But that changed really quickly. The most important thing a watch does is telling the time. Normally, you only have to look at it, but the smartwatch is special. It has an always on display (AOD) feature to do just that, but it drains the battery in no time. I didn't want to charge my watch every few hours, so I turned it off. This meant that I had to touch the display to see what time it is, but it always took a short time to update. This seems like a small problem you can live with, but I wish it was the only problem. The smartwatch was too underpowered. Every action like opening any app, changing settings and even unlocking the watch took forever. This problem got worse over time. All the features I liked stopped working or became too slow. Google Maps stopped showing the map, the web browser just crashed, the watch randomly disconnected from my phone, it didn't want to unlock, and more. The only thing that worked most of the time was receiving notifications and answering calls with it. These problems made the smartwatch annoying and virtually useless for me. I kept using it and more of these problems appeared over time. Then an update to a new major version of Wear OS came out for my watch. Updating reset my watch and I had to install everything again. It became even more sluggish and annoying to use. One day, I wanted to use my smartwatch like normal, but pressing the crown did nothing. I could still turn it to scroll, but now I was unable to open the app list, exit apps, and I was even unable to turn my watch on without the charger. At that point, I was done with it, but kept using it for two months, until an update made the touchscreen stop working. It started working again after letting the battery die and charging it again to restart the watch (you can't reboot it without a functional crown and / or screen), but I was done with it.
Dumb is better
I decided to buy a new watch, but not a smartwatch. Living without one for a while made me realise how much I actually hate it. It's expensive and can break easily. It made me think about what I can and cannot do while wearing it, and it got in my way. The fact that it is an extension of my phone didn't lower my phone usage. Having two devices ring and vibrate at the same time made every notification feel more urgent. And because not everything shows up in a notification, I often got my phone out of my pocket again. I also want things like a watch to "just work" and living without a watch felt better than living with one that has so many problems.I didn't want to buy a new smartwatch because of my bad experiences and because most smart devices don't last too long. I want the devices I use every day to stay up to date and fully functional. A device that needs my phone to work can just stop working without being broken. If my phone stops supporting the other device (or the app for it stops working), I have a brick.
There are still some "smart" features I want. These are: timer, stopwatch, alarm and water resistance. I'm really happy with my new watch and I don't miss my old one.