Subj : Smart watches (and watches in general) To : All From : Nightfox Date : Thu Jul 24 2025 04:02 pm I've always liked watches, since I was a kid.. I've often enjoyed wearing a watch, especially when I was younger; when I was a kid, one of my favorite watches was a calculator watch (I'd had a couple of them, one which may have been a Casio, and I remember having a Timex as well); I also liked the Timex Triathalon watches. And more recently, I've also gotten to like Seiko watches. In 2011, I bought my first Seiko watch, when I realized some of them actually aren't as expensive as I thought they were. And several years later, I got another Seiko as a gift. I still have both of those. When smart watches came out, I was skeptical of them, mainly due to their relatively short battery life compared to classic watches (due to their capabilities) and needing to be recharged often. But I decided to buy a Samsung Galaxy watch in 2018 (it was their first generation). I'd often wear it to work and sometimes when running errands, and I thought it was handy to see notifications for my text messages & emails with it. I think the ability to change watch faces is pretty cool too. I didn't really use much of its other featues aside from thsoe though (I haven't really made use of the fitness tracking features). Also, the Galaxy Watch I bought was the Wifi-only model (no LTE/cellular), which was fine to me. Just recently, I bought a Google Pixel Watch 3 to replace my Samsung Galaxy watch. One reason is I'm also using a Google Pixel phone now (I used to use a Samsung Galaxy phone), and I thought it would be good to have a newer smartwatch too. The original Samsung Galaxy Watch used the Tizen OS, but Samsung eventually switched to WearOS for their Galaxy watches, so support for the original Galaxy Watch has been limited. WearOS is also what the Google Pixel Watch uses, so it has pretty good support. I also decided to buy the LTE version of the Google Pixel watch, since my carrier supports smart watches and it's not a whole lot more to add that to my plan; I thought it may come in handy. I like the Google Pixel watch so far. I think it's good to use the same brand as the smartphone, as it tends to integrate better. For instance, there's a camera app on the watch that's able to control the camera on the phone, which may come in handy for setting the phone down somewhere and taking photos remotely. The Pixel Watch also has Fitbit built-in.. I just learned the other day that Google bought Fitbit a while ago, which is the reason why. I may start using the Fitbit stuff eventually. The Google Pixel watch also has more storage in it. I may copy my MP3 music library to it so I can play my music direct from the watch.. And especially with the LTE capability, I could see it being handy to go out for a walk or something and leave my phone behind and just wear the watch with some Bluetooth headphones to listen to music etc.. I still like classic watches too. One of my watches is a Casio solar analog digital hybrid, with a rechargeable battery, and the battery lasts about 10 years before needing to be replaced (and it died a couple years ago, so I need to get the battery replaced). Also, I need to adjust the metal band on that watch again, as it seems a bit tight for my wrist now.. I bought that watch in 2013 and had a couple band links removed to fit me better at the time. I feel like I'm a bit of a watch collector now, though I'm not sure how much money I'd want to put into watches when I won't be wearing most of the ones I have. Anyway, I feel like I'm rambling a bit now.. Just thought I'd share. Nightfox --- SBBSecho 3.29-Linux * Origin: Digital Distortion: digdist.synchro.net (21:1/137) .