Buggers. Saw this thread and was reminded that I wanted to get a watch. You'll probably all turn your nose up at it, but nostalgic reasons. My dad died in 1981. In the kitchen drawer was his broken watch. I tried to repair it (but I was 7) and I got it back together but it was never right. I've looked since, but at one point they were selling for daft money (like £150). Turns out it was this watch he had. Had a look around and was about to buy from Amazon for £40. Then I noticed it was a U.S seller. Found that one on Ebay worn once for £25. Bought it.
Bit of a necro but figured I'd ask for some recommendations for a new watch, since I still go to check my wrist when asked the time/wanting to know the time despite not having worn a watch for a couple of years now. <£1000 Mechanical/automatic Leather strap (always found metal ones tended to pinch/catch) Overall a fairly 'simple' face Date Will be used day to day. Previous watch (that I've broken and now seemingly misplaced as well!) was a Seagull 1963 pilot watch which I really liked. Came across Edox Les Vauberts which I quite like the look of (potentially especially considering the discount although I'm always wary of tkmax 'retail prices') to give you an idea: https://www.tkmaxx.com/uk/en/men/ac...tch/p/76910721#mz-expanded-view-1025571382282 (Oh and of course, happy to hear if actually may as well save some money and buy something cheaper based on what I'm wanting)
@GeorgeStorm If you're after a mechanical watch, have a look at Christopher Ward and see if anything fits the bill. I can't say it's a personal recommendation as I don't own one, but I've certainly considered buying a couple of times. They look pretty reasonable value for money, reviews seem to be good, and they definitely do watches in the sub-£1000 bracket.
Cheers I'll have a gander. Having had more of a look the past couple of days at some other companies I've not heard of (which is most of them to be honest ) realised I think I quite like the Bauhaus style and seen some from Iron Annie (previously Junkers) that I like the look of. Mineral glass vs sapphire or whatever as the glass though is a potential downside, just need to make sure I don't shove my hand between rocks I guess Have also realised how much of a rabbit hole it can be purely from a movement angle, when in reality I'm sure any of them would be fine for me.
Cheers I'll have a look. In my mind seiko tend to have quite 'chunky' features (hands/rim of the face) which I don't like but I'll check out that range.
Have you had a look at Mondaine? They have a nice range with leather/vegan straps, different movements (quartz/swiss), a simple/iconic watchface, some have the day as well as date too.
The name kind of rang a bell and I realised yes I'd seen a couple, didn't dislike just the face/dial features a tad on the thicker side I think having spent more time looking at watches in the past week than I have in the past 5 years hah!
Consider used too. Oddly enough, because of the third-party verification, eBay is one of the safest online marketplaces for used preloved watches, and opens up a wealth of other options.
That's what I started looking at originally as I'd wanted an Omega similar to my dad's, but was the mixture of not seeing something I really liked/the risk of it dying/no warranty/cost of upkeep that lead me away but don't think I actually every checked ebay.
I should have another look but yeah that's what I was looking for originally, and thought the ones I could afford didn't look that great/the upkeep cost worried me. My dad's not been wearing his for quite a while now as was told it needs a £500+ service/repair from omega which I think may be more than he paid for it new many years ago!
This isn't really the sort of watch this thread's talking about, but close enough. First, backstory: I went in for my flu jab on Monday, and they did a blood pressure test at the same time - which came back sky-high, early Grade 3 hypertension. Quelle surprise. I'm tracking it for a week and then might get some meds, but it also means some lifestyle changes - including concentrating more on my fitness. And by that I mean "maybe actually getting of my arse once a day, at least." So, I fancy a fitness watch. At first I was just going to get a bottom-end Fitbit or something, but I've done the usual trick of thinking "well, a little more gets this, and a little more than that gets this," and now I'm looking at a Garmin Instinct 2X Solar - over three hundred smackers of smartwatch. It's got lots of features including a torch (sucker for a gimmick, me), and can charge its internal battery from teeny-tiny solar panels and solar glass on the front. Which sounds great, but I spend most of my time indoors... and in this weather, wearing long sleeves. I wouldn't be doing anything crazy with it: we're talking monitoring my heartrate throughout the day and tracking walks and short hikes and maybe a little bit of strength training in the living room. No running, infrequent swimming, no cycling (haven't even got a bike these days), no weird workouts. Anyone got any experience of a Garmin Instinct-family watch paired to an Android phone? Any good? Worth the money, or should I be looking elsewhere - or just going with the original plan and buying a bottom-end Fitbit, save a bunch of cash? Amazon's got a marketplace seller with a single grey Garmin Instinct 2X Solar in stock, £315 - a big drop from £399 elsewhere. If that sells before I've decided, looks like the next cheapest is a white one at £345.
Ticwatch E3 is on Amazon for an okay hundred quid atm. Not rugged or anything fancy but mine's been lovely, get this strap for it, personally hate those silicone whatever wrist straps
All Garmin's use the same app, Garmin Connect, to sync all your data over Bluetooth. (Just checked in app and Instinct is listed under add new device). I've had a Garmin Forerunner for years, paired with Android. It replaced a Fitbit when I got sick of all the pairing and synch issues with Fitbit. That and I wanted GPS without carrying a phone on runs. Some of the settings within Connect are buried in odd places, but you don't actually need to change them very often. Otherwise the whole thing, watch and app, have been pretty seamless and just work. You get a hell of a lot of data out of it too. And we know you like data.
Thanks, both. Pulled the trigger on the Garmin - if I don't treat myself, who will?! Complete overkill for my needs, but still: a torch on my wrist tipped the scales.
I had this exact watch for a while until I upgraded to a Fenix 6X Pro Solar. It's excellent for the things you mentioned. I have always used mine in conjunction with android. It works flawlessly and the Garmin App and website are fantastic with buckets of usual well presented data. The Fenix I have has Garmin Pay which has saved me in the shops a few times and also has 32GB of onboard storage and music playing functionality which I find really useful when jogging so as not too have to carry the phone.
Well, I've been using this thing since late Friday, and I have Thoughts. First, the things I like. The fitness tracking is neat - it even does things like guess what you're doing based on IMU data, so when I'm doing a bit of weight training in the living room it automatically figures out when I'm doing curls versus extensions and monitors the reps. It's not always right, mind you: it thought my shrugs were curls and didn't realise I was holding weights while doing squats (which is fair enough). You even get a picture on the app of what muscles you were working. The walking tracking works well, though I haven't tried it away from the phone. As soon as you start a walk the battery life drops dramatically, though, 'cos of the GPS - there are modes for less accurate tracking for better battery life, but I've not tried 'em. The torch is... less of a gimmick than you'd think, it's actually pretty bright. Got strobe modes, too, but none of those aggressive "defence" strobes. Not as big as you might think, pretty comfortable to wear so far. Struggles to squeeze under my winter coat cuff, though. The solar is more of a gimmick than the torch is, to be honest. Yes, it can charge from the solar panels: someone in Iraq, walking in the blazing sun all day, reported a gain of about one per cent... while the watch was powered off. Otherwise, it just offsets your actual battery usage - ekes out maybe an extra day per charge in the summer sort of thing. Heart rate tracking seems high - when I take my blood pressure, the sphygmomanometer reports a heart rate a good 10 BPM below what the watch says. It goes up when I exercise and down when I relax though, which is good enough for me. It also tracks my breathing, pulse ox (but that kills the battery life again), and prods me to move if I've been sat for an hour. Stress tracking, too, which goes by variation in heart rate - though it sometimes reads high when I feel fine, so shrug on that one. The app is fine, and I haven't hit any payment walls yet which is nice - one of the things that put me off a FitBit was that a load of stuff is gated behind a monthly subscription. Oh, and this one comes with Garmin Pay too - tried it out on Saturday, worked a treat. Might be nice to have the option of randomising the PIN entry order, though, because you just have to count the button-clicks to figure out what it is... Then the things I don't like. It doesn't talk to Google Fit, 'cos Garmin would very much like you to do everything through the Garmin app. Solvable, after a fashion, with a £2.69 app on the phone which pulls data from Garmin and pushes it to Google Fit. It also can't accept my weight and blood pressure readings from MedM, unlike Google Fit which happily takes 'em automatically - I haven't found a fix for this yet, so I'm typing the numbers in like a caveman. Naturally, Garmin would very much like to sell me its own-brand smart scales and blood pressure monitor at only three times the price I paid for the MedM-compatible ones... It does link to a nutrition tracker, but not the one I'm using: MyFitnessPal, which I used to use. I've switched to a simpler alternative from a UK company with a cheaper subscription and no adverts plus a more UK-centric food database - but Garmin can't pull my caloric information from it. The app can pull exercise data from Garmin automatically, though, so good enough. There's a store for adding apps and watch faces, but they're mostly crap - and, unless I'm missing something, there's no way to only show the ones compatible with the device you own. Software updates take an age to transfer, though that happens in the background at least, and if you need to sort something out manually you have to use Garmin Connect on Windows. It counts the number of flights of stairs you climb, and uses it as a goal for the day - but while it also tracks the number of flights you descend, the two numbers don't agree. According to Garmin, I'm often two or three stories above ground level when I'm literally sat in my ground-floor living room. So far, though, I'm pretty happy with it. Would have been happier at half the price, mind you. EDIT: I *have* discovered a (relatively minor) security flaw in the thing, though: when you set up Garmin Pay, it asks for a PIN which you then enter on the watch each time you want to use it. The flow is then: hold CTRL button until radial menu, scroll to Wallet, press GPS button to confirm, scroll through radial PIN entry for each of the four digits, Wallet unlocks and is ready to use. To speed things up a bit, I set a shortcut: holding Back and GPS loads Wallet immediately, no need to bring up the radial menu. When I did... it loaded immediately. As in, no PIN entry screen. It also removed the PIN entry screen from the normal flow, too. I fixed it (for both shortcut and radial menu entries) by setting a "new" PIN which was just my old PIN... but it definitely shouldn't be doing that.
