Thursday, June 30, 2016
Smart watch leaves him feeling ticked-off
 |
After trying a so-called "smartwatch" for a month, all I can say is that this
technology isn't yet ready for prime-time and needs to go back for some
serious remedial education.
|
These wrist-mounted, mini computers aim to combine the functionality of an old-fashioned watch with a modern smartphone, yet still requires you to carry a cell phone for most of its functions to work.
People lined up around the block when Apple released their version of the device last year, and many who got them claimed that you won’t understand how great they are until you actually started using one.
Well, I recently got the chance to get one – a hand-me-down Samsung Galaxy Gear from my boss – and after about a month of living with it, I can honestly say, my initial opinion remains unchanged.
As much as I love gadgets, I just didn’t find this device so useful.
Without it tethered to my phone via Bluetooth, all it could really do was tell time and count my steps. And while I really did like the pedometer feature, which showed me I average between 5,000 to 6,000 steps per day and walk about 2.5 miles, I found its primary function – telling time – rather inconvenient.
To save battery life, the Gear, turns off the display, so every time I wanted to see what time it was, I either had to twist my wrist back and forth rather vigorously to reactive it, or press the function button on the side of the watch. On my regular old fashioned analogue watch, all I have to do is slightly turn my wrist and glance down and I can see the time.
While I understand why the Gear, like most other smart watches, turns off its high-resolution LCD screen to save on its relatively short battery life, I don’t get how this is any better or innovative than what I used to have to do almost 40 years ago, when I got my first “Star Wars” digital watch back in 1977 or 78!
 |
Without the Gear Manger or some other similar App on
your smartphone, there's little any current smartwatch can by itself. |
But is this seconds-saving convenience worth the hundreds of dollars these smartwatches going for?
Not for me.
I still find them way too limited. The small faces make it virtually impossible to reply to a text message or enter text in any app with such a tiny on-screen keyboard. I also found typing numbers in on my “big-key” calculator app or the remote phone dialer difficult because the keys were so small.
Speaking of cumbersome, it seems that most apps that would extend the watch’s usefulness also need to be installed on the phone so instead of having to install an app once, I’ve got to install it two twice. Often that procedure involves downloading an app from the Google Play Store installing on my phone, then generating an install package called and APK and having to use a third-party program to upload it to the watch where it takes a few more steps to install.
So until the smart watch can be completely freed from a phone to be fully functional and its battery life no longer requires you to turn on and off its screen to tell time, I think I’ll go back to using my old- fashion wrist watch until these “smart” devices graduate from remedial school.
Smart watch leaves him feeling ticked-off
|
After trying a so-called "smartwatch" for a month, all I can say is
that this technology isn't yet ready for prime-time and needs to go back for some serious remedial education. |
These wrist-mounted, mini computers aim to combine the functionality of an old-fashioned watch with a modern smartphone, yet still requires you to carry a cell phone for most of its functions to work.
People lined up around the block when Apple released their version of the device last year, and many who got them claimed that you won’t understand how great they are until you actually started using one.
Well, I recently got the chance to get one – a hand-me-down Samsung Galaxy Gear from my boss – and after about a month of living with it, I can honestly say, my initial opinion remains unchanged.
As much as I love gadgets, I just didn’t find this device so useful.
Without it tethered to my phone via Bluetooth, all it could really do was tell time and count my steps. And while I really did like the pedometer feature, which showed me I average between 5,000 to 6,000 steps per day and walk about 2.5 miles, I found its primary function – telling time – rather inconvenient.
To save battery life, the Gear, turns off the display, so every time I wanted to see what time it was, I either had to twist my wrist back and forth rather vigorously to reactive it, or press the function button on the side of the watch. On my regular old fashioned analogue watch, all I have to do is slightly turn my wrist and glance down and I can see the time.
While I understand why the Gear, like most other smartwatches, turns off its high-resolution LCD screen to save on its relatively short battery life, I don’t get how this is any better or innovative than what I used to have to do almost 40 years ago, when I got my first “Star Wars” digital watch back in 1977 or 78!
|
Without the Gear Manger or some other similar App on
your smartphone, there's little any current smartwatch can by itself. |
But is this seconds-saving convenience worth the hundreds of dollars these smartwatches going for?
Not for me.
I still find them way too limited. The small faces make it virtually impossible to reply to a text message or type on the tiny on-screen keyboard. I also found it difficult to punch in numbers in on my “big-key” calculator app or the remote phone dialer difficult because the keys were so small.
Speaking of cumbersome, it seems that most apps that would extend the watch’s usefulness also need to be installed on the phone so instead of having to install an app once, I’ve got to install it two twice. Often that procedure involves downloading an app from the Google Play Store installing on my phone, then generating an install package called an APK and having to use a third-party program to upload it to the watch where I have to follow another procedure to get it up and running.
So until the smart watch can be completely freed from a phone to be fully functional and its battery life no longer requires you to turn on and off its screen to tell time, I think I’ll go back to using my old-fashion wrist watch and send these “smart” devices back to school for some remedial education.
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