My smartwatch progression

A good number of years ago - somewhere around 2012 to 2014 - my family gifted me with my first smartwatch. Surprisingly to me, I had not yet considered venturing into the smartwatch field. As an early adopter of technology, it would normally have been of interest to me to try out a new line of technology. Fortunately, my family unknowingly rescued me from my oversight and I began trying to work out how a smartwatch could improve my life.

I've always enjoyed the classic combination of watches, pocket knives and wallets, so I tried to get my head around how I'd feel about a watch that would age poorly (technology usually does - newer, more powerful processors and features get released over time and eventually old computers and mobiles etc become less helpful, sometimes useless). A good old-school watch - even a digital one - could last a lifetime and sometimes even increase in value. What would happen with smartwatches?

PEBBLE WATCH

That first smart watch of mine was the original Pebble Watch. It sported an e-ink display, which we knew about from the Kindle Readers and had that old style digital watch feel. It didn't have a touch screen, but rather three buttons on the right and one on the left with which to interact. It paired easily with my Android phone and I found the button navigation very helpful. It was easy to access messages and to see whan a call was coming in. An unexpected benefit to me was that I had less reason to take my phone out of a pocket as I could very easily tell whether a call or text was critical while busy in a meeting or piece of work. Of course that is a kind of distraction, but it felt to me like less of a distraction than my phone had been and certainly more discreet when with others.

I did need to let others know at times that me looking at my watch was that a message had come in rather than that I was checking the time! Over time, I had to learn to ignore even my watch when appropriate.

PEBBLE STEEL

My brother-in-law gave me his old Pebble Steel as my next smartwatch and while it was an upgrade in design, materials and OS, functioned similarly to the original Pebble, which was not a bad thing and I enjoyed the robust chassis and solid feel of the new model. All the Pebble watches I had used had the e-ink displays and were black and white (or black and green/grey as per old school digital watches)

SONY SMARTWATCH 3

I didn't venture beyond the Pebble Steel to the Pebble Time or Pebble Time Round for my next smartwatch, as my next multifunctional time-keeping device was the Sony Smartwatch 3. 

This was the kind of design I would probably have come up with, had I imagined a smartwatch - a sleek, thin, black rectangular watch with a sporty feel and a colour touchscreen with a solitary button on the side.

I really appreciated the look and feel of this watch and the OS, being Android Wear (now WearOS), integrated well with my Android mobile at the time. 

I had to appreciate just how good the Pebble watches were with navigating via the buttons as I tried to do most things on the touchscreen of the Sony Smartwatch 3. It was just a bit harder to get around and there tended to be a few levels or taps to get where you wanted to in the system. This was likely not only Sony's doing, but a combination of the touch screen and the fledgling Android Wear OS underpinning it's features.

Still, I really enjoyed this watch and have even spotted one occasionally in a second-hand store and felt a moment of nostalgia - even a very brief thought of buying one for fun again. 

HUAWEI WATCH 2

I had received an Amazon gift voucher and held on to it for a while as I considered what to treat myself with. Eventually, I happened upon the Huawei Watch 2 and after a fair bit of research, decided that this was my next option. There seemed to be a trend away from square watch faces and everything seemed to be an upgrade over my Sony Smartwatch 3.

I went on to use the Huawei Watch 2 for a good length of time. I did find that it was slightly laggy in response which might have been a combination of the touchscreen technology, the OS (a later version of Android Wear) and the hardware driving everything. 

HUAWEI WATCH 3

I wouldn't be able to return to using any of the previous watches as my primary wearable again though. Not after experiencing the design, feel, functionality and overall style of the Huawei Watch 3.

My family had asked about gift ideas for me one birthday and since they had started me off on my wearable journey, it seemed fitting to offer a suggestion towards the significantly-updated Huawei Watch 3 that I'd been eyeing out for a while (I have a large and generous family and they all chipped in to spread the cost, for which I'm grateful!)

The look and feel of this watch, with it's large round virtually bezel-less screen and premium finish (mine was the silver watch chassis with leather straps) was a joy to wear and look at. There is a black option that comes with a fluoroelastomer strap too, which is equally appealing.

This watch featured Huawei's own HarmonyOS, however and while it's features worked well, it had not developed to the degree that WearOS had yet and I missed a few of the menu options and ways to respond to incoming messages. The overall experience was worth the jump though and it wasn't long before HarmonyOS came into it's own and in some areas, perhaps overtook WearOS. 

The health features for exercise, sleep monitoring etc are among the best, competing and for the most part, exceeding those of the main contenders in this arena - the Garmin, Fitbit and Samsungs. 

I haven't mentioned the other brands and that's not because I didn't look into them. The Samsung design really appeals to me and I like the rotating bezel that serves as a menu selection/scrolling interface. At the time, I wasn't sure compatible Samsung's Tizen OS would be on an on-going basis with Android. Samsung were well-positioned to be able to make the jump into their own eco-system, departing from Google's.  Google may have seen that potential too, and opted to join forces with Samsung to merge WearOS and Tizen into their future wearable OS.
Garmin and Fitbit and the other popular brand didn't appeal to me as much as they had mainily the fitness focus and I liked the complete approach Huawei employed by including some of the best quality fitness and health-tracking features as well as robust productivity, calling and texting features.

Somewhere along the line, the rotating crown on my Huawei Watch 3 stopped working. It's designed to rotate in order to scroll and is also a button to press to select. After a while the rotating feature started working again, but the button seemed permanently doomed.
The watch was nice-enough and still functional enough for me to continue to use, until I mustered up the motivation to become more active again. Most of the health and fitness features I needed were accessed by the crown button. I could start workouts from my mobile, but it hampered my sessions by not being able to begin and end workouts on the watch itself.
i did a fair amount of research and did all the basic troubleshooting (short of taking the thing apart) to try correct it. An investigation into repair seemed to indicate that it would cost almost as much as a new watch!

And there was a new watch out! The Huawei Watch 4 had been released a while back.

You can buy the Huawei Watch 3 on Amazon for around £170 at the time of writing - still a great option.

HUAWEI WATCH 4

And, I wasn't in a position to just buy another watch. Naturally, a newer version of something is more expensive (Watch 3 vs Watch 4), and even though I just like to have the latest gadget as it almost always has better features and some improvement over the previous version. If I get it when it's new, there's a better chance that it will satisfy my desire for the new longer.

I did some research to properly understand whether there was much difference between the Watch 3 and Watch 4. As I looked into this, I realised that there is little to no difference in the aesthetic design, so it might be that the upgrade was just marginal and perhaps getting a replacement Watch 3 would be a good option. After all, I was still very happy with the performance of my Watch 3, except for the damaged crown button.

As I explored a little more deeply, I came to understand that there were indeed some deeper functions that the Watch 4 offered as well as performance and features that couldn't be added by an OS upgrade. Of course, the support life cycle for updates is also extended in a newer version.

I had a brief glance at the upgrade options for the Watch 4 - the Watch 4 Pro and the Watch 4 Ultimate. they were beautiful and I'd gladly snap them up, but the cost uplift was substantial for upgraded production material - Titanium case and titanium / leather strap options. The core features remained the same or similar enough that I knew I'd be happy with Watch 4.

I did some exploring into the Watch 4 GT though. The price on that was amazing! As in surprisingly low for the features and the stunning design - check it out here. It was almost a no-brainer and for most other people, a much better option. The only things important to me that were missing were the ability to take and make calls (via bluetooth/Wifi) and the upgraded health features like the upgraded electrode for ECG analysis. Why I'd need that exactly, I'm not entirely sure, but I wanted to allow for the posibility of that becoming important to me in the future (which says a lot about me!) The Watch 4 does also have an esim capability, which means you could use it without a connected mobile, which is appealing, but too expensive for me to add an additional sim cost to my contract at this stage.

You can buy the Huawei Watch 4 on Amazon for around £340 - it's jump from the Watch 3 price, so worth considering these alternatives:

• Huawei Fit 3 for around £130 - From what I understand, it's a better choice than the FitBit

• Huawei Watch GT4 for around £200 - A beautiful looking watch at a fantastic price point!

• Huawei Watch 4 Pro for around £390 - reasonable increase for the feature uplift

• Huawei Watch 4 Pro Space Edition for around £550 - Aerospace-Grade DLC Titanium case etc. If you can, go for it!

• Huawei Watch 4 Ultimate for around £750 - I'd love to have this one, but it's a few £££s too far for me.