do with it is almost totally at odds with what the company is selling. Alexii are mostly kitchen timers, song players, and light switches. No one is a "power user" constantly installing skills and using it for anything which increases the product team's engagement metrics. The same is probably true of watches. Alerts are nifty - but cumbersome for replies. The health stuff is useful - but only for a subset of users. Seeing the time is great - but if the battery lasts less than a week, who wants to keep that screen on?

varispeed 2mo ago
I can imagine a power user could tell time down to femto second if you asked them.
0x457 2mo ago
to me main use case of a watchin is setting (cooking) timers. Maybe play 2048 if I'm bored and cant pick up my phone for some reason. Plus notifications about upcoming meetings. I guess approve claude things. Plus regular fitness watch stuff that happens in the background. Idk what else can you do with it? I don't do payments because its awkward to tap wrist on the terminal, but I do have cards on it just in case. I'm glad Pixel Watch got better since gen 1 because gen 1 sucked at being smart watch and at being a fitness tracker.
efxhoy 2mo ago
Yeah I sold my apple watch after about 6 months and got a good old F-91W instead. The most useful thing about it for me was having an animated memoji unicorn on my wrist to amuse people. Wasn’t really worth the trouble of charging it every night. I just want to know what time it is.
phil21 2mo ago
I think you're mostly right. I use it for a few extra things though. Stuff I can think of: * Timers * Alerts * Step counter/fitness tracker * My fitness app for weight training - I can start a workout on my phone and enter my set/rep/weight counts without needing to pull my phone out * Phone calls when I'm on walks and do not want to the "full phone" experience, but also cannot be totally disconnected. This paired with Airpods is a pretty nice balance * Ditto the above but for podcasts/music streaming - especially if wearing workout clothing and I don't have a comfortable place to carry my phone along. * Basic replies to my "important people" texts - via Siri dictation mostly * My "RFID" security badge to get into my home/office/etc. using Apple Pay * Apple Pay * Quick glance to check the weather w/ a main screen widget * Quick glance to check calendar I liken it to having a mini iPhone 4 strapped to my wrist. Useful here and there, and very nice for when I want to get away from my phone or it's too bulky to bring somewhere. Essentially a basic flip-phone for comms, and a connected streaming media player.
maccard 2mo ago
I love my Apple Watch. Alerts mean I don’t look at my phone which means I don’t unlock it and get sidetracked. I have plenty of ways to tell the time so it’s actually kind of useless for that. It’s a passable golf watch, a passable fitness tracker for running and it pairs with earphones so I can not bring my phone with me. I’ve occasionally used Apple Pay with it but that novelty wore off pretty quickly. I don’t care that the battery doesn’t last, I’ve got a wireless charger at my desk and at home and 30 minutes on that a few times a week keeps it alive for my usage.
- lenova 2mo ago
  > I love my Apple Watch. Alerts mean I don’t look at my phone which means I don’t unlock it and get sidetracked. I've noticed and interesting social shift in recent years: friends who get distracted mid-sentence by an Apple Watch notification, pause the conversation to check the alert, and then continue the conversation afterwards without realizing they had paused/were momentarily not present. It's fascinating because these people will not realize they were momentarily sidetracked, and remain convinced a watch keeps them more present than their hone. There's a term waiting to be coined for this concept, but I'm not clever enough to come up with one...
  - Zigurd 2mo ago
    Horolophasia?
    - stavros 2mo ago
      It would be "horologoaphasia", you need the go and the a.
  - birdsongs 2mo ago
    I started noticing this with smartwatches in 2019-2020, with my coworkers. They would just stop mid convo, check watch, and resume talking. It's only about 5 seconds but it feels so weird on the other side. Like, sure, I'll wait for you. But it feels really rude when you do it 3 times in 5 minutes.
  - 2mo ago
zitterbewegung 2mo ago
The more power user things I do would be to change the complications on my Apple Watch to keep it in context such as AQI and or something like an ETF I want to look at or setup a world time. I frequently use the timer function on my watch and read my email and reply to emails on my watch. Less obvious is the synergy with the ecosystem such as iPhone and Mac unlocking and keeping track of the weather and using Apple Music on my watch instead of my iPhone to keep tracking my battery and flight tracking. I also use it to keep track of ChatGPT and Claude and I think one of them I can approve tasks with.
anticorporate 2mo ago
Some of this lack of features is self-imposed by Google. Until they allow Gemini to use MCP servers directly, it's hard to be a power user with a Google Watch. I still dream, thwarted by Google, of being able to actually talk to my watch to have it do useful things. But since "do useful things" for me mostly requires triggering actions outside of the Google ecosystem and their very small approved list of integrated partners, it's pretty useless for anything more advanced than setting a timer.
riantogo 2mo ago
Your observation is spot on. I wear my Apple watch all day everyday. Put it on charge every night without fail. Some years back I used to use it as step counter and for payment. These days I don't count my steps and use the phone for tap payment. I guess the watch is just an ornament or habit or ritual. I'm not sure.
semiquaver 2mo ago
> Alexii Assuming “Alexa” is first declension, plural is “Alexae”
- cedilla 2mo ago
  Given the letter X it's probably Greek, so it would be Alexai. Which is coincidentally about pronounced the same.
Zigurd 2mo ago
Listening to power users is the product management equivalent of armoring the places on the fighter plane where you find bullet holes. You should of course be looking for where the planes that didn't come back have damage. Smart watches become shelfware pretty easily. Especially when you don't have the Apple Watch cachet.
- ortusdux 2mo ago
  Great analogy - This phenomenon irks me, and I would never have thought of using survivorship bias as an apt description. Some of the most valuable feedback you will ever receive is from people that don't use your product/feature.
  - encom 2mo ago
    But if you go too far in that direction, you end up at the Mozilla school of design. Alienating your core users, and designing a product for users that aren't there. Look at them now.
gillesjacobs 2mo ago
The custom complications on WearOs watch faces do it for me. I can see my investment portfolio value change right from my wrist.
- shric 2mo ago
  If you need (or want) to see your investment portfolio that often then I don’t think you and I have the same definition of “investment”
- BigTTYGothGF 2mo ago
  > I can see my investment portfolio value change right from my wrist Great way to drive yourself crazy.
saghm 2mo ago
My hot take is that the "killer feature" of a smartwatch is that it's quicker (and less disruptive in social contexts) for glancing at notifications. I can't look at my phone in a meeting (nor should I!), but I can spend literally a single second glancing at my watch without anyone batting an eye.
- kibwen 2mo ago
  To be clear, reducing the friction to becoming mentally enslaved to notifications is not a good thing.
  - saghm 2mo ago
    That seems extremely overdramatic for what amounts to a personal choice that doesn't disrupt anyone else.
    - kibwen 2mo ago
      Whether or not it disrupts anyone else isn't relevant to the point here. Your mind and focus are sacred, and surrendering to notifications is damaging to your brain. You have the right to damage your brain all you want, and I have the right to think less of anyone who does so thoughtlessly.
      - saghm 2mo ago
        You're certainly welcome to whatever religious beliefs you want. Ultimately you have no clue how much I think about or don't think about anything, which means the only real thing you're describing here is a dogmatic view of how everyone else should live their life based on what you think is "sacred". Personally, preaching and condescending to people about one's subjective worldview feels like a far worse thing than what we're talking about here.
    - phrotoma 2mo ago
      A dear friend was one of the first people I knew to get an apple watch, that mf will stop midsentence (his or anyone else's) to stare at his fuckin watch like once a minute. Convenient, sure I guess. "Non disruptive" - nope.
KPGv2 2mo ago
> Alerts are nifty - but cumbersome for replies. IME this is the best use case. My wife uses her Apple Watch for this throughout the evening while she's cooking dinner or feeding our 1yo. For a couple years now, she's been doing this bc her job comes home with her since she's kind of a big deal at her large institution, so text messages all the time.
futureshock 2mo ago
This. Totally. I would say I'm quite a power user usually. I very carefully explored every feature my apple watch has and tried to incorporate as many of them as I could. Very, very few features stuck because they were genuinely helpful. Almost everything being pushed is a gimmick or a feature bullet point from some product manager. The actual good stuff: Time Workouts Payments The occasionally useful stuff: Notifications Noise DB levels to see if I need to put on ear protection Workoutdoors app for on-device maps and path breadcrumbs The once in a blue moon stuff: Music controls and on device playlists On device audiobooks Weather complication Voice memos Alarm Shortcut to call my husband The feature I tried to get working but gave up on: Tap to talk to ChatGPT and get a 100 word or less reply
- system7rocks 2mo ago
  Truth! I bought my Apple Watch so I could skateboard with my AirPods in and not lose connection. But the connection is a pain to make happen, not intuitive, and sometimes just doesn’t work. I like the watch for trying to keep me reminded to stay fit and active, but I have been considering just not ever buying another one and going without. I turned off all notifications on it because it’s useless.
- armaansarkar 2mo ago
  Personal favorite: unlocking my laptop
  - NetOpWibby 2mo ago
    The only thing I miss from switching to a Casio
  - ValentineC 2mo ago
    I keep laptop unlock off. Touch ID on the MacBooks more than suffices for this.
  - tagyro 2mo ago
    I’ve had multiple instances of my Mac unlocking while I was more than 5-6 meters away. At some point I decided not to trust the time of flight calculation and disable it.
rddbs 2mo ago
I would have agreed on instinct but everyone replying with which features they actually use seems like it pretty much makes up all the major available features. Maybe having all these features is necessary to appeal to every individual’s needs rather than one power user who uses them all?
NeutralWanted 2mo ago
I stopped wearing my pixel watch as soon as fitbit air came out and I could put my real watch on again
izacus 2mo ago
I don't have a Pixel Watch, but I do have a Garmin one which I use for: - Watch stuff (alarms, etc.) - Health stats tracking (HRV, sleep, steps, training readiness) - Offline navigation when hiking in the mountains (its really nice to have a route available right there on your wrist) - Workout tracking - the watch can receive accurate HR data from my strap during swimming or other activities. - Scuba diving - the Descent is a diving computer tracking nitrogen loading and making sure I don't get decompression sickness. It also receives tank pressure information from the air tank and calculates consumption and air time left. It can send messages to other divers and show their air status as well. - I can read notifications so my phone is permanently set to silent. - On the new models (sadly my Descent doesn't support that yet) you can call for help through Garmin's satellite network if you get hurt away from coverage. I don't think these features are gimmicks - they make my sports activities safer, help me communicate with folks in dangerous environments and prod me to do more sports.
- sliken 2mo ago
  How close does another diver have to be for a message to send/received?
  - izacus 2mo ago
    Spec says about 30m (it's relayed via tank pod transmitter using sound).
modeless 2mo ago
This is why Pebble watches are great. They do the basics better than Google and leave out the expensive battery drains.
Escapade5160 2mo ago
Pebble is the ultimate smartwatch because it knows what it is. Its a watch first and foremost, readable in any lighting conditions, waterproof, battery lasts for weeks. They made a watch first then added only the QOL features that most people need.
- trimethylpurine 2mo ago
  Interesting. I'll check it out. Thanks!
- nradov 2mo ago
  Many of the Garmin smartwatches also have all of those features.
- wraptile 2mo ago
  I've been really enjoying the reboot of Pebble with their new Time 2 for a few months now. I'm using ForecastWatch 2 watch face which crams calendar, watch and weather data into one screen and it's perfect. Lasts weeks on charge too. For apps their built-in workout apps etc are perfectly fine and I built some of my own apps quite easily. My only complaint is that app limitation are apollo moon lander level of bad, like 128KB code and 256kb resources. I'm not particularly versed in optimizations patterns in here, but building fun stuff is really hard with these limitations. So what you have to do is roll a "companion app" android app that does all compute on the phone and streams it to the watch but that sucks.
  - rf15 2mo ago
    > but building fun stuff is really hard with these limitations What is your idea of fun stuff? Code and data is cheap enough with these constraints, though fancy graphics are what will eat your budget.
    - wraptile 2mo ago
      One obvious app I tried to build here is a calendar with a daily message and I've tried to include a little graphic emoji with each day. You can't do that because you can only fit around 100 emoji graphics and the font on Pebble Time 2 only has 50 emojis. So at best you can get 150 icons which is not enough for unique icon for each day. This is kinda sad in 2026 ngl.
zeryx 2mo ago
My Garmin instinct is kind of the perfect dumb smart watch, it has a very simple calculator style rendering and the simplest speaker possible. Alarms are vibrations and water proof to a reasonable depth, battery lasts 2 weeks. Really have no reason to upgrade
snapplebobapple 2mo ago
Power users are buying the pebble time 2 because they can modify it to do whatever they want with high sp#cificity
enos_feedler 2mo ago
I had about 3 apple watches before i was smart enough to stop wearing them. i recognize the health needs for some people so no disrespect, but for myself and I am sure many others the S curve peaked on them pretty quick and it's not worth having another device you need to keep charged on you.
MiroslavPokorny 2mo ago
Almost nobody needs these psuedo fitness devices. Just walk outside, enjoy the sun, fresh air, talking to family and friends, walking the dog. It doesnt matter how many steps you take, Do what is right for you. Enjoy your life, life is not spreadsheet or powerpoint.
- somehnguy 2mo ago
  Obviously nobody needs these devices. I enjoy having the stats.
- microtonal 2mo ago
  I like cycling against my previous speed or do a cycling trip guided by a GPX track. I like to be able to call my wife when I'm on the bike without stopping and taking my phone out (often I cycle without my phone). Sure, you do not need it like food, but it is pretty handy. I do turn off pretty much all notifications though. Getting distracted by a watch is annoying.
trimethylpurine 2mo ago
Location (room number) of next event/meeting/lecture can be useful.
pandaman 2mo ago
The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. Health stuff like sleep tracking is likely useful for the vast majority of population, at least to everyone who needs time and thus lives on a schedule of some sort, without the possibility to fall asleep and wake up whenever one feels like it. I too don't see how the ability to run apps is of any value so I use "sports" watch instead of a "smart" watch, which gives me better screen and better battery life in exchange of a smaller number of apps I won't ever run. Though the battery life is not an issue and smartwatch users I know charge their watch while in the shower.
- markdown 2mo ago
  > The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. I came here to say exactly this. That's not the reason I bought a smart watch in the first place (I didn't even know that was a feature), but it's the only reason I still use a smart watch now over my old Seiko.
  - annzabelle 2mo ago
    It's a lot of why I got a Coros watch (the other reason is for running/health tracking). I stay in hostel dorms pretty regularly, and being able to wake up for that 6am flight without waking up the whole room is so nice.
- dataflow 2mo ago
  > The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. Probably depends a lot on the person. A phone already does that for me, and doesn't have the associated uncomfortableness of wearing a watch while I sleep.
  - pandaman 2mo ago
    Indeed, I didn't see studies so my theory is that most people find sleeping with a phone in the bed much more uncomfortable than with a watch on the wrist.
ValentineC 2mo ago
> He was quizzing her at a party about what features she used - which were pretty much step counter and payment. He somewhat dismissively sneered, "Well, you're not exactly a power user, are you?" If everyone on the Pixel Watch team was like that, that could explain why they haven't found any success breaking out from the crowd. Smart watches should discreetly enhance one's life, not be a list of features to be built and used all the time. I've been an Apple Watch user since Series 5, and I mostly use the watch as a normal-ish smart watch, with silent alarms, iPhone music control, and two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly as the "power user" features I'd use most often. I barely use any of the apps, and still have trouble navigating the grid.
- AnonHP 2mo ago
  > two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly What is this “two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly” and how does it work?
  - ValentineC 2mo ago
    https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/watch/apd2c755c294/watchos https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/watch/apd2c755c294/wat...
slopinthebag 2mo ago
Ahh to be an arrogant Google employee. Must be nice to have such confidence from getting hired for a company which made a good product 25 years ago.
jakogut 2mo ago
This is the core of why I've enjoyed my Garmin watch. It tells time, displays texts, has a quick and easy flashlight, tracks workouts, even acts as a dive computer. I get minimum two weeks of usage between charges. It's not something I have to think about on the daily. Now, on the rare occasion I'm not wearing it, I notice its absence.
xicheng1 2mo ago
I agree with personal experience. I also noticed that many nurses were Apple watches. I guess they are more convenient for people who need to work with their hands.
mrcwinn 2mo ago
Garmin Fenix 8. Love it. It’s for trail running, payments in a pinch. Love the industrial design, far more than Apple Watch Ultra or certainly any Android watch. I’m a power user given its narrow focus, but no, I don’t expect it to have my airline pass or auto download ABetterRoutePlanner. I’m happy it doesn’t or can’t.
schainks 2mo ago
I bought a Slow Watch precisely because a real watch power user only needs a one handed watch for the 24 hour day. </s> but not really, I do own one and it's _amazing_.
belZaah 2mo ago
Maybe it’s niche, but if you do endurance sports like triathlon, you can easily become a power user. I think I did. You constantly look at your watch during workouts. It does navigation on trails, it measures your heart rate, tracks workouts, keeps pace during races. The metrics it gathers about hrv, sleep, rest hr etc are vital to adjusting the routine. It acts as a data recorder for multiple sensors: hr strap does a million running metrics, a separate strap does hydration, on a bike there’s a power meter. It supports my routine alerting me about the fast, timing my morning porrige (14 min). It’s my payment method on long rides when I need water and could play audio if I wanted to. I care about advanced features like multi-band gps and handover with my bike computer. It’s a vital tool, I need it for so many things. But vast majority of smartwatches do not cater for this crowd at all. Even the Apple Ultra feels like a toy. Garmin upper end stuff is where it is.
- semi-extrinsic 2mo ago
  Yes, before I read the last sentence I was going to comment that this niche seems entirely taken by Garmin/Suunto/Polar.
- nradov 2mo ago
  Exactly. Beyond all that, I also use my Garmin smartwatch as a scuba diving computer to track depth, time, and decompression.
- phrotoma 2mo ago
  I've got a pixel watch and would love to use it for navigation while running but (admittedly without much in the way of trying) haven't stumbled across a way to do this. What do you use to make it do that? Strava?
  - drewstiff 2mo ago
    I assume you could set up a "walking" journey with multiple stops as waypoints on your phone then when you press start your watch should pick it up and give you the direct route between each waypoint. Not sure if that would sufficiently provide what you were hoping for.
RobinL 2mo ago
Surprised no one has mentioned Gemini. That's the highest value add feature for me. I have pixel watch 3, which I got cheap second hand. Gemini is a little laggy but still useful. If the experience was similar to the latest open AI voice model when used on a phone, it'd be incredibly useful
bogdan 2mo ago
The ii plural is for Latin words. Alexas is perfectly fine in English. And so is octopuses, where you probably first heard about it. No need to over complicate things.
dmaa 2mo ago
^ Great observation. I have a Garmin Fenix 8, but if it would not have a flashlight, vibration alarm and sleep tracking, I'd happily swap it for a mechanical watch as a daily driver. (obviously still using the Garmin for workouts)
- MezzoDelCammin 2mo ago
  Kinda curious why You didn't go for the Fenix 7 / 7Pro line? AFAIK the "big" addition on the 8 was phonecalls/microphone on the watch and some increased water resistance for diving. All that for maybe 200-300USD price hike.
  - dmaa 2mo ago
    I actually had Fenix 6 before and did and impulsive upgrade to Fenix 8 while diving on holidays. I'm very happy with it, including the microphone, sometimes even use it to take calls, it is surprisingly handy when e.g. holding a kid in one hand.
- mrgaro 2mo ago
  How do you like the AMOLED screen? I have a Fenix 6, which has the old screen. While it doesn't have a flashlight, I'm very happy with the ability to toggle the backlight on with a single button, which is more than enough for me to see in the dark where I'm going. I feel that I'm lucky as my Fenix 6 still works as I would not want to switch to an AMOLED screen, which draws too much power to be kept on 24/7.
  - dmaa 2mo ago
    I would have preferred the old one because of battery life. I wear watch to know the time by just glancing on it, so always on is a must for me. It looks nice though. Still, even with always on, I do 4-5 days between charges with normal use. I recommend watch face 'portal hybrid', which seems to have a slightly lower refresh rate (who cares), but you gain a day of battery compared to stock.
coolg54321 2mo ago
Yes exactly, what i regularly use are: track workouts, steps, sleep, card payments (sometimes a backup), flashlight, hiking navigation (convenient than checking phone), alarm and camera remote. I cant stand anything with less a week battery life. so far Garmin works fine for me
- Godsend69 2mo ago
  [dead]
timoth3y 2mo ago
I love my analog watches too dearly to give them up for a smart watch. However, I just realized that analog watches also have "power users", and I am definitely not one of them. My favorite watch (excuse me, "chronograph") has a stopwatch with lap memory, a tachymeter, support for multiple time zones, and a bunch of other features I have not thought about since the week I purchased it. I don't really know how to use it all. I just like the watch.
- encom 2mo ago
  >My favorite watch (excuse me, "chronograph") EXCUSE me... It's a time-piece!
- jbarberu 2mo ago
  Was going to reply that I would probably consider myself a power user of my Casio W-736. Features I use: - Check the time (many times daily) - Count-down timer (many times daily) - Stop watch (weekly) - Check date (a few times per month) - Secondary time zone (rarely, since the people I care about are in the same time zone or 6h behind and easy enough to convert in my head) I've had a fitbit in the past but had a hard time with having to charge it regularly, which often resulted in forgetting it at home. The added features did not outweigh the risk of being without it every now and then.
pjmlp 2mo ago
Spot on, my smart watch is an Amazfit, the built-in apps for sport, driving the music player, and reading msgs are enough. I agree reply is useless, it isn't even possible on this one, however it is good only as a reminder as sometimes I miss relevant calls or msgs. I have used smart watches since the Timex and Casio had agendas, or games, never cared for an app ecosystem beyond what was already on the phone. Also never changed the Amazfit skin since the day I bought it, and settled on a classical analogue view. Often I rather use a plain mechanical watch, or no watch at all, don't get the app ecosystem on a miniature screen.
knorker 2mo ago
I don't feel like power users are catered to either. Like if you have a Google workspace account (if you're not a company, that's a power user) then you can't do "remind me to X". That's reserved for non-power users. ... At least last I checked.
toasty228 2mo ago
> I'm trying to imagine what being a "power user" of a watch is like. Can anyone enlighten me? When you're deep in a conversation with someone and suddenly their wrist vibrate, they lift their hand up slightly, tilt their head down, seem to stare in the void and keep saying "uhu, uhu hmm, uhu" while pretending to still listening to you. That's my experience with smart watches power users
Kirth 2mo ago
"Power user?" Having a Pixel Watch 2 (or 3), I keep thinking no one working on this device really uses it. It's supposed to be a sports and health device but the stopwatch app doesn't even support laps.
mrmckizzle 2mo ago
Got my PebbleTime 2 about two months ago. I like it for tracking my exercise, heart rate, calendar, and time. My favorite is the alarm which is capable of vibrating when the watch suspects you are not at the deepest point in your sleep. I feel people like that are unpleasant to be around. Sorry for you friend.
- freedomben 2mo ago
  Is anything with the pebble time able to capture heart rate for historical data analysis? Anything that can show graphs that you know of? I've got the pixel watch and I'm using Fitbit for this currently, but it's way too expensive for all I'm using it for. I really just want historical heart rate at the moment plus basic exercise tracking, and of course being able to tell the time. Media controls are a huge plus as well.
ugi 2mo ago
I used to consider myself a watch power user. I've started with LG G Watch in 2014 and had almost every generation in between, and from a lot of different manufcaturers Huawei, Skagen, Samsung, etc. I've even wrote and published a couple of Android Wear apps back in the day. I love the idea of having a computer on the wrist that I can program. But in the end, what I'm using it for is notifications, time, timer or stopwatch, and glanceable weather forecast. (And I don't like the weather forecast on android/google wear) Everything else, like sleep tracking, exercise, heart rate tracking, is a nice to have that I would look at from time to time and then do nothing with that information. Anyways, a month or so ago I bought an amoled esp32c6 watch devkit for ~30 EUR, wrote firmware in rust, wrote a small android app to sync notifications, time and weather forecast, and I'm good. It's buggy and I need to polish it up, but it's exactly what I need. And if I ever need something else, I can just add it. Of course this is an extreme approach. It would be much easier to buy a cheap fitness tracker that does all this and has much longer battery life. I just like to be able to tinker with things.
- benrutter 2mo ago
  That sounds like a cool project! Did you write it up anywhere at all? (or have any plans to?)
  - ugi 2mo ago
    Yeah it is quite fun, I've also replaced the speaker that the devkit comes with, with a little vibration motor, which adds a small soldering adventure to the whole process, but it wasn't that hard. I didn't write it up anywhere, I might at some point, but free time/willpower I have to spend on it is minimal. Although I have an itch to make a v2 with a combo of rp2350 and nrf52840 If you're interested here is the devkit I was using it's this: https://www.waveshare.com/esp32-c6-touch-amoled-2.06.htm https://www.waveshare.com/esp32-c6-touch-amoled-2.06.htm Apart from some unfortunate GPIO pin selection they made, and a bit of bugs and missing features in esp rust hal, it wasn't that bad to work with.
Nursie 2mo ago
She's using it for payments, that's probably more than a lot of people! I set them up on mine but rarely bother, the phone is my payment device. I wear my Apple Watch because it's a fancy health-monitor and I am anticipating atrial fibrillation in my medium-term future (thanks, dad's side of the family!). So it's nice to have a thing that is checking for signs of that and recording a few metrics. I might even upgrade to one with a newer sensor for BP etc before long. Beyond that and checking the time though, I have almost no use for it. Plus I've had to turn off nearly every other feature and integration I could find because they were annoying. Gestures which fire when I'm doing the garden, stopping the music I'm listening to. Button long-press actions which get activated by clothing. I eventually had to turn the watch over so the buttons don't get hit by glove-cuffs and cause random stuff to happen when I move around.
ChrisRR 2mo ago
I consider myself a power user, and I still can't find a use for my watch beyond fitness tracking when I have my phone in my pocket anyway
Manfrednotfunny 2mo ago
Im still giving myself the illusion that tracking my sleep is doing anything relevant. I sleep bad -> buy watch -> watch tells me I sleep bad -> win/win? In the gym, i use the timer. But is it worth it to carry a watch all the time, keep it charged etc. for a timer? I'm considering buying a timer for the gym. We just do'nt need a lot of tech in reality.
- benrutter 2mo ago
  Yeah, I agree - I think smart watches haven't yet evolved out of just being a fun tech gadget. If you just want a timer, I'd recommend just getting a cheap digital watch - you can get a casio for like 20 euros/dollars/pounds/etc and it'll give you a timer and the time/date and not much else. No cool tech gadget, but it 'll stay charged for 10 years rather than 2 days.
- wincy 2mo ago
  My watch tells me I sleep amazing and I wake up feeling like crap. No idea why, but also have no idea what to do about it.
t_mahmood 2mo ago
Having a Garmin, ruined me with awesome battery life, but after I melted it, I was using Amazfit ActiveEdge (can't find straps, the watch is still ok), which made me realize, I'm fine with it, both serves what I need, with over week of battery life. And, that matters the most at the end. Having ADHD, a smart watch is a life saver. But charging it everyday? Nope, who have time for that!? Alarms are crucial, I have 8 alarms set, just to remind me of passing time. Calendar is also very useful, for quick glance, externalizing of information is really important when you have a bad memory Sleep tracking, at least I know how long I might have slept. Surprisingly, Amazfit detects going to sleep very consistently and reliably then Garmin (not counting, sleep level detection accuracy) which did surprise me a lot Activity reminder, it reminds me I'm sitting for too long, and have a goal set. Which is really useful for me. Steps, weather, notifications all are pretty important, to keep me off mobile. If I open the mobile, it's given I'll lose focus and lose a large chunk of time.
- ValentineC 2mo ago
  > But charging it everyday? Nope, who have time for that!? I wear my Apple Watch to sleep, and take it off to charge whenever I'm in the shower. That's just another routine for me.
  - t_mahmood 2mo ago
    Well, from an ADHD book, do not remember the exact statement but goes like this, "But doctor, how do I remember to take the medicine that is supposed to help me remember things" If I have to charge it every day, it will create another thing that I will forget to do, and make it ultimately useless for me. And once you get used to 10-15 days of battery life, charging your watch every day feels absolutely absurd.
TeMPOraL 2mo ago
> What the user wants to do with it is almost totally at odds with what the company is selling. Alexii are mostly kitchen timers, song players, and light switches. No one is a "power user" constantly installing skills and using it for anything which increases the product team's engagement metrics. There is IMO a design flaw that tanked adoption of not just Alexa, but also on-phone voice assistants. People would want to use reliable equivalent of "computer, play music" or any kind of "computer, do X". But what is on offer by all major companies is, "${brand name}, do X on ${brand name} with ${brand name}". No thanks. More broadly, I think this is rarely noted explicitly - user interfaces are ultimate marketing platforms, because you get to inject your marketing literally between the user and the task they're doing. Whether purposefully or intuitively, companies understand that, and the UX goes to shit as they design the product to also be a marketing platform.
regularfry 2mo ago
I got a pixel 4 after some surgery basically for the fall detection. Otherwise it's mainly doing what the Fitbit I had 8(?) years ago did for me, with added GPS. Pulse, steps. As an ADHD-haver it's good to get notifications to the watch so that I can avoid unlocking the phone and risk falling down a rabbit-hole. I think that's under-sold. What I want is a decent (by which I mean SIMPLE) pomodoro app for it, and I'll probably have to write that myself. Does that make me a power user? I was surprised that finding such a thing would be difficult. I tend not to use it for payment because the ergonomics are terrible. Someone needs to tell that team that having the face on the inside of your wrist is entirely valid (especially if you don't want to be whacking your shiny watch face into every passing door handle), but that makes you do contortions if you want to get it close to a card reader. Not only that but the way screen locking works is ungainly enough that the fact you need to use it more with the face towards your body makes it a constant annoyance. I've unknowingly reorganised my widget order far too often because of this.
mbirth 2mo ago
I'm fully locked into Apple Watches as I'm using these features regularly. Not sure whether that counts as a power user. - Time - Notifications (also: dismissing a notification on the watch also removes it from the phone) - Smart Stack (relevant info pops up automatically) - Wakeup alarm - Timers - Payments - Express Travel mode (yes, I'm aware of the vulnerability) - Siri (especially great with the upcoming Siri AI) - Medication tracking - Heart rate monitoring, Sleep tracking, Sleep apnoea detection, ECG - Phone calls while the phone is in a different room - controlling Home devices - automatic tracking of hikes or walks Charging has never been an issue for me. I put it on the charger while I sit at the computer or game console in the evening and when I go to bed later, it's fully charged and ready for the night and the next day.
odiroot 2mo ago
For me, showing the time, calendar notifications and turn-by-turn navigation with Google Maps is all the smartwatch has to offer. Sleep tracking is a good extra. That's it. Pebble was great at providing that, with crazy good battery life.
richiebful1 2mo ago
This is why I bought a Casio G-shock smartwatch. I use my watch primarily as a watch: I like to track my workouts, and it is nice to get important notifications to my watch when I'm busy / trying to focus
- robbru 2mo ago
  Same here. I wore the Apple Watch for about 6 years. It helped me get excited about exercising and swimming on the daily, but the notifications and "focus modes" made it feel like a chore. I switched to the GShock GW-5000 and never looked back.
r_lee 2mo ago
I primarily use it for steps, stopwatch/timers (the best part imo), quick weather check that's about it
evanjrowley 2mo ago
As an owner of a Pixel Watch 4 with LTE, the killer feature is the ability to handle calls/texts without an actual phone. With a smart watch, I can maintain important communications without looking at a device with a screen large enough to show me an advertisement, large enough to be useful for doom-scrolling, large enough for consuming slop, etc.
sjs382 2mo ago
I have a Galaxy Watch 7 that I keep on silent ("Mute all sounds"). I think I'd be considered a heavy user. I don't use it to do a lot, but I've come to rely on the things I do use it for and I use it frequently. I use it: - To tell the time - Set one-off timers/alarms - Recurring silent/vibration alarms throughout the day Wake up, start work, mid-morning break/checkpoint, lunch, end lunch, mid-day break/checkpoint, 30 minutes before "clock out", end of work day, and medication reminders - For silent/vibration notifications (HEAVILY filtered. Mostly messages from VIPs, security camera notifications, reminders, "rain in 15 minutes") - Set reminders "Remind me tomorrow morning to schedule a vet appointment" - Add things to different shopping lists (grocery list, shopping list, etc) - Quick, short-term notes ("10 M4x20mm screws") - Casual health tracking: sleep, step count, activity minutes, etc Almost every one of my interactions with it is via voice/Gemini.
wink 2mo ago
They might just get a stroke if they'll hear what I use my smartwatch for. Hop on my bike, press start, and at the end of the ride press stop, then look at the result on my phone (sometimes). And if I don't forget to put it on I read the time. I have navigated with it once in the first week. But luckily it's not a Pixel Watch.
gofreddygo 2mo ago
For you and me, using a thing regularly for longer (than people around you) and possibly for more than one purpose makes for a power user. If you're on the Pixel Watch team however... "power user" takes on a different meaning
ksec 2mo ago
The most important thing I bought it for was Health Tracking. Although I still don't understand why it ask me to do tacking sessions when I am simply walking faster. 2nd most useful feature is vibrate alarm. Telling time not even that important on my list. I don't do payment with watch. Since I think the motion of making my wrist to the counter is awkward. Since we are always on our phone it doesn't make it much simpler.

by edent 2mo ago

varispeed 2mo ago

I can imagine a power user could tell time down to femto second if you asked them.

0x457 2mo ago

to me main use case of a watchin is setting (cooking) timers. Maybe play 2048 if I'm bored and cant pick up my phone for some reason. Plus notifications about upcoming meetings. I guess approve claude things. Plus regular fitness watch stuff that happens in the background. Idk what else can you do with it? I don't do payments because its awkward to tap wrist on the terminal, but I do have cards on it just in case. I'm glad Pixel Watch got better since gen 1 because gen 1 sucked at being smart watch and at being a fitness tracker.

efxhoy 2mo ago

Yeah I sold my apple watch after about 6 months and got a good old F-91W instead. The most useful thing about it for me was having an animated memoji unicorn on my wrist to amuse people. Wasn’t really worth the trouble of charging it every night. I just want to know what time it is.

phil21 2mo ago

I think you're mostly right. I use it for a few extra things though. Stuff I can think of: * Timers * Alerts * Step counter/fitness tracker * My fitness app for weight training - I can start a workout on my phone and enter my set/rep/weight counts without needing to pull my phone out * Phone calls when I'm on walks and do not want to the "full phone" experience, but also cannot be totally disconnected. This paired with Airpods is a pretty nice balance * Ditto the above but for podcasts/music streaming - especially if wearing workout clothing and I don't have a comfortable place to carry my phone along. * Basic replies to my "important people" texts - via Siri dictation mostly * My "RFID" security badge to get into my home/office/etc. using Apple Pay * Apple Pay * Quick glance to check the weather w/ a main screen widget * Quick glance to check calendar I liken it to having a mini iPhone 4 strapped to my wrist. Useful here and there, and very nice for when I want to get away from my phone or it's too bulky to bring somewhere. Essentially a basic flip-phone for comms, and a connected streaming media player.

maccard 2mo ago

I love my Apple Watch. Alerts mean I don’t look at my phone which means I don’t unlock it and get sidetracked. I have plenty of ways to tell the time so it’s actually kind of useless for that. It’s a passable golf watch, a passable fitness tracker for running and it pairs with earphones so I can not bring my phone with me. I’ve occasionally used Apple Pay with it but that novelty wore off pretty quickly. I don’t care that the battery doesn’t last, I’ve got a wireless charger at my desk and at home and 30 minutes on that a few times a week keeps it alive for my usage.

lenova 2mo ago
> I love my Apple Watch. Alerts mean I don’t look at my phone which means I don’t unlock it and get sidetracked. I've noticed and interesting social shift in recent years: friends who get distracted mid-sentence by an Apple Watch notification, pause the conversation to check the alert, and then continue the conversation afterwards without realizing they had paused/were momentarily not present. It's fascinating because these people will not realize they were momentarily sidetracked, and remain convinced a watch keeps them more present than their hone. There's a term waiting to be coined for this concept, but I'm not clever enough to come up with one...
- Zigurd 2mo ago
  Horolophasia?
  - stavros 2mo ago
    It would be "horologoaphasia", you need the go and the a.
- birdsongs 2mo ago
  I started noticing this with smartwatches in 2019-2020, with my coworkers. They would just stop mid convo, check watch, and resume talking. It's only about 5 seconds but it feels so weird on the other side. Like, sure, I'll wait for you. But it feels really rude when you do it 3 times in 5 minutes.
- 2mo ago

zitterbewegung 2mo ago

The more power user things I do would be to change the complications on my Apple Watch to keep it in context such as AQI and or something like an ETF I want to look at or setup a world time. I frequently use the timer function on my watch and read my email and reply to emails on my watch. Less obvious is the synergy with the ecosystem such as iPhone and Mac unlocking and keeping track of the weather and using Apple Music on my watch instead of my iPhone to keep tracking my battery and flight tracking. I also use it to keep track of ChatGPT and Claude and I think one of them I can approve tasks with.

anticorporate 2mo ago

Some of this lack of features is self-imposed by Google. Until they allow Gemini to use MCP servers directly, it's hard to be a power user with a Google Watch. I still dream, thwarted by Google, of being able to actually talk to my watch to have it do useful things. But since "do useful things" for me mostly requires triggering actions outside of the Google ecosystem and their very small approved list of integrated partners, it's pretty useless for anything more advanced than setting a timer.

riantogo 2mo ago

Your observation is spot on. I wear my Apple watch all day everyday. Put it on charge every night without fail. Some years back I used to use it as step counter and for payment. These days I don't count my steps and use the phone for tap payment. I guess the watch is just an ornament or habit or ritual. I'm not sure.

semiquaver 2mo ago

> Alexii Assuming “Alexa” is first declension, plural is “Alexae”

cedilla 2mo ago
Given the letter X it's probably Greek, so it would be Alexai. Which is coincidentally about pronounced the same.

Zigurd 2mo ago

Listening to power users is the product management equivalent of armoring the places on the fighter plane where you find bullet holes. You should of course be looking for where the planes that didn't come back have damage. Smart watches become shelfware pretty easily. Especially when you don't have the Apple Watch cachet.

ortusdux 2mo ago
Great analogy - This phenomenon irks me, and I would never have thought of using survivorship bias as an apt description. Some of the most valuable feedback you will ever receive is from people that don't use your product/feature.
- encom 2mo ago
  But if you go too far in that direction, you end up at the Mozilla school of design. Alienating your core users, and designing a product for users that aren't there. Look at them now.

gillesjacobs 2mo ago

The custom complications on WearOs watch faces do it for me. I can see my investment portfolio value change right from my wrist.

shric 2mo ago
If you need (or want) to see your investment portfolio that often then I don’t think you and I have the same definition of “investment”
BigTTYGothGF 2mo ago
> I can see my investment portfolio value change right from my wrist Great way to drive yourself crazy.

saghm 2mo ago

My hot take is that the "killer feature" of a smartwatch is that it's quicker (and less disruptive in social contexts) for glancing at notifications. I can't look at my phone in a meeting (nor should I!), but I can spend literally a single second glancing at my watch without anyone batting an eye.

kibwen 2mo ago
To be clear, reducing the friction to becoming mentally enslaved to notifications is not a good thing.
- saghm 2mo ago
  That seems extremely overdramatic for what amounts to a personal choice that doesn't disrupt anyone else.
  - kibwen 2mo ago
    Whether or not it disrupts anyone else isn't relevant to the point here. Your mind and focus are sacred, and surrendering to notifications is damaging to your brain. You have the right to damage your brain all you want, and I have the right to think less of anyone who does so thoughtlessly.
    - saghm 2mo ago
      You're certainly welcome to whatever religious beliefs you want. Ultimately you have no clue how much I think about or don't think about anything, which means the only real thing you're describing here is a dogmatic view of how everyone else should live their life based on what you think is "sacred". Personally, preaching and condescending to people about one's subjective worldview feels like a far worse thing than what we're talking about here.
  - phrotoma 2mo ago
    A dear friend was one of the first people I knew to get an apple watch, that mf will stop midsentence (his or anyone else's) to stare at his fuckin watch like once a minute. Convenient, sure I guess. "Non disruptive" - nope.

KPGv2 2mo ago

> Alerts are nifty - but cumbersome for replies. IME this is the best use case. My wife uses her Apple Watch for this throughout the evening while she's cooking dinner or feeding our 1yo. For a couple years now, she's been doing this bc her job comes home with her since she's kind of a big deal at her large institution, so text messages all the time.

futureshock 2mo ago

This. Totally. I would say I'm quite a power user usually. I very carefully explored every feature my apple watch has and tried to incorporate as many of them as I could. Very, very few features stuck because they were genuinely helpful. Almost everything being pushed is a gimmick or a feature bullet point from some product manager. The actual good stuff: Time Workouts Payments The occasionally useful stuff: Notifications Noise DB levels to see if I need to put on ear protection Workoutdoors app for on-device maps and path breadcrumbs The once in a blue moon stuff: Music controls and on device playlists On device audiobooks Weather complication Voice memos Alarm Shortcut to call my husband The feature I tried to get working but gave up on: Tap to talk to ChatGPT and get a 100 word or less reply

system7rocks 2mo ago
Truth! I bought my Apple Watch so I could skateboard with my AirPods in and not lose connection. But the connection is a pain to make happen, not intuitive, and sometimes just doesn’t work. I like the watch for trying to keep me reminded to stay fit and active, but I have been considering just not ever buying another one and going without. I turned off all notifications on it because it’s useless.
armaansarkar 2mo ago
Personal favorite: unlocking my laptop
- NetOpWibby 2mo ago
  The only thing I miss from switching to a Casio
- ValentineC 2mo ago
  I keep laptop unlock off. Touch ID on the MacBooks more than suffices for this.
- tagyro 2mo ago
  I’ve had multiple instances of my Mac unlocking while I was more than 5-6 meters away. At some point I decided not to trust the time of flight calculation and disable it.

rddbs 2mo ago

I would have agreed on instinct but everyone replying with which features they actually use seems like it pretty much makes up all the major available features. Maybe having all these features is necessary to appeal to every individual’s needs rather than one power user who uses them all?

NeutralWanted 2mo ago

I stopped wearing my pixel watch as soon as fitbit air came out and I could put my real watch on again

izacus 2mo ago

I don't have a Pixel Watch, but I do have a Garmin one which I use for: - Watch stuff (alarms, etc.) - Health stats tracking (HRV, sleep, steps, training readiness) - Offline navigation when hiking in the mountains (its really nice to have a route available right there on your wrist) - Workout tracking - the watch can receive accurate HR data from my strap during swimming or other activities. - Scuba diving - the Descent is a diving computer tracking nitrogen loading and making sure I don't get decompression sickness. It also receives tank pressure information from the air tank and calculates consumption and air time left. It can send messages to other divers and show their air status as well. - I can read notifications so my phone is permanently set to silent. - On the new models (sadly my Descent doesn't support that yet) you can call for help through Garmin's satellite network if you get hurt away from coverage. I don't think these features are gimmicks - they make my sports activities safer, help me communicate with folks in dangerous environments and prod me to do more sports.

sliken 2mo ago
How close does another diver have to be for a message to send/received?
- izacus 2mo ago
  Spec says about 30m (it's relayed via tank pod transmitter using sound).

modeless 2mo ago

This is why Pebble watches are great. They do the basics better than Google and leave out the expensive battery drains.

Escapade5160 2mo ago

Pebble is the ultimate smartwatch because it knows what it is. Its a watch first and foremost, readable in any lighting conditions, waterproof, battery lasts for weeks. They made a watch first then added only the QOL features that most people need.

trimethylpurine 2mo ago
Interesting. I'll check it out. Thanks!
nradov 2mo ago
Many of the Garmin smartwatches also have all of those features.
wraptile 2mo ago
I've been really enjoying the reboot of Pebble with their new Time 2 for a few months now. I'm using ForecastWatch 2 watch face which crams calendar, watch and weather data into one screen and it's perfect. Lasts weeks on charge too. For apps their built-in workout apps etc are perfectly fine and I built some of my own apps quite easily. My only complaint is that app limitation are apollo moon lander level of bad, like 128KB code and 256kb resources. I'm not particularly versed in optimizations patterns in here, but building fun stuff is really hard with these limitations. So what you have to do is roll a "companion app" android app that does all compute on the phone and streams it to the watch but that sucks.
- rf15 2mo ago
  > but building fun stuff is really hard with these limitations What is your idea of fun stuff? Code and data is cheap enough with these constraints, though fancy graphics are what will eat your budget.
  - wraptile 2mo ago
    One obvious app I tried to build here is a calendar with a daily message and I've tried to include a little graphic emoji with each day. You can't do that because you can only fit around 100 emoji graphics and the font on Pebble Time 2 only has 50 emojis. So at best you can get 150 icons which is not enough for unique icon for each day. This is kinda sad in 2026 ngl.

zeryx 2mo ago

My Garmin instinct is kind of the perfect dumb smart watch, it has a very simple calculator style rendering and the simplest speaker possible. Alarms are vibrations and water proof to a reasonable depth, battery lasts 2 weeks. Really have no reason to upgrade

snapplebobapple 2mo ago

Power users are buying the pebble time 2 because they can modify it to do whatever they want with high sp#cificity

enos_feedler 2mo ago

I had about 3 apple watches before i was smart enough to stop wearing them. i recognize the health needs for some people so no disrespect, but for myself and I am sure many others the S curve peaked on them pretty quick and it's not worth having another device you need to keep charged on you.

MiroslavPokorny 2mo ago

Almost nobody needs these psuedo fitness devices. Just walk outside, enjoy the sun, fresh air, talking to family and friends, walking the dog. It doesnt matter how many steps you take, Do what is right for you. Enjoy your life, life is not spreadsheet or powerpoint.

somehnguy 2mo ago
Obviously nobody needs these devices. I enjoy having the stats.
microtonal 2mo ago
I like cycling against my previous speed or do a cycling trip guided by a GPX track. I like to be able to call my wife when I'm on the bike without stopping and taking my phone out (often I cycle without my phone). Sure, you do not need it like food, but it is pretty handy. I do turn off pretty much all notifications though. Getting distracted by a watch is annoying.

trimethylpurine 2mo ago

Location (room number) of next event/meeting/lecture can be useful.

pandaman 2mo ago

The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. Health stuff like sleep tracking is likely useful for the vast majority of population, at least to everyone who needs time and thus lives on a schedule of some sort, without the possibility to fall asleep and wake up whenever one feels like it. I too don't see how the ability to run apps is of any value so I use "sports" watch instead of a "smart" watch, which gives me better screen and better battery life in exchange of a smaller number of apps I won't ever run. Though the battery life is not an issue and smartwatch users I know charge their watch while in the shower.

markdown 2mo ago
> The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. I came here to say exactly this. That's not the reason I bought a smart watch in the first place (I didn't even know that was a feature), but it's the only reason I still use a smart watch now over my old Seiko.
- annzabelle 2mo ago
  It's a lot of why I got a Coros watch (the other reason is for running/health tracking). I stay in hostel dorms pretty regularly, and being able to wake up for that 6am flight without waking up the whole room is so nice.
dataflow 2mo ago
> The killer feature of modern watches is the vibration alarm - you can wake up even if you use earplugs/headphones/noise machine and you won't wake up anyone else along with you. Probably depends a lot on the person. A phone already does that for me, and doesn't have the associated uncomfortableness of wearing a watch while I sleep.
- pandaman 2mo ago
  Indeed, I didn't see studies so my theory is that most people find sleeping with a phone in the bed much more uncomfortable than with a watch on the wrist.

ValentineC 2mo ago

> He was quizzing her at a party about what features she used - which were pretty much step counter and payment. He somewhat dismissively sneered, "Well, you're not exactly a power user, are you?" If everyone on the Pixel Watch team was like that, that could explain why they haven't found any success breaking out from the crowd. Smart watches should discreetly enhance one's life, not be a list of features to be built and used all the time. I've been an Apple Watch user since Series 5, and I mostly use the watch as a normal-ish smart watch, with silent alarms, iPhone music control, and two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly as the "power user" features I'd use most often. I barely use any of the apps, and still have trouble navigating the grid.

AnonHP 2mo ago
> two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly What is this “two-finger-tap to feel the time discreetly” and how does it work?
- ValentineC 2mo ago
  https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/watch/apd2c755c294/watchos https://support.apple.com/en-us/guide/watch/apd2c755c294/wat...

slopinthebag 2mo ago

Ahh to be an arrogant Google employee. Must be nice to have such confidence from getting hired for a company which made a good product 25 years ago.

jakogut 2mo ago

This is the core of why I've enjoyed my Garmin watch. It tells time, displays texts, has a quick and easy flashlight, tracks workouts, even acts as a dive computer. I get minimum two weeks of usage between charges. It's not something I have to think about on the daily. Now, on the rare occasion I'm not wearing it, I notice its absence.

xicheng1 2mo ago

I agree with personal experience. I also noticed that many nurses were Apple watches. I guess they are more convenient for people who need to work with their hands.

mrcwinn 2mo ago

Garmin Fenix 8. Love it. It’s for trail running, payments in a pinch. Love the industrial design, far more than Apple Watch Ultra or certainly any Android watch. I’m a power user given its narrow focus, but no, I don’t expect it to have my airline pass or auto download ABetterRoutePlanner. I’m happy it doesn’t or can’t.

schainks 2mo ago

I bought a Slow Watch precisely because a real watch power user only needs a one handed watch for the 24 hour day. </s> but not really, I do own one and it's _amazing_.

belZaah 2mo ago

Maybe it’s niche, but if you do endurance sports like triathlon, you can easily become a power user. I think I did. You constantly look at your watch during workouts. It does navigation on trails, it measures your heart rate, tracks workouts, keeps pace during races. The metrics it gathers about hrv, sleep, rest hr etc are vital to adjusting the routine. It acts as a data recorder for multiple sensors: hr strap does a million running metrics, a separate strap does hydration, on a bike there’s a power meter. It supports my routine alerting me about the fast, timing my morning porrige (14 min). It’s my payment method on long rides when I need water and could play audio if I wanted to. I care about advanced features like multi-band gps and handover with my bike computer. It’s a vital tool, I need it for so many things. But vast majority of smartwatches do not cater for this crowd at all. Even the Apple Ultra feels like a toy. Garmin upper end stuff is where it is.

semi-extrinsic 2mo ago
Yes, before I read the last sentence I was going to comment that this niche seems entirely taken by Garmin/Suunto/Polar.
nradov 2mo ago
Exactly. Beyond all that, I also use my Garmin smartwatch as a scuba diving computer to track depth, time, and decompression.
phrotoma 2mo ago
I've got a pixel watch and would love to use it for navigation while running but (admittedly without much in the way of trying) haven't stumbled across a way to do this. What do you use to make it do that? Strava?
- drewstiff 2mo ago
  I assume you could set up a "walking" journey with multiple stops as waypoints on your phone then when you press start your watch should pick it up and give you the direct route between each waypoint. Not sure if that would sufficiently provide what you were hoping for.

RobinL 2mo ago

Surprised no one has mentioned Gemini. That's the highest value add feature for me. I have pixel watch 3, which I got cheap second hand. Gemini is a little laggy but still useful. If the experience was similar to the latest open AI voice model when used on a phone, it'd be incredibly useful

bogdan 2mo ago

The ii plural is for Latin words. Alexas is perfectly fine in English. And so is octopuses, where you probably first heard about it. No need to over complicate things.

dmaa 2mo ago

^ Great observation. I have a Garmin Fenix 8, but if it would not have a flashlight, vibration alarm and sleep tracking, I'd happily swap it for a mechanical watch as a daily driver. (obviously still using the Garmin for workouts)

MezzoDelCammin 2mo ago
Kinda curious why You didn't go for the Fenix 7 / 7Pro line? AFAIK the "big" addition on the 8 was phonecalls/microphone on the watch and some increased water resistance for diving. All that for maybe 200-300USD price hike.
- dmaa 2mo ago
  I actually had Fenix 6 before and did and impulsive upgrade to Fenix 8 while diving on holidays. I'm very happy with it, including the microphone, sometimes even use it to take calls, it is surprisingly handy when e.g. holding a kid in one hand.
mrgaro 2mo ago
How do you like the AMOLED screen? I have a Fenix 6, which has the old screen. While it doesn't have a flashlight, I'm very happy with the ability to toggle the backlight on with a single button, which is more than enough for me to see in the dark where I'm going. I feel that I'm lucky as my Fenix 6 still works as I would not want to switch to an AMOLED screen, which draws too much power to be kept on 24/7.
- dmaa 2mo ago
  I would have preferred the old one because of battery life. I wear watch to know the time by just glancing on it, so always on is a must for me. It looks nice though. Still, even with always on, I do 4-5 days between charges with normal use. I recommend watch face 'portal hybrid', which seems to have a slightly lower refresh rate (who cares), but you gain a day of battery compared to stock.

coolg54321 2mo ago

Yes exactly, what i regularly use are: track workouts, steps, sleep, card payments (sometimes a backup), flashlight, hiking navigation (convenient than checking phone), alarm and camera remote. I cant stand anything with less a week battery life. so far Garmin works fine for me

Godsend69 2mo ago
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timoth3y 2mo ago

I love my analog watches too dearly to give them up for a smart watch. However, I just realized that analog watches also have "power users", and I am definitely not one of them. My favorite watch (excuse me, "chronograph") has a stopwatch with lap memory, a tachymeter, support for multiple time zones, and a bunch of other features I have not thought about since the week I purchased it. I don't really know how to use it all. I just like the watch.

encom 2mo ago
>My favorite watch (excuse me, "chronograph") EXCUSE me... It's a time-piece!
jbarberu 2mo ago
Was going to reply that I would probably consider myself a power user of my Casio W-736. Features I use: - Check the time (many times daily) - Count-down timer (many times daily) - Stop watch (weekly) - Check date (a few times per month) - Secondary time zone (rarely, since the people I care about are in the same time zone or 6h behind and easy enough to convert in my head) I've had a fitbit in the past but had a hard time with having to charge it regularly, which often resulted in forgetting it at home. The added features did not outweigh the risk of being without it every now and then.

pjmlp 2mo ago

Spot on, my smart watch is an Amazfit, the built-in apps for sport, driving the music player, and reading msgs are enough. I agree reply is useless, it isn't even possible on this one, however it is good only as a reminder as sometimes I miss relevant calls or msgs. I have used smart watches since the Timex and Casio had agendas, or games, never cared for an app ecosystem beyond what was already on the phone. Also never changed the Amazfit skin since the day I bought it, and settled on a classical analogue view. Often I rather use a plain mechanical watch, or no watch at all, don't get the app ecosystem on a miniature screen.

knorker 2mo ago

I don't feel like power users are catered to either. Like if you have a Google workspace account (if you're not a company, that's a power user) then you can't do "remind me to X". That's reserved for non-power users. ... At least last I checked.

toasty228 2mo ago

> I'm trying to imagine what being a "power user" of a watch is like. Can anyone enlighten me? When you're deep in a conversation with someone and suddenly their wrist vibrate, they lift their hand up slightly, tilt their head down, seem to stare in the void and keep saying "uhu, uhu hmm, uhu" while pretending to still listening to you. That's my experience with smart watches power users

Kirth 2mo ago

"Power user?" Having a Pixel Watch 2 (or 3), I keep thinking no one working on this device really uses it. It's supposed to be a sports and health device but the stopwatch app doesn't even support laps.

mrmckizzle 2mo ago

Got my PebbleTime 2 about two months ago. I like it for tracking my exercise, heart rate, calendar, and time. My favorite is the alarm which is capable of vibrating when the watch suspects you are not at the deepest point in your sleep. I feel people like that are unpleasant to be around. Sorry for you friend.

freedomben 2mo ago
Is anything with the pebble time able to capture heart rate for historical data analysis? Anything that can show graphs that you know of? I've got the pixel watch and I'm using Fitbit for this currently, but it's way too expensive for all I'm using it for. I really just want historical heart rate at the moment plus basic exercise tracking, and of course being able to tell the time. Media controls are a huge plus as well.

ugi 2mo ago

I used to consider myself a watch power user. I've started with LG G Watch in 2014 and had almost every generation in between, and from a lot of different manufcaturers Huawei, Skagen, Samsung, etc. I've even wrote and published a couple of Android Wear apps back in the day. I love the idea of having a computer on the wrist that I can program. But in the end, what I'm using it for is notifications, time, timer or stopwatch, and glanceable weather forecast. (And I don't like the weather forecast on android/google wear) Everything else, like sleep tracking, exercise, heart rate tracking, is a nice to have that I would look at from time to time and then do nothing with that information. Anyways, a month or so ago I bought an amoled esp32c6 watch devkit for ~30 EUR, wrote firmware in rust, wrote a small android app to sync notifications, time and weather forecast, and I'm good. It's buggy and I need to polish it up, but it's exactly what I need. And if I ever need something else, I can just add it. Of course this is an extreme approach. It would be much easier to buy a cheap fitness tracker that does all this and has much longer battery life. I just like to be able to tinker with things.

benrutter 2mo ago
That sounds like a cool project! Did you write it up anywhere at all? (or have any plans to?)
- ugi 2mo ago
  Yeah it is quite fun, I've also replaced the speaker that the devkit comes with, with a little vibration motor, which adds a small soldering adventure to the whole process, but it wasn't that hard. I didn't write it up anywhere, I might at some point, but free time/willpower I have to spend on it is minimal. Although I have an itch to make a v2 with a combo of rp2350 and nrf52840 If you're interested here is the devkit I was using it's this: https://www.waveshare.com/esp32-c6-touch-amoled-2.06.htm https://www.waveshare.com/esp32-c6-touch-amoled-2.06.htm Apart from some unfortunate GPIO pin selection they made, and a bit of bugs and missing features in esp rust hal, it wasn't that bad to work with.

Nursie 2mo ago

She's using it for payments, that's probably more than a lot of people! I set them up on mine but rarely bother, the phone is my payment device. I wear my Apple Watch because it's a fancy health-monitor and I am anticipating atrial fibrillation in my medium-term future (thanks, dad's side of the family!). So it's nice to have a thing that is checking for signs of that and recording a few metrics. I might even upgrade to one with a newer sensor for BP etc before long. Beyond that and checking the time though, I have almost no use for it. Plus I've had to turn off nearly every other feature and integration I could find because they were annoying. Gestures which fire when I'm doing the garden, stopping the music I'm listening to. Button long-press actions which get activated by clothing. I eventually had to turn the watch over so the buttons don't get hit by glove-cuffs and cause random stuff to happen when I move around.

ChrisRR 2mo ago

I consider myself a power user, and I still can't find a use for my watch beyond fitness tracking when I have my phone in my pocket anyway

Manfrednotfunny 2mo ago

Im still giving myself the illusion that tracking my sleep is doing anything relevant. I sleep bad -> buy watch -> watch tells me I sleep bad -> win/win? In the gym, i use the timer. But is it worth it to carry a watch all the time, keep it charged etc. for a timer? I'm considering buying a timer for the gym. We just do'nt need a lot of tech in reality.

benrutter 2mo ago
Yeah, I agree - I think smart watches haven't yet evolved out of just being a fun tech gadget. If you just want a timer, I'd recommend just getting a cheap digital watch - you can get a casio for like 20 euros/dollars/pounds/etc and it'll give you a timer and the time/date and not much else. No cool tech gadget, but it 'll stay charged for 10 years rather than 2 days.
wincy 2mo ago
My watch tells me I sleep amazing and I wake up feeling like crap. No idea why, but also have no idea what to do about it.

t_mahmood 2mo ago

Having a Garmin, ruined me with awesome battery life, but after I melted it, I was using Amazfit ActiveEdge (can't find straps, the watch is still ok), which made me realize, I'm fine with it, both serves what I need, with over week of battery life. And, that matters the most at the end. Having ADHD, a smart watch is a life saver. But charging it everyday? Nope, who have time for that!? Alarms are crucial, I have 8 alarms set, just to remind me of passing time. Calendar is also very useful, for quick glance, externalizing of information is really important when you have a bad memory Sleep tracking, at least I know how long I might have slept. Surprisingly, Amazfit detects going to sleep very consistently and reliably then Garmin (not counting, sleep level detection accuracy) which did surprise me a lot Activity reminder, it reminds me I'm sitting for too long, and have a goal set. Which is really useful for me. Steps, weather, notifications all are pretty important, to keep me off mobile. If I open the mobile, it's given I'll lose focus and lose a large chunk of time.

ValentineC 2mo ago
> But charging it everyday? Nope, who have time for that!? I wear my Apple Watch to sleep, and take it off to charge whenever I'm in the shower. That's just another routine for me.
- t_mahmood 2mo ago
  Well, from an ADHD book, do not remember the exact statement but goes like this, "But doctor, how do I remember to take the medicine that is supposed to help me remember things" If I have to charge it every day, it will create another thing that I will forget to do, and make it ultimately useless for me. And once you get used to 10-15 days of battery life, charging your watch every day feels absolutely absurd.

TeMPOraL 2mo ago

> What the user wants to do with it is almost totally at odds with what the company is selling. Alexii are mostly kitchen timers, song players, and light switches. No one is a "power user" constantly installing skills and using it for anything which increases the product team's engagement metrics. There is IMO a design flaw that tanked adoption of not just Alexa, but also on-phone voice assistants. People would want to use reliable equivalent of "computer, play music" or any kind of "computer, do X". But what is on offer by all major companies is, "${brand name}, do X on ${brand name} with ${brand name}". No thanks. More broadly, I think this is rarely noted explicitly - user interfaces are ultimate marketing platforms, because you get to inject your marketing literally between the user and the task they're doing. Whether purposefully or intuitively, companies understand that, and the UX goes to shit as they design the product to also be a marketing platform.

regularfry 2mo ago

I got a pixel 4 after some surgery basically for the fall detection. Otherwise it's mainly doing what the Fitbit I had 8(?) years ago did for me, with added GPS. Pulse, steps. As an ADHD-haver it's good to get notifications to the watch so that I can avoid unlocking the phone and risk falling down a rabbit-hole. I think that's under-sold. What I want is a decent (by which I mean SIMPLE) pomodoro app for it, and I'll probably have to write that myself. Does that make me a power user? I was surprised that finding such a thing would be difficult. I tend not to use it for payment because the ergonomics are terrible. Someone needs to tell that team that having the face on the inside of your wrist is entirely valid (especially if you don't want to be whacking your shiny watch face into every passing door handle), but that makes you do contortions if you want to get it close to a card reader. Not only that but the way screen locking works is ungainly enough that the fact you need to use it more with the face towards your body makes it a constant annoyance. I've unknowingly reorganised my widget order far too often because of this.

mbirth 2mo ago

I'm fully locked into Apple Watches as I'm using these features regularly. Not sure whether that counts as a power user. - Time - Notifications (also: dismissing a notification on the watch also removes it from the phone) - Smart Stack (relevant info pops up automatically) - Wakeup alarm - Timers - Payments - Express Travel mode (yes, I'm aware of the vulnerability) - Siri (especially great with the upcoming Siri AI) - Medication tracking - Heart rate monitoring, Sleep tracking, Sleep apnoea detection, ECG - Phone calls while the phone is in a different room - controlling Home devices - automatic tracking of hikes or walks Charging has never been an issue for me. I put it on the charger while I sit at the computer or game console in the evening and when I go to bed later, it's fully charged and ready for the night and the next day.

odiroot 2mo ago

For me, showing the time, calendar notifications and turn-by-turn navigation with Google Maps is all the smartwatch has to offer. Sleep tracking is a good extra. That's it. Pebble was great at providing that, with crazy good battery life.

richiebful1 2mo ago

This is why I bought a Casio G-shock smartwatch. I use my watch primarily as a watch: I like to track my workouts, and it is nice to get important notifications to my watch when I'm busy / trying to focus

robbru 2mo ago
Same here. I wore the Apple Watch for about 6 years. It helped me get excited about exercising and swimming on the daily, but the notifications and "focus modes" made it feel like a chore. I switched to the GShock GW-5000 and never looked back.

r_lee 2mo ago

I primarily use it for steps, stopwatch/timers (the best part imo), quick weather check that's about it

evanjrowley 2mo ago

As an owner of a Pixel Watch 4 with LTE, the killer feature is the ability to handle calls/texts without an actual phone. With a smart watch, I can maintain important communications without looking at a device with a screen large enough to show me an advertisement, large enough to be useful for doom-scrolling, large enough for consuming slop, etc.

sjs382 2mo ago

I have a Galaxy Watch 7 that I keep on silent ("Mute all sounds"). I think I'd be considered a heavy user. I don't use it to do a lot, but I've come to rely on the things I do use it for and I use it frequently. I use it: - To tell the time - Set one-off timers/alarms - Recurring silent/vibration alarms throughout the day Wake up, start work, mid-morning break/checkpoint, lunch, end lunch, mid-day break/checkpoint, 30 minutes before "clock out", end of work day, and medication reminders - For silent/vibration notifications (HEAVILY filtered. Mostly messages from VIPs, security camera notifications, reminders, "rain in 15 minutes") - Set reminders "Remind me tomorrow morning to schedule a vet appointment" - Add things to different shopping lists (grocery list, shopping list, etc) - Quick, short-term notes ("10 M4x20mm screws") - Casual health tracking: sleep, step count, activity minutes, etc Almost every one of my interactions with it is via voice/Gemini.

wink 2mo ago

They might just get a stroke if they'll hear what I use my smartwatch for. Hop on my bike, press start, and at the end of the ride press stop, then look at the result on my phone (sometimes). And if I don't forget to put it on I read the time. I have navigated with it once in the first week. But luckily it's not a Pixel Watch.

gofreddygo 2mo ago

For you and me, using a thing regularly for longer (than people around you) and possibly for more than one purpose makes for a power user. If you're on the Pixel Watch team however... "power user" takes on a different meaning

ksec 2mo ago

The most important thing I bought it for was Health Tracking. Although I still don't understand why it ask me to do tacking sessions when I am simply walking faster. 2nd most useful feature is vibrate alarm. Telling time not even that important on my list. I don't do payment with watch. Since I think the motion of making my wrist to the counter is awkward. Since we are always on our phone it doesn't make it much simpler.