I’m being watched

Smartwatches have come a long way in the last few years, to the point I’ve succumbed to the pressure (!) and got myself one.

I didn’t want an obvious ‘look-at-me’ shouty watch like the Apple or Samsung ones, for no other reason than I have other devices to do things like manage my music, take phone calls, notify me of updates, etc. Plus, I just don’t like the look of them. I didn’t want a plastic or rubber strap … ultimately I wanted a watch with some activity/fitness tracking rather than a full-on ‘smartwatch’; I wanted something in-between. Let’s face it, I’m not very active either, so a fitness tracker was a waste too.
One reason for resisting the ‘need’ to have one is that most people I know who do have one is that they feel slaves to the ‘daily goal’ activity. I don’t want to be like that.

But friends and family also say they like the fact they can measure their activity, and I kinda feel left out. So I got myself one … I hate myself ;-)

I finally settled on a ‘fashion’ watch that is also an ‘activity tracker’. Rather than getting a full smartwatch or fitness tracker, this looks for the most part like a standard analogue watch – I opted for the Garmin Vivomove HR (‘silver-tone with the dark brown leather band’). The digital display is a subtle area of the watch face, which is exposed based on wrist action or tapping the screen (the watch hands move if they cover it, so that’s nice).

Within a day of wearing it, once set up and counting steps, stairs, heart rate, calories, stress level (boy am I stressed!) I was shouting at it. After just walking around the office to talk to someone it just flashed a ‘move!’ message. I shouted and /swore at it … I AM MOVING! And I haven’t met my ‘goals’ for the day either. This watch is judging me!

This may not end well.

Image source: ExpertReviews