My apple watch finally gave up the ghost. While I had stopped wearing it for the most part, I still found it useful but have decided not to replace it for the time being. Instead, I’ve opted for a dumb watch, the Casio G-Shock M5610U-1BCR (What a mouthful!)
Here’s why:
As a replacement for my automatic watch:
I have a Seiko Automatic already and I love it. It does not even have a battery, it’s powered by the movement of my wrist. Unfortunately it also lacks a backlight, or any way to see the time in low light. If I stop wearing it I have to do this lengthy process to set the time, as setting it when it’s in the middle of a date change can break the auto date feature.
The G-Shock has some added features. It has a backlight, 4 alarms and 1 snooze alarm, world time (I am rarely in other time zones but maybe could be helpful for watching Formula 1?) this watch model is also solar powered and has atomic time keeping. This is a practical feature that makes the G-shock a resilient time keeping piece. In a full state of charge the G-shock will provide the time for about 10 months without any sunlight, and with about “half a days” sunlight each month the watch will maintain it’s charge. The solar battery inside of the watch should last 25 or 30 years, which is probably several years longer than the watch itself will be used.
As a replacement for my apple watch
Location Privacy
Apple Watches have all kinda of sensors and microphones that are being used in the background by the watch’s operating system to measure the sound of water to determine hand washing time or to measure decibel levels. The always on microphone is listening for wake words and other patterns it recognizes. Is it only listening for the things we know it’s listening for or is it listening for all kinds of other things like words and phrases relevant to advertisers, police, and others? Who knows… but after a certain individual revealed that top tech platforms were involved in a domestic spying operation (ed snowden – prism) I operate on the premise that of the capability is there someone will take advantage of it. Since I cannot prove these devices are not collecting undisclosed data, I choose to distrust them.
The microphone array on an apple watch is absolutely amazing, I’ve seen it used to capture wedding vows by being placed in a groom’s pocket and it was able to capture the sound accurately and beautifully within a 4-5 foot radius.
The radios on an apple watch help improve location tracking by broadcasting a bluetooth ID and by constantly pinging nearby wifi routers. This provides merchants, police, app manufacturers or anyone else with the sophisticated means to measure the signal strength of your device in determining your exact position in a space.
While this is mostly used for advertising, it is also used by police to locate suspects of crimes. This is called a “geo fence” warrant and it works by using transmitters in your personal devices to see which random people were all within a specified area. This type of search is used in many states although some have outlawed it.
What that means is that by simply having a device with a radio in it, you may he swept up into a police investigation if you simply walk or drive through or near to a recent or active crime scene. While this is great for law enforcement, I like that I can trust that my G-Shock doesn’t have a radio, doesn’t have a microphone, and cannot be hacked by anyone remotely.
I’m not paranoid enough to disable the radios on my phone when in public, but I do have a second phone that I use in airplane mode and have been exploring going out with more often to help obfuscate the digital bread crumbs my devices leave behind in the real world. I also keep a faraday bag in my EDC slingbag just in case I find the need to go stealth.
By switching to a dumb watch, it’s one less thing I have to remember to turn off.
Health
Many people worry about the health effects of wifi, and while I don’t believe it’s extremely dangerous, exposure to wifi signals has been linked to disrupted sleep patterns. To me, that is significant enough to be concerned about.
Wifi signals are relatively weak but if you live in a suburban environment and open your wifi settings you will most likely see a dozen or more wifi networks, all blasting you with different frequencies of radiation. I’m not sure we understand what happens to a person over 15 or 20 years of constant bombardment but I’m not concerned enough to turn off the wifi, cell signal, or bluetooth radios on my phone, and even if I did, I’d still be exposed by my neighbor’s networks… but by switching to a dumb watch, I am free of yet another wifi/bluetooth emitting device bombarding me 24/7.
Another thing about the Apple Watch is that it measures a lot of sensitive metrics. It measures not only steps, but heart rate, sleep quality, stride length, gait, and a ton of other metrics that can essentially be used to fingerprint you, determine your route, and determine your overall physical health status. I don’t necessarily like Apple or anyone else gathering this information on me and while I’ve left these measurements on my iphone, my Google phone has had them turned off since I opened the box.
No Notifications
My apple watch would ping and buzz so often that it was downright distracting. Every message, alert, email, breaking news story etc. I eventually disabled all notifications.
With a dumb watch, I don’t have to, it lacks a radio and cannot get alerts other than 5 time based alarms that I can set manually.
TLDR
The bottom line is a dumb watch helps me cut the tether to the network. It reduces my digital footprint, reduces the amount of distractions I encounter, and can operate reliably for 15-30 years with very little upkeep other than a rinse here and there and some daily sunshine.
Many G-shock watches are large but the model I selected is compact and suitable for either gender. If you’re looking for a basic timepiece that has some advanced features, the g-shock mb5 whatever is a great way to go.