Which Watch?

[avngedsvenfold]

SpookDroid said it best, it will technically work, but it's buggy, it lags bad, and if you've used any other platform you will not believe how Google could put out such a crappy Wear OS. It really seems like a knockoff product instead of a finished OS by, again, Google.

I was worried about how Tizen would work with Android OS and was so surprised at how much better it is than Google own Wear. The fact that they overhauled Android Wear for Wear OS still boggles my mind.

 

[SpookDroid]

Oh, one more thing that might help with the Samsung vs AW choice, Samsung's is the only one to support full offline Spotify use. Apple Watches have that too now, from what I understand (used to be a Samsung exclusive for a year or so).

 

[Stefan Holst]

Maybe the new Oppo Watch when it becomes available in North America?

 

[KaosGSD]

avngedsvenfold, I don't use Samsung phones, so I'm concerned that although it works great with Samsung phones, Tizen won't work well with other Android phones and iPhones. I am currently using an iPhone, but may switch back to a Android (very likely not Samsung) during the life of the watch.

I have a samsung gear s2, which is still going strong. My phone is a oneplus 3t, and the phone works fine with the watch.

The watch even works in a limited fashion with apple phones, bit obviously not as integrated as with android devices.

 

[cknobman]

SpookDroid said it best, it will technically work, but it's buggy, it lags bad, and if you've used any other platform you will not believe how Google could put out such a crappy Wear OS. It really seems like a knockoff product instead of a finished OS by, again, Google.

I was worried about how Tizen would work with Android OS and was so surprised at how much better it is than Google own Wear. The fact that they overhauled Android Wear for Wear OS still boggles my mind.

I curious to know of what bugs you refer to?

I dont encounter bugs on my watch. I use the weather, assistant, messaging, news, golfshot, timers and alarms, notifications, google fit, NFC for payments, spotify for music controls; and they all work without being buggy.

 

[Fidel Cruz]

How do you guys feel about Hybrid watches. I just ordered a Garmin Vivomove Style. Bit pricey at 300 but I love the classic look with health tracking and 4 days of battery life.

 

[NealJ777]

Given your criteria, I'd go with WearOS.

Sure, Samsung has a better UI. Actually, they have an AWESOME UI, but, there's hardly any developer support for Tizen, so there are barely any apps that are actively supported by developers. Also, I use a non-Samsung phone, so I had to download and install a bunch of apps to get my Galaxy S2 to work with my Pixel.

I switched back to WearOS because when Android Pie was released Samsung's apps were not yet updated and they crashed several times a day and made the watch useless. I was afraid of future support issues. So, due to the lack of developer support, lack of apps, and incompatibilities with future Android updates I switched back to WearOS.

 

[Peter Wood2]

I really like the Wear OS ecosystem, though my watch is sightly less useful now than it was when I first started using one. In the beginning, I was able to initiate chat messages on Hangouts and Facebook Messages, but now I can only reply to notifications, and PocketCasts decided that Media Controls was enough so they pulled their Wear app and now I can't start podcasts from my watch.

I had a Ticwatch E for a couple of years until the battery went bad and stopped charging, so I bought a used Ticwatch Pro for about US$170 on eBay and I'm really happy with it so far (except my wrist presses the buttons more often). The LCD timekeeper has every piece of information I want from a chronometer except seconds, and letting it stay on that until there's a notification or I manually wake the screen seems to drastically increase the battery life.

 

[Tinlizzie2]

Does it have to be Android Wear? Hard to recommend any of those over either an Apple Watch or a Samsung one. The Samsung Active 2 should be within your budget, especially if you wait until the Watch 3 is announced (which probably will bring down the price of the Active 2 or at least show some promos for it).

I was looking at the Galaxy Active 2 because of the ecg and bp monitors, but then read somewhere that it doesn't work with Google. That's a deal breaker for me- I have a Pixel phone.

 

[Teejai80]

I can really recommend the Mobvoi Ticwatch Pro 2, the extra ram really helps this watch. The original did get some lag, however, I haven't seen it on the new model.
The dual display really is the awesome thing for me, the watch always has an easy to read display on it. Mine can easily last at least two days between charges as well.
In fact right now I'm away from home on a work trip. The first day I realised I had left my charger at home and my watch was already running low. At the end of the day I put the watch into essential mode with 15% battery. That was a week ago and the watch is still on, still shows the time, tracks steps and can do heart rate on demand. It doesn't have notifications, but I still have a working watch!

 

[B. Diddy]

Because I have no self-control, I just got a Misfit Vapor X that was on sale on the Misfit site for $59 -- case only, without strap or charger. This wasn't a problem for me, since I already had a 3rd party band for a Falster 2 that's compatible, and the charger for the Falster 2 also works on the Vapor X. It's been quite nice so far -- stylish, light, reliable continuous HR monitor while doing a workout. It's a Snapdragon 3100, but that's not supposed to give much of a performance advantage over the older 2100 -- I think it's primarily for battery life. It also only has 512 MB RAM, so not as snappy as the 1 GB RAM watches.

For my purposes, though, it's quite nice, especially at that price. (Misfit recently lowered it to a ridiculous $39, but they're all gone from the site now.)

In regard to mentions of bugginess -- that's not quite what I experience. The main problem for me is severe lagginess for a while after a cold boot, presumably due to apps and services loading into RAM slowly. In general, if I power on one of my Wear OS watches, I leave it alone for about 15 minutes before I start doing anything with it (like setting it up as a new watch, or trying to update apps). But after the system has settled down, I've had generally reliable performance from all of my watches in terms of notifications, Google Fit, etc.

Here's my list of Wear OS addiction, from most recent:

Misfit Vapor X
Skagen Falster 2 (currently sent back for warranty repair, back of case fell off)
Michael Kors Access Grayson (two of them -- they were on sale at TJ Maxx for $99)
LG Watch Style
Huawei Watch (gen 1)
ASUS ZenWatch (gen 1, stopped using a while ago)

The older LG and Huawei watches still work quite well (although the LG's battery life is mediocre, and the Huawei's screen has significant burn-in).

 

[recDNA]

Hmm, glad I didn't order one. Still has a 2 year warranty, but again, that doesn't seem to cover case, crystal, nor band.

After commenting about the bad reviews I decided to find out for myself. Bought the refurb Carlyle for $179 but first joined the Fossil mail list and got a $25 coupon so the $154 price tag was just too tempting.

Despite some terrible reviews my experience so far has been apositive. My watch came with a scratched leather band. I called customer support and they immediately agreed to send me a new band for free. At that price I could have lived with the scratch but happy I don't have to. The box it came in clearly marked it as a display model but for about half price and a 2 year warranty I don't care.

I had a lot of trouble setting it up in Wear app so had to clear cache and data of the app (which meant setting up my Asus watch again after finishing with the Fossil watch) and reset the watch but once I finally got it set up it seems to work fine. Some reviews said their watches failed after a couple of weeks so I'll see but at that price I think it is a heck of a deal. I get a full day out of the battery and don't use any power saving measures.

From what I've read people had exactly the same problems setting up a brand new Carlyle.

 

[DigbyTheDog]

That's great to hear recDNA. Thanks for the update! I'm really hoping my brother has gotten me the Fossil Sport for my birthday.

 

[recDNA]

That's great to hear recDNA. Thanks for the update! I'm really hoping my brother has gotten me the Fossil Sport for my birthday.

I'm actually surprised that this brand new watch works exactly the same as my old Asus 2nd gen watch. The fossil has better battery life but the Asus is more comfortable to wear because it is lighter and thinner.

The Fossil has a much bigger better screen BUT it's complications are so tiny I can't read them. Asus has a much smaller screen but I can read the complications.

 

[kramer5150]

I'm a little late to this one.

2 things from the OP that are going to disappoint with WearrOS... 2 day battery life and always on display. With the AOD WearOS is a 1-day device that will need a re-charge every evening.

WearOS as a platform has been kind of hot and cold for me. When it works like its supposed to its GREAT... Awesome. When its buggy, unreliable, unpredictable its pretty bad and leaves me wondering how this could possibly be part of the Google ecosystem. I have been with a Fossil gen4 Explorist since Jan 2018. I really like the hardware. Its the OS that has been an up and down experience.

Good luck though with which-ever you chose.

 

[SpookDroid]

I guess if we were to summarize, mApple Watch is king. Sammysung's Active 2 and Watch 3 are runner ups (more the first than the new latter), and Fossil's top-liners would be the Wear OS top contenders that could.

 

[Mike Dee]

I guess if we were to summarize, mApple Watch is king. Sammysung's Active 2 and Watch 3 are runner ups (more the first than the new latter), and Fossil's top-liners would be the Wear OS top contenders that could.

I've always heard that Apple is the better watch but I've never heard what's better about it.

 

[SpookDroid]

I've always heard that Apple is the better watch but I've never heard what's better about it.

Mostly app compatibility/3rd-party support, but also just overall UI and reliability (AKA less buggy). You don't get the customization options you get with Wear or Tizen but, just like iPhony's, what IS there, just works and looks unified and works well. And 3rd party apps work well with it, rather than just being an afterthought.