No Smartwatch

Closing a chapter

I have written about smartwatches since 2017, and in 2023 I even tried to replace my phone with the Watch. This May I made a tally of what an Apple Watch actually is: three MagSafe chargers, a USB charger, eight bands, two power pedals, two speed and two cadence sensors. Eighteen units plus the Watch, plus the software: sleep mode on, turn to see the time, notifications hidden in sleep mode, 45% of the battery gone after one night. One evening in June I put the Watch on for the last time. The next morning I handed it in. That chapter is closed.

Simple. That is difficult. Because simple makes room for complex, clutter and redundancy. A half approach has no advantages: either you go all in on the data, with all the hassle that comes with it, or you leave the screen off your wrist altogether. I chose the latter.

The phone is enough

The smartphone has become so powerful that the watch had nothing left to add. Calls, navigation, payments, the camera, the odd message. And, new this year, agents that read my mail, follow the news and triage the incoming signals for me. What reaches me is what matters, at a moment of my choosing, in one daily digest. That used to be the promise of a watch that taps your wrist. It turns out the phone does that job better with the watch out of the way. I want to stress that the online world does not bother me. But I also know that offline focus has its power.

One sensor, 24/7

What I do want is data about my body, and for that I have worn WHOOP for years. No screen, no notifications, no attention. The battery lasts two weeks. It recognises a run or a ride by itself, I never press start. A sensor, data: yes! But a mini screen that beeps, half under your clothing, sensitive to moisture and touch, is fragile. One sensor, 24/7, is much more logical.

In May I ran 30 kilometers on feel, with the sensor quietly recording: an average of 124 beats per minute at a steady pace, without looking once. Two weeks later I rode the Elfstedentocht the same way. At the finish the WHOOP had the whole day, the recovery and the trip home. The screen was never missed.

The watch that stays

On my wrist now is a mechanical watch. It works without worries: in the pool, at a party, running, on the race bike, on a trail. No charging, no pairing, no update. Such a liberation, such calm. So after all. The strap unlocked its potential, it develops its own patina.

The paradox

Here is the thing: it takes high tech to make low tech work. Efficient chips give a sensor two weeks of battery. Models recognise the run and classify the ride. Agents triage the mail and the news into a digest. The result is that the thing on my wrist can be dumb, and I can be present.

This summer in Brittany I ran the most beautiful runs ever. Not fast or strong, but wonderfully beautiful: rocks, green, winding paths and the sea. No screen told me my pace and I did not miss it. An afternoon on the bike with my daughter: no distraction, pure attention. That is what the space is for, to think and to be there as a human.

Conclusion

I no longer need it. Not because a smartwatch is bad, but because the phone got so strong and the sensor so good that the screen in between became redundant. It was an exercise in simplicity, and it took me nine years to arrive at that insight: the best screen is no screen.

So if you catch yourself turning your wrist for a notification you did not ask for, try a month without. Your phone and your body will fill the gap, ha!