Be Excellent To Each Other

Me too. To avoid any customs issues, I nosed on eBay for one and a bloke was selling his for £48 which I figured wasn't too bad, but when it arrived, it was all still sealed, which was nice. Been using it for a week now, and although I probably won't use all the activity stuff on it, just the step counter, the notifications and using it with smart lock for my phone has been worth it so far.

A bit of trek

Yeah, it was Amazon I checked first - guess I should've just sucked up the extra £15. Will wait for my refund and get on it.

Today is the only day I haven't hit my goal. And I don't plan on leaving the house either. I'm ok with that.

Joining the hive mind

One of us! One of us!

Give myp his jumper back!

The S3 doesn't have many apps available in comparison to other 'ecosystems' but one really handy one I've found is a torch-like app. It displays a full white screen and ramps up the brightness. This has proved handy a few times actually.

Strobe wanking?

I actually did jerk off once with my watch still on and it counted that as 'vigorous activity' in the Samsung health widget.

Excellent wank work!

Just raised a PayPal dispute in the hope I might get my money back at some point. Fuck gearbest.

I was a bit concerned with switching back to iPhone the Gear S3 integration would be massively compromised, but I've been pleasantly surprised with the functionality so far. I can control Spotify, track all my fitness stuff and get all my notifications, which are the main three things I use it for anyway.

I couldn't use Samsung Pay when I had the S8 anyway as Lloyds don't support it, so I haven't lost that. It's the only functionality I really miss from my Apple Watch tbh. Plus the Gear looks more like a real watch and the battery lasts two full days, so it has that going for it.

My Garmin Vivoactive 3 does seven days (just about), two days seems rather low. Do you have GPS turned on all the time or something?

(Basically, I charge it on Sunday evening, and it just about lasts to the next Sunday evening.)

We spent a few days in Wales the other week, I just charged it before we left and didn't take the cable with me.

It's a proper smart watch with always-on display, not a glorified fitbit.

If I turned the AOD off it would last 4 days maybe, but then it would be a blank screen for most of that time and I like the fact it looks like a proper watch.

Mine has an AOD, I'm looking at it now.

Mine has an AOD and the battery lasts weeks!

Suck it, losers.

Just looking at a review now:

Don't reckon it'd be much use to me. Plus the AOD looks like it's monochrome and very basic. The S3 is full colour and each watch face has its own AOD.

It's almost as if different watches are designed for different use cases and you obviously value battery life over aesthetics and functionality. Personally I don't mind putting it on its magnetic wireless charger every night when I go to bed. I take it off every night anyway.

All that stuff has been fixed in software/firmware updates (the 'Can't choose which apps get alerts' pissed off loads of people by all accounts, but it'd been fixed by the time I got mine). And mine definitely has music playback.

The AOD is full colour as well, although admittedly lower resolution and not OLED like the S3 has.

I only take mine off when I wash or shower/bathe, and when I charge it, so it'd proper piss me off if I was charging it every two days. (I usually take it off during sexual encounters, but it's interesting to see what my heart rate did afterwards if I left it on.)

I did consider getting an S3 but the battery life really put me off, but I can see in your scenario it's not so much of an issue. So yes, different things for different people

I have a Garmin 920 xt, it only receives basic info..

I am tempted with an apple watch at some point.

I had a Series 1 and it was pretty good, but the battery didn't even last a day. I hope the new ones are better. I just can't justify it for £430 when my S3 does pretty much everything I need.

My insurance do this offer...

https://www.vitality.co.uk/rewards/part ... ple-watch/

I had the original apple watch and it did not last a day which was a pain (and a lot of activity would often have it go into power saving mode late in the evening)

I currently have the series 3 and right now by my battery is at 86% (having been up since about 6:30 this morning) so yes its better but for a lot of this stuff it depends what you want to get out of it.

I've had an original Apple Watch for a few years now. It's at 100% when I put it on at about 8am in the morning, at the moment it's on 71% and by the time I go to bed it'll probably be on around 55%.

I still charge it every night just because it's convenient, but I've never had a problem with it. I don't really do anything with it other than pay for things and dismiss notifications though, to be fair.

Try to do anything like track a walk/run and watch that battery drain!

You have to go fast to get to the end before the battery runs out.

Similar thing to why motorbikes go fast all the time as they have to get where they are going before the petrol runs out.

Hahahahahaha.

(in all seriousness, I have very occasionally done that and it certainly drained the battery faster but not to the degree that I couldn't get to the end of the day with it - admittedly I'm not doing half marathons or anything though)

So here's where my Vivoactive3 is at after seven full days on a single charge, it'd probably make it through the night but it'd definitely die tomorrow. However, it has done seven full 24 hour cycles on a single charge (Sunday evening is charging time).

I appreciate different people want different things from their Smarwatches, for me personally battery life is really important, charging every day or two would really piss me off, and there's no need for that with this watch.

Sure its screen isn't the best (no OLED, but it is always on), not the best resolution (but it is full colour), however as far as I can tell it offers the full range of 'true' Smartwatch functionality. (And at the end of the day, I'm not going to be watching films on the thing, it just needs to show me fairly basic information in a consistent fashion.)

The software is great on the watch itself and also the companion app on the PC, be wary of early reviews as Garmin have basically fixed everything that folks took issue with early on.

The syncing is rock solid, the customised notifications all behave themselves perfectly, and there are nice little touches like being able to define custom replies that you can do from the watch itself, beyond the defaults.

Would recommend, and it's about 560% better than the fucking DREADFUL Fitbit Versa that I took back to Currys after three days. Do not get a Fitbit Versa.

Why would charging a watch every day be bad?

Don’t you do that with a phone?

If it’s wireless I don’t see the issue. Wireless charging is the best.

Yeah and sometimes I forget and it's a bit of a PITA and if I'm away it's also a pain. So a watch I have to charge for an hour once a fortnight is better.

I just got in a habit of charging phone and watch as I go to bed.

I think my watch can last 7 days, but with the amount it tracks it lasts about 2.

Do you wear it to bed?

Yes, I only take it off when I wash/shower/bathe.

I've got it set not to do notifications between 11pm and 7am, so it doesn't interrupt my sleep.

No. Hate wearing stuff in bed

Hence his kid.

I suppose if you were happy with a 720p telly you'd be OK with a low res watch display too

Hey, fuck you guys, that was well funny.

It was ok

Fuck you!

After swimming a few times and then using a hot tub I can confirm that the Amazfit Bip lives up to its claims of not being very waterproof.

Mine recently got an update that has totally killed it's battery life

I'm now looking for something that does steps and heart rate but looks fairly un-watch like.
This Garmin is looking promising but I'm open to suggestions.
https://www.currys.co.uk/gbuk/smart-tec ... 6-pdt.html

I would always go for a Garmin over a fitbit. The 4 is a new watch, and has replaced the 3. Which is only £40, I am tempted at that, as my garmin does not record HR without a strap.

I have been looking at a forerunner. Having HRM would be good as on occasion when I have got a push on, the huweai buzzes to say "too much" which is good as I k ow I can go for short periods atit the honking I am at 180 without fully mortgaging the next mile after. A strap might be a faff though.

The strap is so I can record HR while swimming and other data ( I don't use). The wrist ones don't record while swimming.

I think the 235/245 are really good value for running watches. If you want to record swims the 735 is a belter.

I currently have a 920, and keep looking at the 935/945. I just can't justify the upgrade at the moment.