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Comment by kpwags | Hacker News Reader

I got the Series 2 in January. I love it, but can also see why it might be more of a niche product. $400 for a watch isn't exactly cheap and I know many people who opt for their smartphone over any kind of watch.

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It's not out of the ordinary to spend $400 on something like a Seiko or Citizen watch - and those are just "dumb" watches

Them being dumb watches is the appeal though. A good "dumb" watch will last decades. An Apple Watch is obsolete after, what, two years?

I wear a battery-powered analog quartz dumb watch on my wrist and I love it. I change the battery every couple years and that's it. It tells perfectly accurate time (way more accurate than a mechanical watch costing orders of magnitude more) and will never be obsolete.

I'm a huge fan of Casio's gshock solar powered and atomic time setting watches, I own 4

I really love solar powered watches. I have 3 (Citizen eco-drives) and the g-shocks. The fact that the battery never needs replacing.

I solar have a g-shock too, but that atomic time setting (by radio) never worked for me. The g-shock is so thick though, I actually find it a little off putting sometimes.

I wear a ladies watch (I am a man) for this very reason, thickness, as well as heaviness. I didn't realize how much it affects your movement and coordination having a substantial weight on your wrist, until I got rid of it.

I backed the first and every subsequent Pebble KickStarter.

When they sold out to Garmin* and refunded my last order/pledge, I spent _some_ of that refund on a 1957 Russian Kirovskie Sputnik Commemorative mechanical watch.

I know none of my Pebbles or any Apple Watch is going to still be keeping good time 70 years from now... (it gains just under a minute a day - resetting it off my phone's clock when I wind it in the morning has become part of my waking up ritual...)

Edit: * It was FitBit not Garmin, as pointed out in replies by dugfin and spike021 elsewhere in this thread. Thanks.

How is the Apple Watch that inaccurate? Does it not have a quartz crystal in it? Even mediocre mechanical watches do better than a minute per day.

One of my favorite things about the Apple Watch is that it keeps uncannily good time. Put two next to each other and you'll see what I mean.

I always found it disappointing that even the best mechanical watches drift by around a second a day. I guess growing up with software has given me unrealistic mechanical expectations :)

No no - my 70 year old Russian mechanical watch is "that inaccurate"... (My Pebble's, and presumably the Apple Watch, sync themselves from what I assume is one of or some combination of ntp time, GSM/LTE time, or GPS time - from the phone they're paired with...)

I think an obsolete apple watch will still be able to at least mirror the functionality of any 'dumb' watch.

Not when the battery finally dies.

Not true at all. The battery isn't replaceable, other parts are more likely to break, and it's not clear to me that the Apple Watch even has a high quality quartz crystal inside it for accurate time-keeping. It might simply be grabbing the time off the linked cell phone, which grabs the time off the cell network. Do Apple Watches work well independently of linked phones for months on end? Years? Because that'll be necessary if you want to keep using one decades down the line long after they're no longer supported by whatever phone replacements have come down the line next.

Be properly waterproof, never need a charge, and take abuse for 30 years like a $150 automatic?

I've got a 70 year old mechanical watch on my wrist right now. I bought it second hand from eBay, but paid significantly under $150 for it...

Quartz watches tend to have better longevity than mechanical watches, owing to having fewer moving parts (zero in the case of a digital watch).

I don't know how much servicing that watch has had over the past 70 years, but it's probably significant.

At this point they don't look anywhere near as good though.

>It's not out of the ordinary to spend $400 on something like a Seiko or Citizen watch

That kind of depends on your definition of ordinary. Is it ordinary for somebody who buys a watch to spend $400 on it? absolutely. Is wearing a $400 watch ordinary? maybe not so much. Apple claimed to be selling more than Seiko or Citizen two years ago, and the apple watch was definitely a niche then. Apple has done well in the watch market but that's a long ways from iPhone-level success.

I will be handing my dumb watches down to my child (though they cost more than $400). These... Will go in the trash bin after ~2 years and don't provide the jewelry aspect of a beautiful watch (I understand not everyone is into that sort of thing.)

I don't think you can compare smart watches with normal watches, totally different use case and market.

I gladly spend that amount for good Seiko or Citizen and you can get a nice Christopher Ward diver for that money as well.

On the other hand I would not spend that kind of money for a smart watch. Up to 150 maybe but not more.

True. But watches had started to become an unnecessary accessory. For many, the phone had become a suitable replacement for the watch if style wasn't a factor in wearing one.

It's not just about style. It's convenience as well. You can glance at the watch quicker than at the phone.

Dumb but will last longer ;)

The thing is that you can pick up series 1 for under 200 at times which is about the same cost garmin forerunner. That being said you can pick up the gen 1s for even less than that.

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