Hi, thought I would ask here for recommendations on a smartwatch. I don’t wear a watch normally, but I find at competitions I don’t want to pull out my phone to check the time and notifications. It KILLS my battery. (I assume just from turning the screen on constantly)
I was hoping to find a smartwatch (or other wear device) that works with a samsung s7 android, and I can read groupme messages. I don’t even have to be able to respond on the device. Most of the time the messages don’t concern me, but I certainly don’t want to miss an important team message during a competition, so I have to check EVERY SINGLE ONE right away.
I need it to last the whole day. Those LONG competition days. And I was hoping it wouldn’t cost an arm and a leg since I would probably only wear it for competitions.
Any recommendations?
Also, What devices do you have and how well do they work? Know of any cool hacks to make them more useable? Got any wear devices other than a watch? Anyone ever try to build their own? (In sooo curious now…)
When the question is consumer electronics, Wirecutter has never steered me wrong. That goes for everything from Qi chargers to rechargeable AAs to pico projectors to cheap Windows laptops.
It won’t work for you, but I have an apple watch. Even using it instead of my.phone 90% of the time, my battery still drains at competition. It’s not really turning the screen on and off that does it - those are typically brief periods that don’t add up to a whole lot. It’s the increase in notifications, cellular blind spots in the arena that force it to search for a signal, and the fact that I’m never in one place long enough to charge it during the day.
I typically bring a small usb battery pack to plug my phone into. Hook it up in my pocket sometime in the afternoon, and I have no problem! Plus they are pretty cheap - you can get one with enough juice to completely recharge your phone for under $20. If you aren’t really interested in a watch, but care more for preserving battery life, that’s the route I would go.
I was going to suggest the same thing. In addition to FRC, I do a lot of conventions as an author, where you usually don’t have the time/place to charge your phone, but are taking pictures/video, getting lots of notifications, etc. An external battery with enough oomph to charge a phone 3-4 times and that fits in your pocket easily went from pretty expensive to pretty cheap in the past couple of years.
I have seen the Woz wearing a Nixie watch at competitions…it must be the way to go!
oh yeah, I’ve seen myself wearing one too, I think at every competition I’ve been to.
Many newer phones have “always on” or low power time/notification displays, maybe it’s time to upgrade? I just got a new Moto g6 with this feature…it also was the least expensive phone on google Fi, $99 on sale a few weeks ago.
sorry I don’t know anything about smart watches, I’m a late adopter. Heck, my wristwatch still has vacuum tubes in it.
Are you saying your phone dies most the time or the watch?
I can definitely feel your pain re: the phone dying.
My Apple Watch lasted all of Saturday at worlds this year, and it was a long day.
I’ve drained an anker 20,000mah charger before by passing it around the pits.
With the removable batteries I can take as much power as I want with me just by charging more batteries the night before.
It also alleviates some failures and obsolesce, since 18650s are pretty standard the power density keeps going up.
TBH, an anker 20,000 mah charger would probably do fine in 99% of situations, I just like the flexibility of the 18650 based systems.