IIRC Temu makes it business from super cheaply priced items.
Super cheaply priced generally means either super cheap quality or some really iffy labor rights violations* in third-world countries (I know that term isn’t the term to use nowadays since it’s a cold war relic but I can’t think of a better term—lemme know if you know of one), usually both.
*Up to and including slave labor. (Yay capitalism!)
Pros: cheap
Con: you support temu, and slave labour.
It might or might not:
- arrive
- work
- be genuine
- be fit for purpose
- Give lead poisoning
- Leak battery juice
- Explode
I have some strict rules about buying things where I cannot verify the used materials:
Nothing that goes into my body
Nothing that goes on my body
Nothing that touches my food
Nothing my pets touch
Nothing that needs to be plugged in or chargedA smart watch violates multiple of those rules. I wouldn’t want to risk it.
While I completely appreciate your perspective, I do have to ask: what with how interconnected, not to mention fucked up, the world is today, wouldn’t pretty much everything violate at least two or three of those rules?
I took that one to mean You know your Samsung S21 was made by Samsung. That suspiciously cheap “hoverboard” with the lithium ion battery was made… in china… somewhere.
I figured they meant that as well. I’m just saying their rules may not be as hard and fast as they seem to be presenting them.
Nothing that needs to be plugged in or charged
How are you using this site?
where I cannot verify the used materials
I’m very much doubting you can verify everything in your computer/phone as even computer part manufacturers have difficulty tracing their supply chain, so good luck with that.
Just buy a cheap Casio if that’s your budget. It’ll keep better time and is less likely to end up in a landfill
I have a casio phys and love it. It’s about 10 years old and I never even had to change the battery!
Then why are you considering it at all. I just rediscovered my old W-213 still going strong. I readjusted the seconds to match the current time, and I love the beep sounds.
I don’t think smartwatches and wearable clocks are the same thing. I want some of the features that smartwatches offer. I find it inconvenient to use a cellphone while riding my bicycle. I think sending and receiving text messages from a wearable device would be more convenient while commuting on the bike. plus some of the health monitoring features interest me. Also with my job I may look more professional checking my watch in certain cases than pulling out my phone.
So I already responded, but I’m seeing here that you are also a cyclist! I have tried a number of watches over the years and Garmin is absolutely the gold standard for fitness focused smartwatches. Some of them, like mine, only have buttons, no touchscreen, which sounds bad, but is actually amazing. Sure I can only choose from prewritten SMS responses, but I can get there with a few button clicks while riding (even on gravel). With my touchscreen watches, I used to have to stop to reply. The TFT screens also look better in direct sunlight than an LCD or OLED. So now, whenever my wife texts “where are you?” I can send a “out riding, love you” with only a few clicks. I also send her my GPS location when I ride in the road so she can have some peace of mind. I hear Wahoo also released a watch, haven’t heard much about it.
Cons are a weak app ecosystem and not quite as “smart” (meaning it is not as filled with tech gimmicks and an endless stream of notification chum). The stat analysis of your health data is best done via Garmin Connect app or even better, the desktop website. They let you download some of the reports as a CSV, but I’ve found that more often than that, the formatting and how the data is broken up in the csvs needs some work.
Do remember, while not a Google or an Apple, Garmin is still a big evil corporation trying to make money off chumps like you and me. You likely won’t get these features and keep your privacy 100% intact
Simpler question, why would you buy a Smart Watch?
For me, hourly movement reminders and medication reminders without having to constantly keep my phone in my pocket has been a godsend. Keeping track of my heart rate (especially while asleep) has also been great for being more aware of when my PTSD symptoms are acting up. I’m also never going back to a sound based alarm instead of a vibrating one, no idea if regular watches have that now too or not.
For me personally, I want to limit interactions with my phone by reading notifications on my wrist, only allowing certain apps to send notifications through, and maybe sending a quick reply through the watch if needed.
That said, most smart watches now are overcomplicated bloat, it’s all been downhill since the Pebble Time IMO
For me personally, I want to limit interactions with my phone by
reading notifications on my wristincreasing interactions with my watchThat just sounds like interactions with your phone but with extra steps.
Nah, there’s a fair bit of legitimacy in wanting to minimize how often you pull out your phone. If you can’t ignore notifications (i.e. devops) it’s nice to be able to check them without getting the full device out.
I am also a bicyclist with three different bikes. One watch replaces three bicycle computers. I can track performance metrics, longevity of components, and service intervals… for all of my bicycles.
My watch also has functions for sailing performance metrics, kayaking, hiking, running, and lots more sports.
That’s ignoring the other watch functions: timers, find my phone (great for when the phone slips between cushions and I didn’t notice), compass, barometric trends, notification filtering…
My partner has the same watch. The longitudinal health stats from her watch was one of the key factors in getting her health complaints taken seriously. One medical facility completely, repeatedly dismissed her concerns as “nothing serious.” Turns out she had Stage-IVb cancer (now recovered).
I use my bicycle for commuting. I often forget to text my partner that I’m on my way home. It’s smart to text them when I’m on my way home in case if I get hit by a car. I want to be able to quickly send a text while riding my bike. It is an inconvenience to do so with a phone.
But I also like the idea of having a pedometer, heart rate monitor.
If you use Google maps you can share your location and set up alerts when you leave it aside in certain zones
sometimes I want to get a pretzel after work without him knowing. need to figure that out before I share with him lol
🤣 reasonable! got to protect cheeky snack time
Tim walz–level confession
For me:
- It tells time and is always correct, also during daylight saving season
- It tells the weather forecast, I check it before leaving my house.
- I like that the alarm wakes me up with vibration mode, but not my partner (yes I wear my watch at night, but around my ankle, pro-tip)
- I like to easily read important notifications (I am quite strict in what it does show, so only texts from important people, my calendar and like bank notifications get through). Added benefit is that I don’t get distracted with other stuff because I don’t open my phone.
- I often lose my phone, my watch is able to find it.
- I use my watch to get simple navigation option when I go running/inline skating in an area I don’t know yet. Works better than the phone because I don’t have to hold the phone in my hand.
- I set it up so my partner can see where I’m at. When I see a notification from them asking where I am I can easily (and safily) start the tracking without having to pull out my phone.
- It tracks my heartrate, so I can do heartrate based training.
So is it really necessary? No obviously not, I will survive without it, but I do like it a lot and would miss it of it wasn’t there. But that’s how it is for me, that does not mean it will be the same for you.
Pros:
- Cheap
- May still have regular capabilities
- not a big deal if it breaks
- They usually don’t require “service,” just Bluetooth and being connected to a phone.
Cons
- Usually they require an app, that could just be Spyware
- it will not last long
- the capabilities it will have will be a poor imitation of the original.
- Could be irritating (to the skin). It may not fit right.
- Poor battery life
- Additional E-waste when you do get rid of it once it dies.
It’s cheap
As someone who has bought a fair number of smartwatches and fitness trackers and always over-researches every decision I make:
- See the rest of the replies for info on cheap smart watches. They’re basically a cereal box toy.
- Depending on what you need, the MiBand or Amazfit bands had excellent battery life and there used to be 3rd party apps for your phone that did a much better job collecting and displaying your stats than Zepp or MiFit (the official apps) did. I miss my 1.5 month battery life. Its also possible to use gadget bridge so it’s all 100% offline though I understand its still a bit more rudimentary than a corporate cloud-based solution. I remember the bands I got from them running $25-50 USD
- Used Garmin devices or previous gen garmin devices can be had MUCH cheaper than list price on Amazon or so. I picked up a Fenix 6 a few years ago for less than half of the $600 list price. I love the lack of touchscreen because the button navigation is absurdly fast and no mistouches! This suits how I use a watch much better than trying to put a tiny a 2x2cm touchscreen on my wrist. These are fitness watches, but some have a few smart features. Depends on what you plan to use it for I guess.
- If you are a nerd (a good thing) and want to contribute to a cool project, Pine Computers, which makes the pinebook, pinetab, pinephone, etc. makes a device called the pinetime that is basically a smartwatch that is open to the community’s hacks and modifications. I haven’t bought one because my biking depends on my Garmin stats, but I am tempted to grab one to mess with it.
None of these are fancy “smarts first” watches like an Apple Watch or an Android Watch. I found I needed less smarts than I thought as I usually carry my phone at all times anyway. It is nice to have the doorbell ring on my wrist and to reply to texts by choosing from a few pre-written responses while biking, or otherwise unavailable to text. If you really want a bunch of apps and integration with your phones OS, Apple and Android are the big two and its not really feasible to go 3rd party for the same experience.
Seems like asking for disappointment
if you want a decent cheap option, the wyze watch seemed okay
Thanks for the suggestion!
Someone close to me had positive things to say about the Wyze watch as well. If apple and android are tier A, wyze is below that, but above all the F tier temu and amazon junk.
When smart watches were begining to be a thing, a friend of mine bought a smartwatch for like 5$ in Ali express. When I asked him how the watch is he said “I am surprised that even for this low price, they still managed to disappoint me”
Pro: Price, Convenience, Looks
Cons: Much like buying an “iPhone” from Temu, the price is usually reflected in the quality.
Don’t get me wrong, there are cheep smart watches if you look for them or go second hand. But what you’ll find advertised on Temu isn’t it.
Build quality is usually the first to suffer, but you’ll find mislabeled battery info a 500mah instead of the promised 1000mah. Or an LCD instead of an OLED.
But those are things we can adapt too. The biggest problem is software. That’ll do and close enough has been the name of the game for years now. And sometimes “smart” just means it can (badly) track your steps and pretend to check your heart rate with a led pretending to be a sensor.
Alternative
If you are looking for any budget electronics try looking for last years or a few years ago models. I got a Garmin Forerunner 235 in 2022 for 1/5 of its asking price because I found a deal on eBay.
I’d also look into the landscape of the market you are buying into and seeing who is actually making these things, and what is running on it.
For smart watches I found the answer was
Apple
Android with Watch OS (Samsung google and many more)
Garmin
If the watch isn’t running android watch os or is made by Apple or Garmin. Assume its good too be true and look into it more, or look elsewhere.
Good news China is lazy and one clone usually is made by many factories and someone else made a video about it. Might not be the same name, but it’ll be close enough.
Cheap but probably won’t work I’m guessing?
If you really want a cheap smart watch there’s a bunch of reliable ones worth looking into rather than getting something random on temu. I haven’t tried the Pine Time but it looks good if you like fiddling with the tech.
If you can put up with Xiaomi they make a ton of different options. I used a Mi Band for a few years and it kinda did what I wanted it to do better than my current Wear OS watch does
I never heard of Pine Time before, but that looks interesting!
Didn’t nothing make a relatively cheap one too?
Another person mentioned nothing by another name, and it is definitely interesting to me.
You don’t need it. Save your $.
Pros: Might look cool, is cheap.
Cons: Won’t be very durable, the app for it will be shitty and closed-source(probably malware), the battery will probably suck, any vital sensors won’t be accurate, the screen will probably suck, and it will probably have a bad UI.
In summary: Save up for a better watch.
Can’t think of a single pro to having a smart watch tbh. That shit is so dumb.