this post was submitted on 05 Aug 2025
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Flash memory is tiny, but it's not replacing anything, it's being added, which is a problem for cost and size. If you were going to take BT out then... sure, but that's not what's happening here.
Now, the conversation is different if you reframe it as "I just like this quirky dirt cheap watch with a USB port on it". At that point I have nothing to say other than... sure, why not.
What I don't like is the notion that USB C is either a better alternative or a candidate for standardization, which is how the post came across to me.
Oh, and I disagree about the always on screen, too. In all honestly, the two things that make smartwatches still less polished than traditional watches is a) battery life, and b) the fact that there is at best a second of lag when you try to check the time and at worst you need to shake your wrist to try to get your watch to realize it's being looked at so it decides to wake up.
There's no question that having a display of the time on at all times is better. It's just not practical with the energy costs and battery storage. At one point I bought that Garmin watch that has a standard old digital watch screen on top of the modern display (speaking of weird). It was a neat idea, but it turns out that the battery life for it on normal use wasn't much better than other watches and the dumb thing still had a backlight it turned on via motion detection, so it was just as laggy as a normal smartwatch.
I'd take a better iteration on that tech over a USB C charger any day, if we're doing weird.
In which case, you might like the eInk screen on the Watchy. I reviewed it at https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2023/06/review-watchy-an-eink-watch-full-of-interesting-compromises/
Screen is always on but eInk gives it great battery life. Although the rest of the watch is even more experimental than the USB-C one ๐
Hah. That's the kind of weird I can get behind, but I definitely wouldn't want it to be the default.
Also I'm not sure how I feel about the possibility of the watch dying and it getting stuck on giving you the wrong time. I guess it's how old analogue watches worked, but there's something to knowing when your watch is dead.