The Best Smart Watch or why is it a myth

What an amazing time we are living and yet some companies fail to recognize true value in simpler life. Some companies are rushing to market and in a craze of development and trying to introduce their version of smartwatch. What is smart watch anyway and how do you define one? From the watches in this category it seems that smart watch is defined to be extension of your phone and can be used as some kind of interface to phone functionality. That means you can initiate phone calls, read texts and view pictures. Think of smartwatch being remote terminal to your phone, conveniently located on your wrist.
In my humble opinion the electronics industry take on smart watch is flawed on so many levels that renders the watch useless. Basic issue that it needs to be charged daily, makes it utility limited and cumbersome. It reminds me the time when people wear mechanical watches that needed to be wound daily. And in addition current Smart watches can barely function in standalone mode.
Should we go into the lengths of reviewing the variety of smart watches available today? Why get involved in this lame task of defining differences in “technological marvels” which are set to burn and die as any other devices coasting towards end of their life on technological blind path. Do not get discouraged if you are one of the victims of this race. You got a toy that will outlive it usefulness in short period of few months, so try to maximize its use.

What is the best watch, smart or not

Let’s define what makes the watch more useful regardless of technology. Before continuing I can assure you that I am not qualified to cast any judgement on the current Smart watches since I can proudly say that I don’t own one. Yet I was fascinated with watches since my childhood. Of course it took me a while to realize that watches are not measuring time but giving us a reference of its passage. So without further delay we should describe properties of best watch and where do we stand in the technological development.

Watches should be accurate reference of time

Recently while following the technology of watches I found that I totally missed tourbillion watch maturity, development and price hike. Let’s begin by saying that accuracy of those watches reaches amazing 15 seconds a day, just joking about amazing part. This is a clear representative of watch going forward towards blind technological path. The mechanism is mesmerizing to watch and manufacturers are capitalizing on it by creating “skeleton” watches that allow users to see inner workings of this mechanical marvel. Well this is confusing, first I joke about its amazing accuracy and then call it mechanical marvel? Yes but I did not call it smart watch or any other name related to watches. This is not a watch but piece of jewelry that you can spend few hundred or sometimes hundreds of thousands to purchase, to amuse your friends. I can justify spending few hundreds on purchase of this watch, just because its inner workings is beautiful. Yet we cannot call it a watch since the accuracy of a watch has paramount importance and technologically we already reached its practical limits. Currently the best clocks provide much better accuracy then one second in longest human life expectancy period. I am talking about atomic clocks. The time information on those clocks can be accessed in several ways like using “Atomic” watches that contain low frequency (50KHz in US) receiver that captures current time/date information from broadcast. Another way to gain access to this technological marvel is by using GPS watches, basically using GPS satellites as reference. Yet I almost have a nostalgia about technology that was introduced by first digital watches, way back when. Back then the 32768Hz crystal (2^15) was time reference and it was not calibrated. So some digital watches came with option to adjust the reference by introducing a way to calculate and input daily or hourly adjustment amount. Basically you could have achieve 0.1 second accuracy in ten day period using lots of patience and careful calibration. That is hundred time better than any advanced tourbillion watch accuracy and it was achieved in eighties. To be fair I should say that cellphones and smart watches are all synchronized to the atomic clocks, usually without any effort from users. There is an exemption in case of standalone smart watch, which usually has unspecified accuracy. In my humble opinion think best watch should use crystal oscillator as reference and have capability to adjust/learn about its accuracy using various ways to access the atomic clocks for calibration. After a while such a watch will have dependable accuracy without need to access any atomic clock. You can wear this watch on the moon, Mars under sea or underground where atomic clock references are not available.

How long should watch battery last?

This is a trick question and one which is totally overlooked in “smart” watch industry. What about forever or as long as you live? Who needs a battery anyway? This problem of energy storage powering the watch was solved years ago with introduction of automatic watches that recharge using mechanical flywheels and later on by solar watches. In theory you can wear those watches for a lifetime and they will not need any recharging/battery. Recent technological marvels kind of drifted away from this by adding lithium battery to the watch that is recharged by solar energy. This kind of limits the lifetime of battery since lithium batteries have limited life span or charge/discharge cycles. Yet they can last decades. Same is true about long lasting batteries that go over ten years before dying and used in many mid range watches. It seems that subject of battery life is open and shut case, basically no batteries is the best option or in other words battery should last forever/lifetime. Off the subject, I witnessed very sad episode at LA Expo. The speaker told the audience that he did not have a time and asked if someone can time his speech. The oddity of request came from observation that he was wearing an Apple watch and then realization came that it had dead batteries. How sad is it when once in his life this speaker needed a watch and instead ended up wearing some jewelry that just resembled one at that moment

What other functionality is desirable in a watch?

The appearance of the watch is very personal and subjective and all I can share is my opinion and preference in the subject. In my opinion the best watches are the ones with titanium enclosure/band and sapphire glass to prevent scratches. Also they should have at least 30M waterproof rating that will give you option to wear your watch during showers or swimming. Also you should be able to tell date by single glance on the display. It is desirable to use watch dials that have photoluminescence coating to light up the watch face and hands at night time. Precision analog display is highly desirable and could be easily achieved. It is annoying to look at the watch dial to find out that its hands are skewed and do not match the dial divisions. This is specially apparent if second hand is shifted compared with the dial. It seems only watches that cost thousands of dollars have dials with perfect adjustment. If you are geeky than you might like sliding rule feature on watch dial. For those who don't know about this old analog computer it is a blast to learn how to multiply/divide/add/subtract and convert units with this simple technology. The precision matters so make sure your slide rule watch dial is readable and has accurate markings.

Summary of best watch characteristics

1.    Accurate timekeeping with ability to self-calibrate/learn for better precision
2.    Uses energy source that is different from batteries and provides at least a decade long power
3.    Designed to be rugged, with non-scratch window and waterproof to 30M
4.    Should provide date and time information preferably using analog display
5.    Should have timer and stopwatch
6.    Should have multiple alarms
7.    Should have precision analog movement for time display with contrasting colors

Conclusion

The Smart watch technology is in the flux and you should avoid buying one. New models and features will be introduced shortly and your gear can be outdated in few months if you rush to buy.

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