Smart watches?

[Ken Fitzgerald]

For 34 years, my life was controlled by watches, pagers, cell phones, and answering services. When I was forced to retire due to awakening deaf, I also quit wearing watches. We have clocks in the house and I have a wall clock in my shop. Now due to age, I think I would like to get a smart watch to monitor my heart rate, steps, oxygen level and sleep patterns. I want something tough enough to wear in a shop, yardwork environment. I trust the reviews at Creekers more than I trust most online reviews.

I have an Android cell phone but don't turn it on every day. The only reason I would want it to sync with the phone is I find it easier to see and setup my my wife's smart watch for her by viewing it on the cell phone.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

[Warren Lake]

no cell and wearing a 30 year old timex that was my teachers or his son. Lady in the post office showed me her watch the other day and how it sends her sleep history of the night before to the phone how much REM and and. then another friend said girlfriends watch measures his O2 level. Sounds like both of those things are good. Dont know how it works or if it can if you dont have a cell, Like say if you can send to a computer if that is possible. Think its a good thing though.

[Tom M King]

I don't wear anything on wrists or fingers, but my Wife has an Apple Watch. She can answer phone calls on it, messages, it can take an EKG, and it does way more things than she or I know how to do with it. She can answer a phone call out on the lake on a paddle board. The absolute best feature of it is the Find My Phone ap. She doesn't always carry her phone with her so that presented all sorts of problems before I bought her the Apple Watch. Now she doesn't have any trouble finding her phone.

I haven't studied them much except when I bought that one for her. I think she'd have a hard time getting by without it now. You absolutely want one to sync with your phone.

[John M Wilson]

I have an Android cell phone.

Any recommendations?

Thanks in advance!

I have a Samsung Galaxy Watch 6, and have had one from generation 4, and maybe 2 before that.

I really like it, because it pairs seamlessly with my Galaxy smartphone, and especially the Samsung Health app that runs on both the phone and the watch.

Unless I wear my wife's cheater glasses (!) I too have trouble making out the tiniest details on the watch, and much prefer looking at my stats on the phone app.

I track my sleep, steps, exercise, heart rate, 02 saturation, weight/BMI, ECG, and more through the collaboration of my watch and phone. Overkill? Maybe, but it amuses me.

The reason I got a smart watch in the first place many years ago is that an Apple watch literally saved my neighbor's life. She had fallen in her back garden, and struck her head on a rock. No one saw her, and when she got up, she didn't think anything was wrong. The watch alerted 911, who dispatched a policeman to check it out. When he saw her nose bleeding, he called an ambulance, and the good doctors at the hospital repaired a brain bleed that could have had tragic consequences.

I ordered a watch that weekend.

[Bruce Page]

Ken, I’ve been wearing an Apple watch for 4-5 years. I upgraded to the series 9 last November. I wouldn’t want to be without it. It just works.

[Jim Koepke]

The absolute best feature of it is the Find My Phone ap.

It would be nice if they had a find my glasses app.

Maybe for some of us older folks a find my teeth app.

Finding the TV remotes would be good.

jtk

[Jim Becker]

We went to smart watches a few years ago. At first, at least for me, it was because I wanted the integration with my iPhone and MacOS systems, but also found the device to be extremely comfortable to wear. You see, I stopped wearing a watch like a decade and a half ago because my wrist was just not happy with it. Did a belt loop watch for a while, but even gave up on that once I trained myself to "just look at the phone" if I needed to know the time. It was kinda a shame because I actually owned a nice Rolex that was my maternal grandfather's. The app notification and other features like automatically authenticating me to my computer just upped the enjoyment. 'Got one for Professor Dr. SWMBO shortly thereafter and she was enjoying some of the same plus the ability to manipulate the screen so she could read it more easily than the traditional watch she used to wear. The health tracking features are pretty nice; they don't diagnose, but they do help keep track of both medical and activity factors that can be useful.

Now, the smart watch is even more important to us because of some of Professor Dr SWMBO's health issues. If she misplaces her phone, her purse, her dog walk bag, etc., she can use her Apple Watch to find them. (things sometimes get put in random places and bad eyesight along with memory comes into play) For the bags, I have AirTags on them. She also has some hand-eye coordination issues so I replaced the deadbolt on the front door with a smart lock and she can lock and unlock the door with either a code or her watch or phone. When she's out walking the dog, I can keep track of where she is because of location features in case there is confusion...which has happened. (Our younger daughter allows me locational tracking so when she and her SO are traveling, we know exactly where they are in case there is a problem and we are needed to help)

I can't help with an Android compatible device recommendation, but I will say from my experience, that these devices are useful if you use them, like any technology.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

It would be nice if they had a find my glasses app.

Maybe for some of us older folks a find my teeth app.

Finding the TV remotes would be good.

jtk

My biggest fear these days is I will find myself on the front page of the Lewistion Morning Tribune headlines "Man dies in house fire after he goes back in for his eyes, his ears and his teeth!"

[Brian Runau]

My wife has a fitbit charge unit. Wears it 24 hrs, tracks steps, sleep etc.....

[Patty Hann]

It would be nice if they had a find my glasses app.

Maybe for some of us older folks a find my teeth app.

Finding the TV remotes would be good. jtk

^^^^^THIS^^^^
Funny ... and true

[Ole Anderson]

I have an Apple watch that I find very useful to keep track of my heart rate while exercising and to check my ECG as I have some arrhythmia and am on beta-blockers after a heart attack. I do like the pop-ups for messages. It does have an auto 911 feature if I were to fall or have other issues. Smart only begins to describe it.

[Peter Froh]

I’ve had a Fitbit. It broke.

I’ve had a garmin, it broke.

I’ve been wearing my Apple Watch for years and it’s been tough enough to not break.

[Jason Roehl]

My youngest son bought me a Series 3 Apple Watch for Father’s Day in 2019. I had gone many years without wearing a watch, save for a year or two with a belt clip watch that I loved, but it died, and company went out of business. Anyway, the Series 3 made it just a couple weeks before I managed to scuff the face pretty good. I think I hit it walking through a doorway at work. Then, in ‘22, I was working on my motorcycle, and bumped on the concrete driveway. I looked at it a bit later, and and it didn’t look right. The entire crystal had cracked around the edge and was just held in place by the display’s ribbon cable. I replaced it with a Series 7, which has a far more robust crystal in design, and I have only managed to impart a barely-noticeable scuff on one edge in the 18 or so months I’ve had it. Both are wifi-only; no cellular capability, but work very well on speakerphone—I’ve been able to talk to coworkers on the phone while working on something above a drop ceiling.

All that said, while I would highly recommend an Apple Watch, I don’t know how well it would pair with an Android device, though I believe there is some way to do so.

[Jack Frederick]

Like many here I had weaned myself from a wrist watch, but when the Apple Watch came out the kids bought me one for Xmas. I’m on my second and have had this one for at least 3 yrs. It is comfortable to wear and while I managed to scratch the face while dragging it through a concrete hole that is hardly the watches fault. We do our daily walks, yoga, etc and I track that on the watch. I also get notification on the watch and phone from our ring doorbell camera, which I find useful. it is kind of annoying when it tells me that the decibel level in the shop is to high, but I manage to ignore that. I like the Apple Watch and other Apple products. They are simple and robust.

[Michael Weber]

Great question Ken. Though I’ve never really given them a thought, the positive responses from everyone has me considering it. Evidently they do far more than I thought.