I test the best smartwatches – so why am I wearing a $15 Casio?

I test the best smartwatches – so why am I wearing a $15 Casio?(techradar.com)

77 points by parrot987 3 years ago | 46 comments

salutis 3 years ago |

Importantly, F91W can run FOSS software with a custom board [1], which also makes it easily programmable in C with no "app store" shit. I have two boards sitting next to me and two Casio watches waiting for a transplant.

[1] https://www.sensorwatch.net/

netsharc 3 years ago | |

Hmm, this is like saying "The '69 Mustang can run on electric power, if you replace the engine."..

hammyhavoc 3 years ago | | |

Sure, apart from one is a $20 watch and an insignificant investment of time and energy versus a lot of expensive, risky hoops with a high-level of skill to pull off. People always lean on this analogy of cars, but frequently there's no analogy required. The watch mod isn't for you and that's fine.

nequo 3 years ago | |

That’s intriguing. What kinds of modifications are you making to them in C?

iudqnolq 3 years ago | |

I was disapointed by the default firmware: it adds noticable lag and is missing polish (for ex you can no longer hold buttons down for repeated press). I mean to write my own some day but realistically speaking that'll never happen.

wkat4242 3 years ago |

Ehh the F91W is not very accurate at all as the article claims.

It's not temperature compensated. If you leave it lying on a desk at room temperature yes. Wear it outside in all weather it'll be pretty inaccurate.

I prefer the F-105W myself. It's basically the same watch but with a great blue EL backlight.

anecdotal1 3 years ago | |

W-800H is my daily-wear cheap watch here

I had a Pebble and then an Apple Watch. I came to the conclusion I prefer my watches to be tools and not devices. Watches that are tools are cool. Aviation watches, dive watches, etc etc. So much cooler than a smartwatch.

KMnO4 3 years ago | | |

The F-91W is a cult classic but lacks a lot of nice features (for example, a backlight that stays on for a couple seconds after you release the button, alarm snooze, and dual time display).

I love my W-800H though. Still has a 10 year battery, nearly as compact size, and similar aesthetics.

I’ve gone through a couple over the years (the biggest flaw is the band), but my current one is incredibly accurate. Using a high speed camera, I measured 1.43 seconds loss over 6 months. Pretty sure I won the Quartz lottery since that’s much more accurate than spec, but either way I’m happy.

WastingMyTime89 3 years ago | | |

To give a counterpoint, I have worn watches every day for the past 20 years and own both a nice Bauhaus watch, a diver and a cheap field watch. I finally decided to buy an Apple Watch last year to mostly use as a running watch and see what the fuss was about. I’m never coming back. This thing cut my phone use like nothing before. Having access to notifications at a glance without taking your phone out is awesome.

qudat 3 years ago | |

Yes! Everyone reading this that wants a Casio: just get the f-105w

I went from f91w to the illuminator and it’s much nicer for the backlight

justsomehnguy 3 years ago | |

>> The movement is also notoriously accurate. So accurate, in fact, that it’s been infamously used in bomb making, to the point where US intelligence agents declared it to be ‘the sign of al-Qaeda (opens in new tab)’ in training material issued to staff at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in 2011

Or maybe because it is (and it's clones) are available everywhere for $1?

jononomo 3 years ago | |

How many seconds of time accuracy have you found that this watch loses over the course of its 7-year-long battery life? I think I can handle it losing 30 seconds of accuracy per year.

6510 3 years ago | | |

I read Casio promises 30 sec/month but (lucky?) customers report losing 2 seconds per month.

I know its a cheap watch but would it be that hard to have a settings for it? I hear people tuned antique pendulum clocks to seconds per year. I suppose it helps that they are inaccurate enough to have tuning?

wkat4242 3 years ago | | |

It's more like 30 per month. It really depends a lot how much you wear it outside because it's not temperature compensated.

I don't really mind a lot because I will just adjust it once in a while. But I wouldn't claim it to be an accurate movement.

trees101 3 years ago |

Battery may be long lasting but the straps seem to last about 12 months before breaking. And cost of repairs is about the same as purchase price of the watch.

jbaber 3 years ago | |

I now have a preferred strap that I attach to whatever watch I get, expecting built-in strap to fail long before the watch.

scraplab 3 years ago |

I have a Sensor Watch, which is an ARM cortex processor and SDK which retrofits into an F91W. It’s really nicely put together and offers a lot of flexibility. https://www.sensorwatch.net/

graypegg 3 years ago |

I have an Apple Watch S5 lying around on my desk but I still pretty much exclusively wear one of a few cheap Casios I have.

I found more and more that the features I use on a watch (current time, 3 min timer for tea, 25 min pomodoro timer, wake up alarm) are basically universally covered by every digital watch ever manufactured, and are normally MUCH easier to access on those watches than an Apple Watch, and I assume most smart watches.

The health tracking is the only compelling feature I make use of on an Apple Watch IMO, otherwise it annoyingly fiddly to the point where I just use my phone.

bestnameever 3 years ago | |

> normally MUCH easier to access on those watches than an Apple Watch

You should try placing them as widgets on a compatible watch face, or set them be sticky in your recents app's list, if you haven't already.

graypegg 3 years ago | | |

Hard to beat two clicks on the mode button, then one click on start button to start the last timer I used. Just an uncustomizable appliance, which is nice when I don’t want to fiddle with something much.

ricktdotorg 3 years ago |

what i would like is a fitness/health-tracking wearable that does not have a screen.

i want a faceless waves hands bracelet something on my wrist that will track all of my health & bio stats and sends it to/syncs it with my phone.

hnburnsy 3 years ago | |

Whoop and Oura are two prominent ones. There are a bunch others.

avtar 3 years ago | |

This is what I’m looking for, but I also need the device to only store the collected metrics on my phone, and not send it to some company’s servers. So far I think it’s just the Apple watches that meet that criteria.

pydry 3 years ago | | |

Also any watches that work with gadgetbridge.

JBorrow 3 years ago | |

What you want is a Withings ScanWatch

iamben 3 years ago | |

Yup. Absolutely long for a smaller/better version of the original jawbone. I have a watch, I love it. I'd wear a fitness tracker on the other wrist if it didn't look like a watch (or a fitness tracker).

devoutsalsa 3 years ago | |

I was about to say “Like a Fitbit?”, but apparently they all have screens now.

quartesixte 3 years ago | |

Add a small haptic/vibe motor to give me notification buzzes (perhaps a pseudo-morse code to indicate type of notification) and I’d be immediately sold.

Perhaps a way to DIY this? I wonder how to get motors that small…

fomine3 3 years ago | |

I feel uncomfortable with any band on my wrist. What I want is health tracker anklet that lasts over a month.

bartchamdo 3 years ago | |

It’s called a Whoop, check it out.

schwartzworld 3 years ago | | |

$30/month subscription for a fitness tracker? Ew

decafninja 3 years ago |

I always find it interesting that so many people that work in tech are quite into retro Luddite stuff. I’m not entirely not guilty myself - I love me some old school manual transmission sports cars more than the latest Tesla.

But I find genuine utility in having a smartphone and smartwatch. I have a relatively expensive mechanical watch but it rarely sees use other than date nights. The time is usually off, and I don’t care because that’s not the point. I don’t use it to keep time - that’s what my iPhone is for. Instead, the watch is purely jewlery, no different from my wife’s bracelet.

On the other hand my Apple Watch stays on my wrist almost perpetually.

I too hear about watches like the F91 or various g-shocks and get tempted to pick one up out of curiosity. But I know it’s going to be even less useful to me than my expensive automatic watch since it can’t even function as jewelry.

rcarr 3 years ago |

I’ve got a Garmin 7x. Sometimes I think about switching to something like this as I’m going through an unhealthy phase and not utilising the smart watch capability very much. However, I can’t give up the torch. I cannot believe how handy it is having a torch two button clicks away on my wrist, wherever I am, as opposed to fumbling in my pocket or searching around for my phone or a torch. Use it every day, absolute game changer.

some_other_time 3 years ago | |

I have the Garmin Epix gen 2. It doesn't have the edge flashlight of the 7x, but I like the light it does have, especially at the bright red setting. It's enough for me to see by without messing up my night vision. The double click access is great. And, with my current settings, I love the 14 day battery life of this compared with the approximately 1 day of my prior Apple Watch 6. I also like that I can switch iOS/Android without having to get a different watch to use with the other phone.

RandomWorker 3 years ago |

Casio stainless steel version is pretty dope.

cush 3 years ago |

RIP Pebble. Still the best smart watch

ghaff 3 years ago |

I go back and forth. The better battery life and face size of the Apple Watch Ultra makes it more useful for me than my old Apple Watch 3. But I still just wear a $30 Timex Expedition a lot of the time.

tinus_hn 3 years ago |

Another question:

I wear a $15 Casio - so why am I reviewing smartwatches?

DuckFeathers 3 years ago |

tldr; the answer to the clickbait: "I’m having a rest before another challenge crops up, and I really don’t want to think about my heart rate variability, whether I slept well, or even have notifications on my wrist at all – I just want to give my brain a break. "

I'm guessing that the only reason he wore it to be able to write this article with this headline.