Turns out that smart watch makers have been tweaking the rules a little…. What is a standard rating of water and dust proof has been cheapened.
I can understand why, they are looking to sell as many watches as they can and very few people want to pay for quality, so, rather than build up for quality, they watered down the standard.
Long story short. My watch leaked sweat and shorted out.
Sweat leaked under the rear cover and entered the watch via the heart rate LED’s, from there, it was quick and easy for the battery to soak up that nice salty fluid and well…. you can see from the photo what the result was.
Enough to say I really missed having the features of a smart watch, so try as I might, I just could not chose to live without one.
After putting in a bit of time looking for a replacement, I came to the sad place that there was just nothing out there that ticked all the boxes for me, so no matter which way I went, I knew it was going to be a compromise…… As such, I figured I may as well try something totally different….
It was a case of trying to figure what was the most annoying aspects of the old watch and trying to find something to that addressed most of the pressing issues.
Size. All the current crop of watches are very small.
Always on. Most of the current crop of watches are off until you twist your wrist.
Battery life. Most of the current watches barely get through my typical day.
So. As much as it pains me, I figured I would stray from the Android Wear and try something totally different.
I picked up a Samsung Gear S referb off eBay.
It runs Samsung’s Tizen’s operating system…. Which simply means it is not open or very friendly with its data. (We will get to that in another blog).
Because Samsung have no policy or clue about how to make a smart watch, they made about 8 different ones in very short order. Enough to say with each new model, they abandon the past one(s), so yeah, I bought an old unsupported smart watch. No, I have no idea what I was thinking either.
It is however, a really sweet smart watch.
Big enough to see when I am running.
It is always on.
It goes an easy 2 of my days.
While it does not have the huge range of different watch faces and apps that the Android does (did), it does the basic function of notifications really really well.
Long story short, as long as it does not leak sweat or get broken, it should last me a year or two till someone gets a clue about what active people need in a smart watch and make one.
The only thing I don’t like is the big chrome highlight all the way around it….. Watch this space…
(Heee.. watch is space… see what I did there…..)
