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Comment by asadotzler | Hacker News Reader

How can people tolerate a watch that's half an inch thick? That's like twice the thickness of my phone.

I think if you decide at all that you want a smartwatch, with all the functionality that entails, you are aware that you’re going to have a thick object on your wrist, so you’re either not bothered by this in the first place or you make peace with it. For what it’s worth, I have an Apple Watch— which is considerably thicker than the Pixel Watch— and I don’t notice the thickness at all, except maybe when putting on formalwear with tight cuffs.

How can people tolerate charging a watch each night? I can't get behind this idea of having a basket of electronics you need to babysit all the time so they don't run out of battery. Especially when we already have really battery efficient tech, like hybrid watches with e-ink display.

It’s quite easy - I just put it in the charging cradle ($10 on Amazon) every night. Since the 4th edition it essentially lasts 2 days if I’m not doing heavy workouts so I can skip a charge.

I don't wear my watch at night, so it may as well be on a charger

Do you charge your phone at night? Plop your watch on the charger while you’re at it.

I'm more on the level of wondering why people want a mini smartphone on their wrist. Isn't one in your pocket enough?

I do like having a heart-rate tracker, but having had a couple of fitbits the novelty eventually wears off and the reality that knowing the numbers isn't important sets in.

For me having the watch allows me to use my phone a lot less. I now often have to dig for my phone somewhere in my home since I haven’t used it in many hours. I get the important notifications I need and because the watch is limited I don’t feel the urge to open it every 2min to check what’s on social media.

Not having to reach for the phone is pretty convenient, I can just leave my phone on my bed while cooking or working or whatever else and thus only care about truly important notifications, and because it doesn't involve a full "context switch" of pulling out a phone, it doesn't really feel intrusive, being just enough info for me to be able to determine if it justifies pausing what I'm doing and reaching for a phone or just making a mental note to get back to it after finishing what I'm doing.

Also, if my hands are full/dirty I can still control media playback (granted that using the nose to tap on a watch probably looks pretty funny), and have weather right on my wrist (which is surprisingly handy).

Edit: Also it turns out to be the best kind of alarm for me. Audio alarms are annoying (also to anyone else who has to hear it) and don't really tend to wake me up nicely. Turns out the slight vibration of the watch wakes me up pretty nicely without bothering people in other rooms.

The numbers are important to athletes.

The ai for day of charge is important so that in a few years it will no longer last a day and you’ll be motivated to buy a new device. That and the blatant software obsolescence

I’m pretty good about going to bed every night and manage to get through the ritual of putting on pajamas at the same time as I put my watch on its charger.

It’s never been an issue.

While many replies point out that you can charge at night, this would defeat one of the main reasons I use a smartwatch, which is to have an alarm that vibrates to wake me up without waking up my wife. Other people use watches to track sleep. If you don't ever use it for either, I guess charging every night isn't an issue (though it means one more cable to bring whenever you travel). But for those of us who like the alarm or sleep-tracking features, that's pretty much a non-starter.

I understand that they're getting to the point where you can charge just while showering, but aren't quite there yet.

You already charge your phone every night, whats one more thing?

I can't sleep with a watch on at night, so I take it off and put it on its stand, which is the charger- my phone goes on it's charging stand at the same time.

I 3d printed a stand for my watch which embeds the charging puck, and so whenever I take it off for any reason, it just goes on the stand. It doesn't even really stand out as a task unnatural enough to need tolerating, kinda at the level of hanging your clothes on a hook/hangar after changing.

For all other situations, I just have to stick the watch to the back of my phone to charge it, so don't even need to carry around a separate watch charger.

Pixel "Watch": Mic, Speaker, Wi-Fi, LTE, GPS, Compass, Altimeter, SpO2, ECG, Heart Rate, Accelerometer, Gyroscope, Ambient, Light, Conductance, Temp, Barometer, Magnetometer, Wireless Charging, 2GB RAM, 32GB Flash

...but its 12mm thick?! xD

And it's free with purchase of their flagship? Who could resist?

PS> I don't work for Google/Pixel or any affiliated group.

My Garmin Descent Mk2 smartwatch is even thicker at 17.8mm. Not ideal, but the functionality is so good that I'm willing to sacrifice a bit of comfort.

https://www.garmin.com/en-US/p/633356#specs

Notably, that page has many photos of the watch from the front, but you have to scroll down to get to a profile shot. It looks like a tank! (even to me, a fellow Garmin-owner)

I have an AW Ultra, never notice it.

Edit: I absolutely love the watch so maybe I've just learned not to care, I agree it's a little bulky but the value I get out of it makes any bulk worth it.

My midsized Garmin is significantly thicker than my iPhone 13 mini. I don't really care though because it's lightweight. It's much lighter than any of the watches I ever wore as an adult.

And battery life is probably around 2 weeks!

I dont really understand how you could possibly care about thickness of a watch at the inch level

At this size it interferes with putting your hands in your pockets.

Any watch case over 12mm thick is considered "thick". Thin is typically under 8mm. (25.4mm=1 inch)

There's enough of a market that the Casio G-Shock is still alive and well.

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