Why do people spend money (and quite a lot of it) for devices that have less functionality than a smartphone?

  • Tablet is just a bigger screen, but not same power like a laptop.

  • Smartwatch is just tracking device that sends even more of your personal data.

And BOTH are another battery that you have to worry about.

  • cyberwolfie@lemmy.mlEnglish
    2·
    4 days ago

    Off-topic, but: do you need some Garmin account to use these functionalities? I am looking into such a watch, but would not like to be dependent on some online service/account to use it.

    • _bcron_@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3·
      4 days ago

      The big tl;dr is that a lot of stuff will work, but a lot of things relying on historical data will not work (resting heart rate, weekly step count, sleep, etc).

      But, the app/account is unobtrusive to the point that you could name yourself Mickey Mouse on creation, just to get a user ID for the watch to point to, and set permissions on the app on some schedule just to have the watch sync that data.

      No sort of verification/authentication of identity at account creation and the app/services are free (I’m sure, given this day and age, there’s premium/subscription stuff but like I said it’s unobtrusive and I’ve never once been nagged to upgrade my account)