Smartwatches / Fitness Trackers

Fit and finish is in another class from the Pebbles I've seen, as you'd expect given the price difference. I have no idea what gen Pebble I've seen, can't say I know much about them. I think smart watches are a stupid idea in general, but I was at least impressed with the build quality of the iWatch.

Well I had the Pebble Steel and liked it, so I think I'll like this. After everything is said and done, its about the same price as the new Pebble for me, so it seemed like an easy choice. We'll see how I feel about gen 2 (which I'm 99% sure we won't get such a discount on, or if I'll still be there).

I'll probly wait for the reviews to come out to get one. Not sure how I feel about the non waterproof on a sports watch...

The Moto 360 is discounted to $180 on Amazon, which is a pretty sweet deal. I forgot to recharge it a couple nights ago and it was the first time since buying the watch that I didn't wear it. Definitely felt like something was missing.

This is really a device that should be used for 1-2 weeks before deciding how useful it is. It's like trying to explain why someone would want a smartphone in the early days when few people bought them: there's no earth shattering feature, but a lot of convenient things that smooth how you use technology.

The needing to be tethered to a real smart device is a breaker for me. I can understand if it did everything an Iphone did for health shit and still forwarded text messages, but the fact that you need an iphone near you to do so just makes it a retarded purchase. Iphones already do everything the smart watch does, and you are required to have one to make use of all the iWatch features? Yeah... that's money being spent for money's sake, and for no other reason.

Rezz_sl said:

The needing to be tethered to a real smart device is a breaker for me. I can understand if it did everything an Iphone did for health shit and still forwarded text messages, but the fact that you need an iphone near you to do so just makes it a retarded purchase. Iphones already do everything the smart watch does, and you are required to have one to make use of all the iWatch features? Yeah... that's money being spent for money's sake, and for no other reason.

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I doubt it will stay this way forever but it's pretty clearly a move to get people to impulse buy back into the iPhone ecosystem with their brand new product. And it's working. Samsung is losing people in the Phablet market to the iPhone 6/6 Plus and the new Note is dropping one of it's most resounding features the expansion card slot. They are even starting to listen to their customers and cutting back on the bloatware. If they had done this before I might have stayed on Android.

The newest note has the expansion slot. Is there a new tablet past the Note pro 12??, or are you talking about the phone.

I just completely switched to android. New Edge phone, and the Tablet.

The apple devices aren't even in the same ball park imo.

You are right. I meant the S6. IMO the best tablet isn't Android or iOS. It's the new Surface Pro 3. Android phones are clearly better hardware wise but the Apple ecosystem just has better support. Apps are kept up-to-date more frequently and if they only exist in one place it's almost always iOS. Plus having so fewer devices to code for makes coding for iOS much easier. This also makes some of Android's hardware advantages less apparent because iOS hardware is standardized and programmers can push for more out of it.

iOS isn't superior hardware wise and it has significantly less custom-ability but there is more then enough there to work with for the sheep and like it or not those sheep drive the market. Where they go so follows the money which is why the Apple ecosystem is what it is.

Well yeah Surface Pro 3 is really good, but for a decent one they are double to triple the note 12. But that is the advantage of having a real computer versus a more tablet operating system.

Also for battery life, and heat the note 12 is really well done. I also think the screen on the note 12 seems a lot sharper.

Selix_sl said:

I doubt it will stay this way forever but it's pretty clearly a move to get people to impulse buy back into the iPhone ecosystem with their brand new product. And it's working. Samsung is losing people in the Phablet market to the iPhone 6/6 Plus and the new Note is dropping one of it's most resounding features the expansion card slot. They are even starting to listen to their customers and cutting back on the bloatware. If they had done this before I might have stayed on Android.

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Oh I'm not doubting the business acumen behind it, but it's the whole Apple culture deal clearly feeding into itself. I'm sure the 3rd gen will most likely not need a tether but for early adopters this is basically an Iphone 6+expenditure watch that doesn't expand on feature sets.

One thing I will never doubt is Apple's ability to convince people to give them money, hah.

If nothing else, the popularity of apple's version of a smartwatch might draw more attention to them as a whole and in turn cause better features to be implemented (regardless of OS).

Ignatius_sl said:

If nothing else, the popularity of apple's version of a smartwatch might draw more attention to them as a whole and in turn cause better features to be implemented (regardless of OS).

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This.

All of this still seems so obtuse to me with current technology, though. Don't get me wrong, if I could take my sweet ass analog watch and for x dollars more have it put up a little HUD notification when something happened (call/text, alarm, weather alert, whatever) with no changes in case size, quality, battery life, etc., I would probably use it.

But I don't want a bulky ass ipod nano shitheap with 6 hours of battery life on my wrist. This really feels like an 80s throwback to the 'half-ass the future' mentality where you make something comically ineffective at replicating movie/tv studio magic. I had that watch with the original Mario game on it. I thought it was hot shit, until I realized how terrible it was once the glam wore off.

Still waiting on battery technology as usual.

That's my issue as well. I have a few watches, but my favorite is a lovely Omega Speedmaster I got as a gift years ago. It's a classic, looks good with everything whether I'm in a suit or jeans. It will last decades. Looks likethis

Compare that withthis. Granted a little cheaper than a speedmaster, but it's still an $1100 'watch' that will be obsolete in <2 years. That's not really a knock on the Apple Watch, out of all the smartwatches I've handled I think it's the nicest build, but still not something I'd wear.

Celestein_sl said:

Same, which sucks because the way they do fit tracking on the device actually works really well in water unlike almost every other device out there.

But not being waterproof put it back on the junk list, waterproof and I woulda ended up buying one.

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My nano just died and my Polar watch needs to be replaced. Figured I would get one of these, can't believe it's not waterproof.

I am disappoint.

Rezz_sl said:

The needing to be tethered to a real smart device is a breaker for me.

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I think the Moto 360 counts steps even if you're disconnected from the phone. I suppose I should test this...

But in general, there's really no reason why the watch should duplicate what your phone does. How often do you leave your house without your phone?

Skrala_sl said:

That's my issue as well. I have a few watches, but my favorite is a lovely Omega Speedmaster I got as a gift years ago. It's a classic, looks good with everything whether I'm in a suit or jeans. It will last decades. Looks likethis

Compare that withthis. Granted a little cheaper than a speedmaster, but it's still an $1100 'watch' that will be obsolete in <2 years. That's not really a knock on the Apple Watch, out of all the smartwatches I've handled I think it's the nicest build, but still not something I'd wear.

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The default-off display that only wakes up when you move your wrist or interact with it is annoying to me. Looks like a dead device on your arm. If I designed a smart watch I'd want the E-Ink color of the Pebble, water proofing of the Pebble, Battery life of the Pebble, NFC interactions to do remote unlocking, paying for stuff, whatever, Customization notifications with quick response options and a full suite fitness tracker.Also music player controls (can control another device like iPhone, iPod etc.

The last thing I would want is for the smart watch part to be fully removable from the house/band so custom housing/band makers could come up with outer designs that I could just insert the smart part into. It would be cool if you could even pop it out and insert it into your car dash like a key then pop it out and onto your wrist to lock your car and keep moving. Etc. Etc.