I Gave In & Bought a New Watch

26 Jun 2019 at 19:56 // under Personal

I have been nursing my fitbit surge watch for the last year, ever hopeful that I could delay buying another piece of technology that I can’t use most of the time¹, but at last I have admitted defeat and accepted that I need a new watch.

I had already replaced the band once, then taped the band together with gaffer tape, and now it has split. I suppose I could have replaced the band again, but at this stage it is probably time I upgraded to a true smart watch rather than the fitness tracker plus (some) notifications that the previous watch could do.

I had expected I would need to upgrade at the end of last year and had done some research then, but didn’t find anything in particular. It was a bit of decision paralysis. Too many choices and I wasn’t sure which one to go for. In the end I have bought the fossil sport

The main things I liked about it:

• Build in GPS so it can be used as a running/cycling watch
• Water proof suitable for swimming (it annoyed me that the fitbit surge was not)
• Standard watch straps (so I don’t have the same problem that I had with the surge)
• Relatively slim and lightweight
• Battery saver mode (turns it into a basic watch for ‘days’)

Other features I am less bothered by but may become useful:

• Built in microphone that can work with google assistant
• On board ‘music’ storage (I assume it needs to work with headphones or something?)
• NFC/Google Pay on the watch (so I don’t even need to get my phone out of my pocket)
• Advanced application connectivity and notifications that link with the phone (again, avoiding the need to take the phone out of my pocket).

I have only had it a few hours and so far I have found it a bit fiddly to do what I want but I am sure I will get used to it.

1. Mobile phones and smart watches are forbidden within the refinery gates, even in control rooms and offices ↩

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