How much have I spent!

 

 

If people took as much time to research their partners as they do to buy a smartwatch then the world will be, um, a different place. I suppose that I will now have to hurriedly bring in a whole series of disclaimers that this is not about me and mine, it is just a casual thought.  A casual thought, brought on however, by my own experience.  And I will stop there as I appear to be adding to the depth of the hole!

I have been researching watches for some time.  I need little impetus to do so as watches and their purchase are a ‘thing’ of mine.  Ever since my first Ingersoll (8 jewels, or was it even more?) that was my first real timepiece – discounting the red plastic with yellow moveable arms thing on which I learned to tell the time – and the start of a life-long casual (but serious) affair with watches.

I have never been a fan of the upper range of absurdly expensive watches for much the same reason that I shun expensive fountain pens: I am drawn to both, but know that my less than serious approach to things material will mean that they will go the way of all flesh before I have had my money’s worth out of them.

I have always maintained that my favourite Madge song is “I am a material girl”.  I adore things, philosophically and materially, but I do not look after them in the way that I should.  I was brought up with grandparents and parents who were firmly in the ‘make do and mend’ generations, but they produced someone who, even though he had a cub badge which represented the fact that he had proved himself not to be a spendthrift (for a stipulated period of time) has yet to learn the true value of money and via that the value of things.

Far from the ‘make do and mend’ approach to life, I have always veered (quite directly) towards the ‘buy new’ approach to the capitalist society.  The evil fiends behind the planned obsolescence that drives our society must regard me as some sort of patron saint.  Cameras, computers, mobile phones and, above all, watches litter my life as I eagerly embrace each new fad, app and gadget.

As far as the watches are concerned, I had thought that I had found the smartwatch of my dreams in the Pebble.  This excellent watch was funded on Kickstarter or similar and produced a smartwatch with an always-on display, waterproof for swimming, a large face with digits easy enough for me to read, metal construction with metal band and all at a reasonable cost!  Job done!  And it was, until the firm produced a further watch, a development from the original (that I backed) and I waited for another great watch.

And it didn’t happen.  Because the firm was bought by the larger watch maker Fitbit and that was the last that we heard of the Pebble.  Except, of course, thousands of customers actually own them and have continued to use them.  But the apps that we use to make the most of the smart capabilities are gradually being un-supported and if anything goes wrong with the watch there is no real system to repair it.  The Pebble community does what it can, but our watches are gallopingly obsolescent.  One of the buttons on my watch is not now working.  It still tells the time, but that is a far cry from what it should be able to do.  So, I decided to search for a replacement.

The internet is awash with ‘reduced’ cost smartwatches costing between 20 and 100 euros, with the median price being just under 50.  What these watches offer is astonishing: they play music, take photos, locate you, tell you the weather, height above sea level – and tell the time.  Just as with modern phones, their primary function, the fact that they allow people to speak to each other seems to be the least of their capabilities!

But these ‘bargains’ were rarely waterproof, or if they were, they were not equipped with an always-on screen.  As soon as I had found a watch that seemed like a reasonable replacement for my Pebble, a more searching examination of the attributes of the watch would reveal that it actually had “everyday waterproof” status which mean that you could wash dishes carefully in it, or it would take a few drops of rain.  Or, more revealingly, it would say nothing about its waterproof status and so you would buy at your own risk.

I must have looked at scores of watches and rejected the lot.  Well, that is not strictly true.  I have ‘fallen’ for one or two too-good-to-be-true offers that have turned out to be exactly that.  I now own one watch that actually plays stored music on its tiny loudspeakers!  This was supposed to be waterproof, but the back of that particular watch is very easy to dislodge and is anything but waterproof.  There is another watch that I helped fund on Kickstarter that is powered by body heat and will never need a battery, and it is also waterproof.  But the most important aspect of this wonder watch is that it doesn’t yet exist!  Or at least its production seems impossibly delayed.

So, I have taken commercial action and bought a watch: the Amazfit Stratos.  It seems to tick most of my ‘must have’ attributes: easily readable watch face, good battery life, waterproof for swimming.  The proof of course will become clear in the next few weeks through use – but I live in hope.  And it will, after all, be the end result of many hours of pleasurable imaginary spending.

Later.

I have now been struck by the ‘waiting for a bus syndrome’ – in the sense that you wait and wait for the one you want and then two come along at the same time.  As with buses so with watches.  No sooner had a bought the Amazfit than the watch that I supported on Kickstarter, indeed the one I referred to above, suddenly became a reality and, after a hefty import duty paid to the delivery driver, I now have a Matrix that I could put on my wrist!

This too is waterproof and never needs a battery (in theory) because of its ability to extract energy from the difference between body temperature and ambient temperature.  I shall put the technology for this in the same category as the oscillating crystals that tell the time in watches!

Apart from the difficulty of pairing the Matrix with my phone – and that was solved by reference to the Matrix website and the FAQs – I now have two working watches, two NEW working watches, to replace my fading Pebble!

As it happens, I am wearing the Amazfit today.  Having made an executive decision last night after weighing up the attributes of both.  I can’t pretend that I have been scientific or even fair with the products, but a decision has been made.

The reasons: the Amazfit has a dedicated ‘swimming’ app that gives lots of information that I am sure will come in useful some time or other; it is easy to use; it has the bigger number size when telling the time; it looks better than the Matrix and it is lighter.  I think that they are roughly comparable in price and both have an always-on display on which I insist.  I could probably recommend either, but at the moment the Amazfit has taken pride of place with the Matrix being a reserve watch.

I don’t think that I have ordered any more watches in the deep past that are suddenly going to pop over the fence into my time reality – but I really am a sucker for a well designed face, so to speak and I cannot positively rule out the fact that I backslid some time ago and there is a timepiece with my name on it making its way to Castelldefels from China!

I await the next post.