Thank you for reading all these words from a man who felt trapped by the second computer he voluntarily carried with him everywhere. If I‘m caught in a rockslide during a hiking retreat and my watch can’t reach medical help via satellite, I bequeath 10% of my estate to firmware hacking groups.
Every day, a few times a day, I feel this limbic urge to look down at my watch to see what I can only describe as “Am I missing something?” All I see when I look now: the time. It’s 8:22pm. That’s it. That’s what’s going on. If you need more, pull out the little computer and check that.
I’m in the honeymoon phase, but I’m loving how light it feels. I will _really_ dig not having to bring a single-device charging cable on every trip. And I’m particularly looking forward to having maybe more than one watch, some even more analog, to try on.
So, new watch. Looks just like the F-91W, but the custom board fits a lot more. I can cycle through these “faces” with a button, wrist gesture, or holding the light button:
* World time
* Step counter (fed to Apple Health!)
* Timer
* Stopwatch
* Alarm
* Sunrise/sunset
* Flashlight
Caveats! I don’t do serious fitness tracking. I don’t have disabilities or medical conditions for which an Apple Watch might be helpful. And, I guess, I’m ready to die upside-down in a car crash, unable to reach my iPhone, as the Apple Watch promos suggest?
There’s a lot of talk about AI-derived “deskilling,” and that colored how I thought about the watch. “What’s the temperature?” “When is my next meeting?” “What time does my plane board?”
I started thinking about giving up a full smartwatch, and I considered the learned helplessness.
I spent a *ton* of time fine-tuning profiles and notifications, trying to avoid getting pulled out of every moment because “Slack is happening!” or “REI is having a summer sale!”. But the tuning never ends. You either pick 5 emergency apps and that’s it, or you’re an unpaid dispatcher.