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Re:Watchy: Hackable $50 Smartwatch by CraigJPerry on Tuesday March 02, 2021 @06:29PM (#26322664)
>> My Seiko automatic

Bah, a real curmudgeon would have said a £10 Casio quartz :-)

I flick back and forth on this. The features i actually use on my Apple Watch:

    1. it extends phone battery life[1]
    2. I'm UK based but i work with colleagues across APAC & NA - in 3 of the corners of the "infograph" watch face i have NYC, Mumbai & HK times, it shows the city, the 24hr time & handily the offset - i use this all the time because outlook is poor for this simple use case
    3. The 4th corner has a timer - i use it for everything from "the dog's out the back garden, i should remember to let her back in, in 5 mins" to brewing a cuppa to reminding me to do something - the UI here is really good, i'm a mixture of "hey siri, set a timer for 25 minutes" vs. just tapping one of the pre-set timers
    4. Up next calendar entry - coupled with calendar notifications, the only notifications i still use today
    5. Day date complication
    6. Temperature - but it's not the current temp i find useful, it's the daily range display - every night "can i let the cat stay out overnight or will it get too cold?"
    7. it's super convenient for driving directions in a rental car when abroad, not so much in my own car though
    8. Music / audiobook / podcast volume & skipping
    9. The vo2 max readout has caused me to change exercise habits and the HRV thing has caused me to pay more attention to my sleep schedule - he says at 11:26pm
   10. But my favourite is Apple Pay, personal account, joint account, corporate card & flight tickets back when we used to do that, super handy
Features i don't use but pretend i do:

    1. Every other thing on there - from sleep trackers to camera viewfinder remote view thingy (cool, but useless)
A £19 "Casio Royale" would do most of the essentials though.

[1] in 2017 when i got my 2nd gen apple watch, my iPhone 7 would be almost dead when i got home from work. When i started using the apple watch, my phone battery would have ~20% left when i got home. I was no longer wakening the phone screen to deal with notifications or fiddling with podcast / music controls. Shortly after that i disabled all notifications but that's another story.

Re:Watchy: Hackable $50 Smartwatch by hluska on Tuesday March 02, 2021 @06:42PM (#26322804)
Hey friend, I just wanted to let you know that I love your writing. I’ve got nothing of substance to add but you’ve got a great voice. Do you blog? If so, I’d love a link.
Re:Watchy: Hackable $50 Smartwatch by CraigJPerry on Tuesday March 02, 2021 @07:13PM (#26323084)
Hey - many thanks for the kind words, it put a smile on my face. I'm afraid i don't blog, i did dabble with it back in 2015-16 http://www.craigjperry.com/quadrifilar-helix-antenna.html
Re:Watchy: Hackable $50 Smartwatch by mtm on Tuesday March 02, 2021 @08:58PM (#26323780)
Regarding the "camera viewfinder remote view thingy" I've used it to:

* point my phone at a TV while I aligned an outside VHF antenna

* point my phone at a security flood while I figured out which breaker in the garage controlled it

Re:Watchy: Hackable $50 Smartwatch by tweetle_beetle on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @09:07AM (#26328426)
The Casio Royale is brilliant, but suffers from planned/functional obsolescence: an inaccessible battery, a face which is susceptible to scratches and a plastic body which is painted.
Re:Watchy: Hackable $50 Smartwatch by hvidgaard on Wednesday March 03, 2021 @03:40AM (#26326051)
I agree. I get way more out of my watch that I initially expected.