Watches

I bought the Apple Watch about eight months ago after my beater watch (a Seiko 5) was running way too fast and people were quoting me silly money to regulate it.

For me the jury is still out on it. I like the notifications, the ability to read messages and reply (with dictation) and some of the complications. Accessing my calendar is very handy as well as using Siri (mainly to set up timers or turn on and off lights in the house). The ability to answer a call is neat, but unless I'm wearing earpods then it can be difficult to hear the caller if I'm somewhere noisy. Apple Pay is neat but several years of taking my phone out is a hard habit to change.

On the downside, the battery life means I need to remember to pack a cable (and use it) if I'm away for more than a night, navigation on the watch using Google Maps is hit and miss, I found I had to turn off a lot of the notifications from a tonne of apps (otherwise you get interrupted continuously), I cannot start a WhatsApp chat as there is no watch app (iMessage isn't used very much in the UK) and I don't have any interest in the health functionality. Even if I did want it to track my activity, the fact that it cannot detect and automatically start and stop a workaround means that I have to do this all manually - which is really irritating.

I'll keep the watch until it no longer gets software updates and re-evaluate then.

That said, I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't really need a beater watch (as my G-Shock can handle that situation) and more a nice everyday casual watch.

If I go down that route, I'll probably get an Omega AT on a two-piece NATO strap.