TL;DR
- Google has confirmed to us that the Pixel Watch 3 can’t be repaired and can only be replaced.
- This is bad news for environmental reasons, suggesting that broken watches will end up in landfills.
- This isn’t the first Pixel Watch model that can’t be repaired, though.
Smart Watches are pretty much garbage. I was contemplating getting one for years, but always decided against it. When I got my S23 Ultra about 2 years ago, they gave me an offer of a “free” Gear 3, but I had to pay $5/month for the LTE service. I decided it was a good deal and accepted.
It wasn’t. The battery on it doesn’t even last 24 hours so it’s always dead at some point when I would like to use it other than just to tell time, the UI is clunky, and the cell connection is slow as hell. Attempting to download an audiobook via Audible takes like 5-10 minutes.
This is my same complaint. I have been using Garmin watches for fitness, and when they got got a little less utilitarian looking I started wearing it full time to be a watch/track steps and continue tracking fitness activities.
I would like a better notification handling and ability to reply to notifications/message but not at the expense of battery life.
I got a Pixel 2 watch ‘free’ with the purchase of a Pixel 8Pro last year. I tried wearing it for a few weeks, and no surprise, the battery life is just not enough for me (non starter). Second, IMHO that watch overall is too small. My Garmin is the largest they have (Fenix 6X Pro) as it had the best battery life. Going down to the tiny screen/battery Pixel watch 2 was just never going to work for me.
The 3 has two sizes now which is nice, but the battery life is still way to short.
I had a Galaxy Watch 4 previously 40mm model and it’s battery barely lasted a day, especially with AOD enabled. Ironically, Samsung had released previous models like S3 Frontier with 3 day battery life, so their brand new smartwatch was actually a downgrade. Wear OS sucks so much at battery life.
To make things worse, GW 4 took nearly 2 hours to charge fully via it’s slow WPC based charging. To make things worse, it constantly throttled and overheated in hot summers.
Samsung stuck to it’s wireless charging mechanism even on GW 6 and 7. So, while Xiaomi’s smartwatch with ~500mAh battery can charge in 40 minutes while my GW 6 takes ~80 minutes to charge a ~425maH battery.
I’d guess I get about 10 days which would include 5-6 50 minute GPS activities and, wearing it / tracking HR 24/7.
Watch estimates 21 days on full charge (not accounting for activities).
I just don’t have to think about /manage is
If you want simplicity and something between a smart and dumb watch, check out PineTime. The battery on mine lasts for about 8-10 days.
It has basic features like notifications, timers, and step counter. You can also customize the UI.
https://pine64.com/product/pinetime-smartwatch-sealed/
I just wrote a post lamenting there being no suitable replacement for a pebble, this looks like it might have immediately proved me wrong! Did you ever use a pebble and would you liken the pine to one?
Never used a Pebble, sorry.
Go Garmin. Not only they are actual USEFULL, a lot more open even if they have a custom OS, and battery actually last like one or two weeks…
They are also very durable
I am confused, the gear s3 came out in 2016, so even 2 years ago it was already 6 years old.
That is not what I would consider new smartwatches these days.
Yeah my galaxy watch 6 can go 2 days on a charge. I say “can” because it does depend on usage, but it’s not a rare thing to happen.
I don’t remember the exact model, whatever one came out like 2 years ago.
Huh, well I got myself a galaxy watch 6 for like $200, and so far it seems solid.
It easily lasts a day, could probably go for 2 if I tried.