Besides just notifications, what tips or advice can you give to using the watch to the full potential?
I have the Garmin instinct 1, and will be getting the 3 sometime soon.
I love it, because it gives me all of the features I want in a smart watch without all the bells and whistles that I’ll never use. The battery still lasts for nearly 2 weeks, and this is 6 years after purchase. It’s great if you do any nature activities, and even comes in a version that has a solar panel in the face to extend the battery.
The one thing I did wish it did is broadcast BLE packets so I could use it in my smart home setup to track my movements around the house and turn lights on and off and such
Apple Watch 11
I mostly use it for convenience, so I don’t need to pull my phone out
- Apple Pay
- Weather
- Music controls
- timers. Lots of timers
- Reminders/notifications/texts
- random search questions
- occasionally phone calls
In theory I track
- exercise
- sleep
Feature I’m most interested in
- any health sensor
I upgraded from an Apple Watch 3 because I could no longer update in place, only reset and reinstall.
I’ll upgrade again when a compelling health sensor is added. Probably blood pressure
Samsung Galaxy 6 Classic in 47mm. I’ve had Wear OS watches since the early days, but this is the first one that didn’t involve any obvious compromises. Readability, responsiveness, performance, and battery life are all excellent.
For a long time, my favorite thing about it was that I could design and use my own personal taste in watchfaces. Unfortunately, Google broke that, when they switched watchface formats. The new one simply can’t do what the old one made possible.
Making Android and Wear less useful and more annoying seems to be the only thing Google does these days. And Microsoft is doing exactly the same things with Windows. I’ve begun the move to Linux, but I don’t see an equivalent option for smart watches, which is sad.
These days I use my smart watch primarily as a way of not missing notifications on my phone. It is convenient, but the fun has gone out of it.
I have two very nice non-smart watches that I would like to wear, but I do need alarms and timers. The sound on both watches is far too quiet for me to hear, even when there is very little ambient noise. That may be partly my aging hearing, but younger people assure me that they really are too quiet to be reliable.
My next move is likely to be switching to one of my non-smart watches and using my phone for alarms and timers. So basically, giving up and going back to what I was doing fifteen years ago. Thanks for all the forward progress, Google.
Multiple Refurbished Apple Watch SE
80% setting timers.
15% exercise tracking.
5% finding phone, checking weather and compass.
I’ve tried to go without it - but the ease of setting common timers pulled me back.
Refurb SE2 here-
50% Telling the time! (no clocks within view at work)
50% kilojoule/exercise tracking.
I use the PineTime, a fully open-source smartwatch, but it’s not very smart. It shows me the time and my notificafions, which is all I need. (It also does more things I dont use). It only costs like 35 euro as well.
I use one too. Only thing I wish for is longer memory for notifications. It only does a very limited number of characrers, and with a long group chat name the message often gets cut off.
I have a Garmin Vivoactive 6, and I use it for the following:
- sleep quality tracking. It judges me in the morning.
- steps and calories burned so that I can justify eating or drinking something shitty.
- whether or not to pull out my phone and respond to a text message
- how far from the green I am
That’s… about it. Would love other ideas.
How you judge your sleep massively influences how you feel, so I always judge how I slept, then check the watch if it agrees. If I think I slept well and the watch says no, I say technical malfunction. If I felt I slept bad and the watch says I slept well, I feel better about my sleep. Win win
everything that runs well with gadget bridge
Garmin 6S Solar Pro
I use it to:
- Tracking my steps and walks
- Tracking biking & hiking
- Monitoring my sleep
In the past I also used it to pay in grocery stores
I use both a Garmin Instinct 3 (AMOLED) and a Garmin Instinct 2. When I bought them I added ~ 25 Workouts I do normally. After that I paired it up with GadgetBridge. I use it to track my gym activities and sleep patterns. I hardly ever use the GPS feature, but sometimes I use it when I’m hiking.
How’s the rep tracking in the 3? I have the 1 and am getting the 3 soon, and the tracking is hot garbage on the 1.
Also, how does it handle sweat? If my arm gets sweaty, the 1 decides to divide my heart rate by 2.
3 rep tracking is better than 2 which is miles above 1 in my opinion. I got the Instinct 1 as a gift during the pandemic and hardly used it because it would drop reps too often to even be useful at the gym. The Instinct 2 was a decent upgrade for this in particular, but I would say the HR monitor in the Instinct 1 seemed slightly more accurate than the Instinct 2’s. I’m really happy with the Instinct 3 though. It seems like Garmin has addressed all my own complaints about the Instinct 2.
As for sweat, buddy I’m right there with you. I have to peel clothes off after every session but both the 2 and 3 don’t seem fazed by my sweaty arms. I do try to tighten my band a notch before each session to get accurate HR and that seems to help a lot. My only advice is that if you’re going for the 3 just grab the AMOLED version unless you’re outside A LOT. I originally got the Solar and it just would not hold a charge well even if I did frequent hikes. Returned it and swapped for the AMOLED and it’s generally holding a charge for me for ~ 18d with Pulse Ox turned off. No real complaints with the 3 just that I liked the displays on the 1 and 2s more than the colorful display of the 3, but functionality-wise it’s a step above both of them
Thank you for the detailed response! I fell a lot better about sticking with the Instinct
I dont know if a MiBand9 really count as a smartwatch but i use it to trigger home assistant events either manually or automatically
On my old MiBand5 I could have an automatic alarm after falling asleep during the day, so I wouldn’t have too long naps, I miss this feature
I also use it to get the current time.
Ohh, how do you do that? That sounds cool!
Not with the official app “Mi Fitness” but with “Notify for Xiaomi”, there is a feature to connect to HomeAssistant and other services
I had a pixel watch 2, and my main activity with it was charging. Then I got a OnePlus watch R2, and that thing is way better. I mainly use it to track my activities, sleep, etc. But another benefit I wouldn’t want to miss is to quickly check what has been ringing up my phone without taking my phone out. Oh, and having a quick look at the temperature/rain forecast before I go out has saved me thousands of times.
