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Looking for a non-smart watch recommendation
I'm looking for a digital watch with a step counter that ideally resets every day. I've had a few smartwatches and my latest Garmin is nearing the end of its life. I've decided that time and step counting is really all I need out of a watch. Can anyone reccomend a watch like this?
One interesting route is to mod a casio f91w with a step counter, like the ollie watch kit. IIRC it has some limited smarts about it, but you could use it just as a step counter.
There is also sensor watch which is less plug and play, but more customisable than Ollee.
Very neat, I love these custom board options
That's really cool! I might consider that one
Do you have the Ollee watch yourself? I know they can't guarantee waterproofness but I'm curious if anyone with experience can say whether it holds up in water
Looking it up pushed me to order the kit, but it’ll be a while before I receive it i think.
I’d just get a Casio. There’s some vintage styled ones with a pedometer in them as well as some of the GShocks.
I think Timex has some Ironman models that do too but the Casios look better unless you’re into the cute Peanuts collabs Timex is doing.
Do you have any experience with the Casio's? I like the look of them but I'm curious if the step counter resets itself each day.
Chiming in here to say I was looking for the same thing as you and I ended up with a step counter vintage Casio model, specifically the ABL100WE-1AVT. I don't like the big, plasticky looking Casios, so the vintage style fits me better.
The steps reset daily, and you can set a daily step goal and even a step reminder if you want. (The reminder vibrates your watch if you're behind on steps.) One button push alternates the main watchface between today's date and your step count, right above the time. It's been an all-around great watch, and I'm happy with it.
There's a Bluetooth feature that allows you to connect it to an app to download your historical step data, but I've never done so. There's no need to use the app. I never bothered to download it.
That sounds pretty great, I might give this model a try
I have a casio "smart-optional" watch since a couple of years ago.
I can find the exact model if you want.On my model, I can only see the number of steps for the current day, but the "daily steps" menu also shows a scale of 0-100% (based on my "goals") for the previous ~1 week, in the form of a bar chart. The next menu "monthly distance" shows the number of kilometres you've travelled this month in big letters, whereas the previous ~6 months' distances are reflected only in a bar chart.
It technically supports smart features, but they're so basic they're useless anyway. So I've had it in flight mode for ~2 years now and I still didn't need to get the battery replaced.
Edit: The model is GBX-100TT-8ER
That's great, thank you for the information
I will always recommend the concept of hybrid smart watches. These typically have much longer battery lives than conventional smart watches (~month typically), do the time thing really well (because it's just a normal clock face), and are usually a lot simpler in terms of functionality. It's the perfect combination where you'll get steps counts and the time, but it remains simple and looks elegant - it looks just like a real watch because it is just a real watch.
Unfortunately, hybrid smart watches never really took off, so there's not really many companies to recommend. I have a Withings watch, and it's okay. It usually undercounts the step count, but you can mentally adjust for that and set lower goals and it's fine. The watch face gets quite scratched, but it's still readable. There's an app that's okay, and you can configure notifications if you want them, or set up alarms. It's fine, but it's not necessarily great. There used to be Fossil, but they've just given up on their hybrid line, so those are out. Garmin do a line of hybrid watches that are better if you're interested in sports tracking, but they also look like Garmin watches. Then there are a handful of small boutique companies that are typically more expensive and look nicer, but are typically more limited.
I'll probably get the latest Withings watch when this one breaks, if the company is still making them. But it's not necessarily a great market for these kinds of watches right now, which is a shame because they're great and really underrated.
TL; DR - if I convince enough people to buy the current range of okay hybrid watches, maybe they'll finally start making some good ones.
+1 I have been using the Withings watches for the past several years and they are fantastic. Three weeks of battery, daily steps, timers and even wake up vibration alarms if I need. And they look great.
My Fossil hybrid was so bad, I eventually bought a $20 Timex Expedition. At least when the illumination on that one failed, I don't care because it was so damn cheap, it doesn't really matter.
I wish I could support your cause but I'm really looking for less connectivity, and therefore less time spent on my phone. But I have seen withing watches and they do look gorgeous!
I got a Withings Scantwatch Nova and I'm really happy with it. I don't use any of the smart watch stuff (Or the step counter), I just wanted a watch that I didn't need to adjust the time on, and that looked good. I would recommend it for your use case.
How did you manage that?! I've had my Withings Scanwatch watch for about 3.5 years and there isn't a mark on the face, despite me forgetting to remove it at times when doing DIY/construction.
If I look really hard there are some tiny marks on the case, still looks pretty close to perfect condition tbh. Good enough that my GF has invested in one recently.
When I did step counting I personally just used my phone and it works great. I do have a couple of cheap wristwatches I wear because taking my phone out to just check the time is annoying. I detest notifications and will never get a smart watch for that reason though.
Maybe just a cheapo regular watch plus your phone for steps is the way to go?
Yea its a good thought but probably won't work for me, I'm trying to distance myself from my phone and not carry it as much
You could look into the "new" Pebbles. I picked one up and have only connected it to my tablet a handful of times (to get a watchface that I like and update the firmware). Out of the box, with no apps and in airplane mode, it tells time, counts daily steps, gives you stats on how long/well you slept each night, and has smart alarms that can wake you up when you come out of deep sleep within 30 mins of the time you set. Battery life is decent, I need to charge it maybe once every week or so (and they claim they're going to improve that in the future with more firmware updates).
Dunno. Personally I wouldn't want to financially support "new pebble" following Eric's recent actions in his own blogpost regarding some recent drama. (See the comments here: https://tildes.net/~tech/1rb1/core_devices_keeps_stealing_our_rebble_work)
I saw that thread, and couldn't muster up the mental energy required to read and parse all the posts and counter-posts and comments and get emotionally invested one way or the other. Correct me if I'm way off base, but at a bird's-eye glance it didn't seem like either side was making a particularly strong case over the other (it smelled strongly to me of your typical FOSS drama-du-jour pissing contest).
Personally, I don't care about the drama itself, but the act of putting out private conversations in public on the internet without consent is a hard nope for me. Pretty much guarantees I'll never buy a pebble.
I bought a refurbished Fitbit Charge 3 for like 20 bucks off eBay. Done it 2-3 times so far. Does my step count, notifies me of calls and texts (optional) and that's basically it. Lasts for 5ish days between charges.
Works great for me.
I have only an anti-recommendation, which is anything made by Mio. I had one of their wrist mounted heart rate/step/etc monitors which also told the time and did very little else and it was great until one day they bricked it with a software update and now it's expensive junk in my drawer.
Avoid.
My daughter has a vivofit jr 3 that has a daily step goal feature. It can periodically sync with an app, but otherwise just functions like a regular watch with a ~1y battery in it.Other than the display not being very bright, no complaints about it.
Looks like there are similar vivofits targeted at adults that have more of a band styling (the jr looks like an actual watch).
Have you considered a PineTime? Cheap, with some basic functionality: steps, heart rate, weather, a couple built-in apps and games. It's low-cost, open-spec, hardly needs charged, customizable. It is under active development, so maybe not "technically" recommended as a daily driver, but I have had no stability issues at all and you can tinker with it as much or as little as you want!
The one caveat is that if you want data tracking and some additional functionality (weather, namely), you'll need a companion app to do the thinking. Luckily, there's a list of these for several different platforms!
Hey that’s wild — I created InfiniTime (the iOS companion app) back in the day! I had to bail on it because I got a real job, so someone else has long since taken over dev and maintenance and I haven’t touched it in a couple years. Nice to see it’s still on that list though 🥹
I bought a PineTime a while back, and had it working for exactly one day before I unrecoverably bricked it somehow during firmware flashing. So word of advice for anyone who decides to get one: resist your tinkerer tendencies as much as possible because software-wise these things can be fragile.
Interesting! I knew it was possible, but I haven't had that issue. I've flashed a bunch of random CI builds from the pull requests and mine is still ticking along happily. Though, I also went in with the idea that since it was so cheap, I didn't really mind if I bricked one... Not financially responsible, maybe, but that's how I viewed it!
Also, I did actually have to replace my first PineTime, but that was because I broke my watch band getting into my car and didn't notice until after driving away :/
I'm enjoying my older model second hand Bip U Pro: steps feel accurate,configurable to make it completely offline and distraction free.
A possible consideration besides steps: if you want breathable leather straps or nylon or plastic, since it'll be against your skin for so much of the day everyday.
I clicked on your title so fast when I read it thinking someone wanted to talk mechanical watches.
Nice. I've had my Bip U Pro since 2021 and love it too! I've used it every day, every workout (to track my heartrate and cals burned), and every night (to track my sleep quality) since I bought it, and almost 5 years later I am still getting 3-4 days battery life out of it before it needs a recharge. Sadly, the button/dial on the side started failing a few days ago though, so I literally just got a Bip 6 to replace it this morning.
The Bip 6 is basically the new Bip U Pro model, and about the same price as the Bip U Pro was (it's on sale for $91 CAD on Amazon right now). However, it's got an even bigger, brighter, higher resolution screen (side by side pic) and is packed with way more smart watch features too (like phone call answering with a built in mic), so @BlindCarpenter probably won't be interested in it. Although, like you said, pretty much all the "smart" features can actually be turned off in the settings, so it can essentially be rendered a "dumb" watch with only step tracking if that's what they want. And one of the models, which I was also strongly considering getting, the Active 2, has a circular watch face so looks even more like a traditional watch (and is on sale for $112 CAD, or $139 for the Pro version that comes with a leather strap and Sapphire Glass screen).
But for anyone actually looking for a budget, fully-functional smart watch, I highly highly recommend checking out Amazfit's watches. I genuinely don't know how they manage to charge so little for them, especially considering they stack up to Apple Watches in terms of sensors, have like 90% of the same features, have WAAAAAAY better battery life (10-12 days vs 1-2 days), and all for $500-1000 less than them.
I have another suggestion that doesn't meet the requirements: get any analogue watch you want (preferably a self winding one).
By completely skipping the pedometer you will get to be one step, pun very much intended, further away from the digital efficient constantly self optimising life that we have been dragged into.
I suspect that one of the benefits of not being attached to your phone is precisely not knowing (or being able to look up) a lot of things but ofc if you really want to know how much you walk get yourself a separate pedometer for a while (you could even use your phone) until you get a feeling for how your daily goal feels.