Last year I ditched my Apple Watch and started wearing an analog watch. I’m a huge fan, and here are some thoughts after a year. None of this is groundbreaking (and much of it has probably been said before), but I wanted to put it in my own words.

Pickle got me a Vaer S3 last year for Father’s Day. It’s a 36mm quartz-powered field watch. I looked at watches for a long time, and this is the one that always stood out to me. Pickle has excellent taste.

It’s a field watch, so it’s a little utilitarian but highly useful (a tool watch, if you will). Compact size, great for me small wrists, highly legible dial with great lume. Very durable. With it’s metal bracelet, it reminds me a bit of a Rolex Explorer, but I usually wear it with a nylon strap for comfort and simplicity.

I had my Apple Watch for about a year, but I wasn’t in love with it. I got it for two reasons: 1 to lessen my reliance on my phone (and not have it with me all the time), and 2 to track my running and biking without needing to carry my phone with me.

But after a year, I still had my phone with me all the time. If I was sitting on the couch and I had a notification on my watch, I’d need to get up and grab my phone to action it. I wasn’t using my phone any less. The Apple Watch was ok for workouts, but my watch was less accurate than Kat’s watch. If we ran a 5K together, I could be up to half a kilometer off from her measurements, despite us running side by side. It didn’t feel super accurate.

Plus, I didn’t like that I needed to charge it every day or so. It wasn’t incredibly inconvenient, but it was another thing that needed my attention, another cable to bring when traveling. The juice was not worth the squeeze.

So I upgraded, and it’s been great! The Vaer tells time excellently. It does have a battery in it, but it should last a good 3-5 years. It does not pester me with notifications. Plus, did I mention how stunning it looks?

Stun-ning

The Apple Watch was not the forcing function I thought it would be to reduce my phone usage. I don’t know if the Vaer helps that any more or less. I think phone usage is more of a discipline/systems problem than a technological one. Though if I just need to check the time, an analog watch saves me a phone pickup just as much, if not more, than an Apple Watch1.

The transition to the new watch was mostly seamless. I did notice I felt ghost pings for a few days. I would feel a buzz from a notification, only to realize that I no longer receive notifications on my wrist. The psychological implications of that was a little spooky2.

I really don’t miss the Apple Watch at all, but there is one use case where it did come in handy. The Apple Watch could give you real-time directions as you walked, including a buzz as you approached the intersection where you needed to turn as a heads up. That was genuinely useful3 in a foreign city like London, where phone theft on the street is a concern.

I don’t really have a solution for that with an analog watch. It’s a bit less convenient, but I guess I just need to study the route a bit more ahead of time and have a good grip on the phone when I do pull it out on the street. We’ve navigated for centuries without this convenience, it’s not the end of the world4.

There is one more thing to note. Hear me out, I don’t think this negates any of the reasoning in this post:

I did get a Coros watch for running/cycling tracking. It is a smart watch, but very much focused towards fitness. Technically you can get notifications and wear it daily as a smart watch/Apple Watch replacement. But I don’t. It only gets used when I go for a run or bike ride. It’s easier to bring with than a phone, plus its GPS is more accurate. I don’t consider this to take anything away from the switch though. The Coros isn’t a daily watch. It’s a tool with a very specific, narrow use case. I would never wear it out and about or even around the house.

So that’s it. I switched from an Apple Watch to an analog watch. I’m chuffed as chips. If you’re thinking of making the switch: go for it, give it a shot! You might like it too.

  1. meaning if I look at me Apple Watch and see a notification, then I’m more likely to pickup the phone anyways. ↩

  2. Craig Mod calls phones little heroin bricks. The Apple Watch, being an extension of the phone, falls into the same camp. Little bits of heroin on one’s wrist, demanding attention. ↩

  3. Side note: that genuinely feels like LLM speak. I swear I wrote that myself, but I feel kinda grody now that I wrote it. Ugh. ↩

  4. Or…I could draw out a map in a notebook, and reference that. I like that idea, but would definitely require more work up front. And not as effective form something spur of the moment. Still, something to think about… ↩