Smartwatch primarily for notifications and battery life?
Summary because I rambled a bit below: I would like suggestions for a smartwatch primarily for notifications with a good battery life and a price of less than 400 USD.
I have been using a Xiaomi Mi Band 4 for two or three years now and I'm considering upgrading to a "real" smartwatch. My primary uses for it are silent alarms and notifications, but I really need at least a 4 day battery life. My main watch when I am not wearing the Mi Band is a 38mm Timex IronMan, and I am comfortable with that size. I would like any potential smartwatch to be no larger than a 42 mm face. I would like the smartwatch and potential connected app to at least pretend not to sell my data. This is why I use the paid version of Notify for Mi Band instead of the official app (that and all of the customization). My other uses for the smartwatch are less important to me, but include step counting, activity tracking (primarily walking and biking), and sleep tracking.
I have been looking at a Garmin Instinct 2S, since it has a long battery life and apparently Garmin is "better" with data security than most. In addition, I could even use the watch without ever downloading the app, although I have yet to find out if notifications would work in that case. The 300 USD price tag is a little jarring, coming from the 35 USD Mi Band, but comparable options are just as pricey.
Honestly, the Mi Band 7 calls to me because it has improved significantly over the 4 and is supported by Notify. It would not be the "upgrade" that I had originally intended, though, and I would continue to have issues with the specialty bands for it.
Does anyone have any alternative suggestions or experiences with the above?
It’s definitely not for everyone, but I’d really like to mention the Bangle.js 2. It’s an open source, hackable smartwatch with some impressive features for the low (<$100) price. If you had a Pebble watch back in the day, it’s the closest thing to a successor since they went under.
To match your points, it’s got an advertised 4 week battery life (I regularly get more than a week with the heart rate monitor on), small form factor, and no company collecting your data. Since it’s incredibly customizable and open source, you can choose exactly what data is collected and exactly where it goes. There’s no proprietary app (yet), just a web app store that you can host yourself if you’re so inclined. If you know any javascript (or want to learn), you can write your own apps or hack any existing ones to your liking. It also has an always-on, sunlight-readable screen which you didn’t mention but is possibly my favorite feature.
To be completely transparent, it’s not what I would consider a polished experience; it’s definitely a hacker’s watch. All the apps are either written by the one guy behind the project or other community members who have since contributed their own work. Functionality with Android is impressive, but iOS isn’t as good. I get notifications and can use the app store, but I can’t tie actions into my iPhone the way that Android users can.
As someone who loves tinkering with gadgets and open source software, and hates the fact that everything out there tries to steal and sell your personal data, I love my Bangle. Definitely not for someone who wants an Apple-esque experience, but you don’t need to be an engineer to get it working either. I think it’s worth a look, in any case.
Consarnit do I ever miss my Pebble 2. That little beastie sat right at the perfect balancing point of the good/elegant/cheap trinity. I'd have loved to see a device with that profile get bound to a modern voice agent.
have you seen https://rebble.io? I've got three or four Pebbles -- I loved them. I liked the OG more than the 2HR. The built quality was better.
Its a shame they went out how they did.
I have indeed, and yes, it is a shame. My pebble actually froze; I got caught out on a day where the temperature dipped below -40, and the poor little smartwatch went to sleep and never woke up.
oh snap. That's crazy. If you still have it, hold back+up+select for a bit to see if it factory resets.
I saw an OG Pebble at Value Village the other day for $20. I almost bought it, but I stopped wearing smartwatches.
I'll second the Bangle.js 2! I usually get about a month battery life between charges.
The UI has some open source jank, but it does the two things I need very well: time and notifications. I was able to customize the watch face easily with JavaScript to have a menu for my home automation system.
I'd consider it somewhat durable. I don't baby it and it feels solid in construction. The firmware is what's open source. The hardware is a generic Chinese smart watch, so it's built like an actual, commercial product.
God damn it. And here I thought leaving Reddit meant I wouldn't get tempted (and succumb to) buying random products I see people recommend.
I've never been particularly interested by smartwatches. They seemed too expensive for a machine that shows you notifications you're also getting on the phone in your pocket, and I'd need to charge it all the time.
The extensibility, price and battery life of the Bangle.js 2 are compelling enough for me to want to buy it and try out the core smartwatch experience.
Okay, so here's what I liked about my Pebble (I had both a Time and Time Round, but used the Time Round much longer and pretty much exclusively once I got it):
I kind of made use of step tracking, the timer app, and media controls. Everything else was, to me, superfluous. The most crucial feature of the Pebbles was that they were decent watches; I have zero interest in anything with a sometimes-off screen, and I'd like to be able to reasonably wear my watch to a nice dinner, which mostly disqualifies a lot of the fitness trackers.
I wear a nicer "dumb" watch now, so take that as you will.
I used to feel about smartwatches the way I felt in 2007 about the first iPhone. I have a phone. I have an iPod. Why would I need to waste money just to mash the two together? Man, was I ever wrong about that! So I picked up a cheap alphabet soup named smartwatch on Amazon to give it a go.
I absolutely love it, primarily because it keeps me off of my phone a lot. Instead of picking up my phone to reply and then checking weather and news and socials while I've got it unlocked for who knows how long, now I just look ay my wrist and move on with my day, replying if needed. The sleep and fitness tracking has been a great resource to help with therapy as well. I'm godawful at manual tracking those things, so now I've got much better data for us to go off of.
I'm not saying a smartwatch is for everyone. But as someone who was initially skeptical of the idea, after trying even a shitty, cheap one I see and benefit from their usefulness now.
That said, I still don't want to spend hundreds of dollars on one. But I also want more features than the $35 aliexpress/amazon specials can offer. The bangle.js seems to be exactly what I'm looking for. Plus being so easily able to modify/create apps is a huge selling point. Even if I were able to just fire off some IFTTT triggers from it I'd be happy, but that's just scatching the surface of what you could do with it, really. Pretty excited for to try it tbh.
I've never ordered anything to the US from the UK though. Anyone have experience with that process? What should one expect?
My Bangle was the only thing I’ve had shipped from the UK to the US, but it was nothing out of the ordinary. I’m pretty sure any tariffs were added onto the price at checkout, and it just arrived like any other package for me.
Do you think that this watch would work as a fitness watch? I've been doing some research on watches that are a little more privacy focused because I don't feel comfortable with a company holding a ton of my personal data. Especially health related data.
So far it seems like this one could be a contender if the HR sensor is good enough. The only other brand that I saw that might be ok is Garmin as long as I don't connect to the app. I'm purely interested in the fitness side of it and don't plan on wearing it when not exercising.
I wouldn’t recommend it if your primary focus is fitness tracking. The ‘Recorder’ and ‘Run’ apps together work well for tracking my runs (especially with a GPS fix), but there is no built-in syncing of that data to your phone. You can actually view your routes on the watch though, which is nice.
I’ve read that Android devices can automatically sync their exercise logs with Gadgetbridge, but no dice on iOS. Of course, you’re free to download those files or even roll your own syncing solution if you so choose.
Maybe others here use the Bangle for other types of exercise, but I only use it for running. It works well for me personally, but I wouldn’t call it a main selling point.
Thanks for the insight. I use android and I've read a little about Gadgetbridge so I'll do more research about Bangle and Gadgetbridge.
I use open tracks on my phone to track my bike rides and I'm interested in looking at HR during those rides so I was hoping that would work with the Bangle watch. At least it looks like there might be potential for it!
Good discussion here, as it seems to overlap enough with your needs that it should be useful to peruse: https://tildes.net/~tech/183s/suggestions_for_updating_a_fitness_tracker
Garmin has done well for my needs, though I can't answer the question about whether notifications work without the phone app.
Thank you for the link. I tried searching before I posted, but I looked for smartwatch, not fitness tracker. Haha
Funny enough, it looks like the Instinct 2 is a favorite in that thread.
I'm using the AmazFit GTR4, and I regularly get 14 days off a charge. It has notifications and vibration alarms, as well as sleep and fitness tracking, and it sells for $200 USD
I had an Amazfit for awhile too and liked it (lost the charger and realized I didn't need a smart watch, or I'd still be using it). Its owned by Xiaomi too now I thought? So easy to move from miband software from what I remember?
It appears to be supported by Notify as well (although technically a different app, Notify for Amazfit)
It looks like a pretty good option, especially with Notify support. I can't find a face width, but with a 36 mm screen and a roughly 2 mm bezel, I would assume it is roughly 40 mm.
Thank you for the suggestion. I'll look into it some more.
ive had both the amazfit bip, and mi band 2, and with both of them i've been able to get nearly a month of battery life - and in the case of the bip, that includes constant realtime bpm logging.
the only thing that nukes my batterylife was whenever i used the GPS to log my rides. the 3rd party app is deffo a bit clunky and kinda freemium, but the sleep tracking and bpm logging was great so i kept wearing it even when i needed to superglue the screen back in and order replacement bands. pretty sure i've gone past the initial purchase cost in just superglue and bands at this point.
not bad from a ~£45 purchase, but its definiately not quality. cant beat simple though if u care about battery life.
e: found a few old screenshots of the battery life curve (the large drops on the charge before are when its using the gps to log my rides) but i cant seem to find the screenshot of it going from jul 21 > aug 29
I have been using the Withings ScanWatch for about a year now.
I charge it once a week or 10 days.
It handles notifications well (can be customized what apps can send notifications to your watch) and does a good job with fitness and sleep tracking as well (which I don't really use that much, to be honest). It does remind me to take a walk if I've been sitting in front of my computer for too long, which is nice.
I really like that it looks like a regular watch, which was it's major selling point for me, and the fact that I only have to charge it once a week or so is great!
It looks good and seems to support the features I want. It does look a little delicate, though, and I am not very good at babying my daily wear watches. Have you had any issues with that?
I don't really baby it and it's held up pretty well (no scratches on it after a years use).
For daily use I use the plastic strap which I can wash easily after a run or workout or after working in the garden and it gets grimy/sweaty.
I also work in my wood shop on the weekends and have banged it up against some tools and I can't really find any blemishes or scratches on it.
I also have the metal strap, that I switch on if I am dressing up.
Mine's lasted a couple of years with lots of bangs against walls/doors etc. I've even had a comment from someone else who noticed me hit my wrist against something and they were surprised it didn't leave a scratch. The leather strap I got at the same time has worn out now, but the plastic one doesn't look like it's breaking any time soon.
The only thing I wish it had is in-built GPS so I don't have to take my phone when tracking a run, but I'd considered that a nice-to-have compared to things like its long battery life.
I love love the look of this watch, and I'm actually in the same boat as OP - except for one thing: I use my miband primarily to control music (Spotify). I looked at the link and specifications for the Withings watch, but couldn't find anything music related there.
Would you happen to know if it's a definite no or yes on using the watch to control something like music playing on a phone?
I just checked and there is no way for me to control spotify (at least in a straight-forward way that I could find).
I always have my headphones on when listening to spotify or am in my car and control it thru that, so have never noticed that I couldn't control spotify from my watch, but that is a feature deficiency with the Withings watches.
You wanted a Pebble. RIP. =(
You can still find them used for under $100 (though at a glance, it looks like plan for $100-$150 for one in good shape). There was work to set up an alternative to Pebble's own online services when they went down, but I don't know the status of that; turns out, they interface perfectly fine with gadgetbridge, so that's what I used while I was still using my Pebble past EoL.
Rebble.io is what you want. Makes it act like official Pebble software did. If you want to use the Pebble Time microphone for speech-to-text, it costs like $30 USD/yr since that has costs associated with it. They rock.
https://rebble.io -- its still going. They recently had a a little hackathon.
I've been using a Pinetime and really enjoy it. Costs around $30, runs open-source software with no data collection, and lasts 10+ days for me since the latest Infinitime update. Still only does the basics, but handles them well (notifications, step tracking, music controls, timers and alarms)- mainly I just like the idea that I can keep getting software updates for this thing as long as the community stays interested in hacking on it.
I'd skip it if you're using an iPhone though, the integration's a little too limited for that.
Reminds me a lot of Pebble... Ah I love my Pebble Time... Wish it's battery lasted more than a day now.
I have an Instinct (OG, not the 2) and it's been fantastic for me. I get around 2 weeks on a charge. It's not a full-blown smart watch (I.E. you can't run apps on it) but I have never needed that feature. It DOES require the phone app for notifications as the app is what monitors and pushes them to the watch.
I will also note that Garmin support is outstanding. I had battery issue with me first one some 6 months out of warranty and they still replaced it without me even asking. I had simply reached out to see if they offered a repair program.
My one real complaint with it is that there is no automatic quiet hours. My previous smart watches would automatically suspend notifications to the watch when it detected you asleep. The Instinct (and I suspect all Garmin watches) only let you set quite hours and this applies 7 days a week. You can't even set different hours on the weekend. I submitted a feature request some 2 years ago but it's gone nowhere.
Regardless, when it finally dies I'll replace it with an Instinct 2.
Any specific questions let me know!
Have you had any issues with durability? It looks like it could take a hit. Also, are there any apps that you have issues receiving notifications from?
Nope, I've whacked it a fair few times against things and it's held up great. It's very durable. I've had it in oceans, pools, hot tubs, shower with it every day, etc.
I'm on Android so take that as you will. As long as the app has a notification that pops to the main notification drawer it can scrape them. I will add because of that the Garmin app DOES need fairly high-level permissions on the device.
My wife has had some issues where the notifications will quit working and need reset but I attribute those to her old phone as I've not had that problem.
I bought an Instinct when my Pebble Time Steel died in ~2019 and it took plenty of knocks. I got an Instinct 2 Solar after they came out with that and same. Gave the original to my roommate who's a rock climber, and generally kinda rough on equipment. It was doing fine until the battery started losing capacity this year. Garmin replaced it out of warranty with a refurbished replacement for ~$50.
Never had anything that gives a phone notification fail to give a watch notification. The one 'issue' is it doesn't do images. Personally I turn 95% of notifications off, most of what I care about going to the wrist is text messages anyway.
I use the Fossil Hybrid smart watch. It is relatively sneaky because it is a normal watch with an e ink display that can be deactivated. The feature set is limited but I think it has everything you wanted in your post:
Because it only uses e-ink it has > 2 week battery life and people ask you if you are in a hurry every time you look at a notification.
I don't know about fossil and data protection though
I had a Hybrid HR Collider previously and ended up with the impression that it was a good idea with an implementation that could still do with work. I liked the battery life, a non-touchscreen interface, the discrete smartwatch look, and the physical hands but found the interface to be annoyingly slow (particularly as I knew eink could be responsive due to a previous Pebble) and the backlight basically never turned on when I actually wanted it to.
I moved on partly due to the eink fading - an apparently common problem they've hopefully solved by now, though the current watches look very similar screen wise. The other reason was me getting annoyed by Fossil releasing an upgrade which was really a downgrade - they decided that left handed users didn't matter and removed the left handed button mode I was using, as well as the same update making the app open onto ads for Fossil products instead of the step count etc that used to be the primary focus.
My new Gen 6 definitely has a left/right hand mode, although I'm not sure if it's the same as it was for you.
I also couldn't stand the official app which additionally sends any data collected overseas, so I've replaced it with Gadgetbridge.
Without that app I most likely would have sent it back.
I looked it up and apparently the left handed mode reappeared several updates later (after I stopped.using mine), presumably the current left handed mode is basically how it used to be.
Based on the post title I was going to suggest Xiaomi Band... but I see that's not the desired answer. I also have a Xiaomi Band 4 and one huge positive is the battery life. I keep the heart rate monitor off and that lets my battery last well over a month. I've had mine for several years and I'm starting to be shocked that I've had no problems (other than the wristbands wearing out), so I'm keeping my eye on the Xiaomi Band 7. I hear version 8 is on the way too.
If you use Notify, they are unsure if they will be able to support the 8 for a while due to OS changes. I am pleasantly surprised how well the 4 works as well.
I don't use Notify right now and only use the app when I need to add or edit an alarm setting, so 8 might be ok. But for now, my 4 keeps on chugging along so I can wait.
I've been using a Garmin Descent every day for almost 6 years. It's in a different price category than you're discussing, but it's basically a Garmin watch with some scuba features thrown in, so I can speak to Garmin overall.
The battery life is amazing. If I'm just using it as a watch and not diving or anything it still lasts 10-12 days after all these years.
The app is fantastic and easy to use, and I downloaded a watch face that lets me customize the heck out of it. I can look at my wrist and see the time/date (including day of week and week number), my heart rate, miles walked, step counter, altitude, temperature, phone status, sunrise/sunset times, activity log (line graph representing day), and even phase of the moon without touching a button.
Those are my selections. I do a lot of night diving and underwater photography, so things like phase of moon and sunset are pretty important in my daily life, but you do you.
The screen is essentially colored e-ink, so it actually reads better in direct sunlight as opposed to something requiring a backlight.
I was the kind of person who gets a new phone/camera/watch every year, but I've loved my Garmin so much that I plan to use it as long as it works.
My only real complaint is the charger is weird, but the newer watches have changed to a less-stupid system than this cradle I have to use.
I still use a Garmin Vivoactive 3. You can probably find one now for under $100 as they've been around a while. I get 4-5 days between charges, assuming I don't use GPS mode for exercise very often. Display is not the highest quality, but its always-on for those 4-5 days.
I've been using a Fenix 6s for around a year now and still like it. Plus points for me are the battery life (about 10% a day when not tracking activities, so I generally recharge it once a week), the eink screen (easily seen in daylight), and a button based interface instead of touchscreen. Being able to show topo maps is a nice party trick too, the screen is a bit too small for real navigation but is handy to keep track of where you're at when walking off track.
Durability has been pretty good, I tend to scratch up watches (or do stuff like forget to cover them and spray hot grinder dust on the glass) so I got some cheap tempered glass screen protectors for it. I've broken a couple of them now but the watch proper is still good - few scratches around the bezel but that's it.
I was basically looking for the same thing you are. I primarily wear my watch to work where I want the notifications but I am customer facing so I don't want to be holding my phone in my hand.
I went with the Ticwatch Pro 3. Not crazy expensive, Wear OS and does the job.
Fitbit Versa 3 is what I use. It's great for notifications and alarms. $200 and battery lasts a week.
Edit: I see the 4 is out now. Still $200
I am using Garmin Instinct for years already and if it ever dies I'll just get another one.
Xaomi mi fit