For me they are indispensable. I’ve been wearing an LG G-Watch (which, along with the Samsung Gear Live, was the first Android Wear watch) since July 2014. It lasted well, over 3 years, but I’ve now upgraded it to the new LG Watch Style which just arrived, and runs Android Wear 2.0.
First order of business - remove the leather strap which it unfortunately came with (I’m vegan) and replace it with a nice purple silicone one - much better.
Something that became immediately obvious - about a dozen watchfaces transferred over from my G-Watch (which was square) - every single one of them looks better on a round display than a square one. With that in mind, I can’t believe how badly Apple got this wrong. Without wishing to start an argument - and indeed my gf has an Apple Watch and it’s a competent enough bit of kit - it’s pretty clear to me that a circular smartwatch display is just way better, and not just on analog faces but digital ones too.
Happy to be repping a battered (but well loved) LG G-Watch R
I find it so useful on the move and when at work/lectures - inseparable It does have annoying things (the charger cradle, Android Wear 2.0 slowness) but I love it and would miss it desperately. Before I got a phone with a fingerprint sensor it was great for Bluetooth proximity unlock.
Most looking forward to upgrading to one with NFC which will handle Android Pay. I’m not a fan of the whole “separate device” trend with separate SIM cards and ringer/notifications disjointed from the slave phone…
I will probably end up upgrading to a Huawei Watch 2
I’ve gone through a couple of Android watches but have always found screen brightness/readability to be an issue. I’ve been reluctant to bump the brightness to maximum all the time too in case of screen burn
Yeah, not for me either. One of my friends told me he was looking forward to getting his new Apple Watch so he could take calls independently of his phone… I can’t relate! I prefer to message people unless I need an instant reply on something.
Neither. I just don’t get the use case really? I can understand enough storage and Bluetooth support for headphones on a run but not really for a whole separate SIM card (and phone number!). I very much consider my watch an extension of my phone - it is great for seeing notifications as they arrive, sometimes I’ll reply to them on the watch, seeing directions from Citymapper and stuff…but not as a phone on it’s own
Apple Watch Series 1, just for notifications really. I barely interact with it besides that but not having to reach out for my phone every 5 minutes is a life-saver, not to mention the haptic feedback means I don’t actually miss notifications unlike the phone’s vibration which I can never feel given that it spends most of the time in my bag.
I might upgrade to a Series 3 (the new one with LTE) when Apple cuts the nonsense and allows me to provision my own SIM onto it - unfortunately for now it seems to be exclusive to a particular carrier here and I refuse to deal nor give any money to those scammers so it’ll have to wait.
I’ll hang on to my lovely Series 1 for quite a while I think - just like with what Monzo is going through with Apple Pay, there’s quite a lot of nonsense (and NDAs ) involved in becoming an “Apple supported carrier” and getting the holy grail which is required for any of the advanced functionality like visual voicemail, Wi-Fi calling and provisioning the watch’s eSIM/Apple SIM… I miss the times when all you needed to do was insert any SIM and it would just work.
The eSIM is a GSM standard (which is far better than when apple tried to invent their own a few years ago).
In theory lots of new phones can adopt it, then all you’ll have to do to sign up to a provider is have them send you that, just like a normal SIM with fewer paperclips
In fact you could have any number of eSIMs on a phone and switch between them… as there’s no physical reader required there’s no need for the phone designer to make dual SIM phones any more.
Yeah because you’re on one of the “official” carriers which have a carrier profile from Apple that makes it work. If you’re a new player and don’t have that then no native Wi-Fi calling for you (I work around it using a SIP client).
For voicemail used to get them delivered as e-mails but lately I disabled my voicemail altogether - I don’t find any downsides and anyone wanting to leave me a message is more than welcome to send me a text.
The issue with eSIM is that it puts control back into the hands of the evil carriers which is a bit of a problem… let’s say I would like a French SIM right now on my eSIM-equipped phone/tablet, how do I do it? I can get someone to send me a SIM from France and just insert it but no way to do the same with eSIM.
Not to mention the fact that multiple eSIMs will never exist/be popular, otherwise we would’ve already had nationwide roaming where any SIM can connect to any other carrier (and they pay each other for bandwidth just like in international roaming) - the carriers are against this whole concept.
I’m interested to see how eSIM develops. I believe the new Google Pixel 2 and XL have it embedded. I should have a 2 XL before my next trip to the USA, it’d be good if I could use it to get some data for a few weeks, rather than buying a prepaid SIM like I usually do.
It’s a shame that Project Fi is Android-only and I don’t see that changing any time soon. If I could get it on my iPhone I wouldn’t even bother with my own venture to be honest. I don’t really like Google but I still prefer them to any carrier I’ve used in the past.
It does have annoying things (the charger cradle, Android Wear 2.0 slowness) but I love it and would miss it desperately. Before I got a phone with a fingerprint sensor it was great for Bluetooth proximity unlock.
) involved in becoming an “Apple supported carrier” and getting the 
I’m actually staying in Mountain View on my next trip, my cousin works for Google. So it’d make sense.
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