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.
