Importantly, F91W can run FOSS software with a custom board [1], which also makes it easily programmable in C with no "app store" shit. I have two boards sitting next to me and two Casio watches waiting for a transplant.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.sensorwatch.net/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sensorwatch.net/</a>
Ehh the F91W is not very accurate at all as the article claims.<p>It's not temperature compensated. If you leave it lying on a desk at room temperature yes. Wear it outside in all weather it'll be pretty inaccurate.<p>I prefer the F-105W myself. It's basically the same watch but with a great blue EL backlight.
Battery may be long lasting but the straps seem to last about 12 months before breaking. And cost of repairs is about the same as purchase price of the watch.
I have a Sensor Watch, which is an ARM cortex processor and SDK which retrofits into an F91W. It’s really nicely put together and offers a lot of flexibility. <a href="https://www.sensorwatch.net/" rel="nofollow">https://www.sensorwatch.net/</a>
I have an Apple Watch S5 lying around on my desk but I still pretty much exclusively wear one of a few cheap Casios I have.<p>I found more and more that the features I use on a watch (current time, 3 min timer for tea, 25 min pomodoro timer, wake up alarm) are basically universally covered by every digital watch ever manufactured, and are normally MUCH easier to access on those watches than an Apple Watch, and I assume most smart watches.<p>The health tracking is the only compelling feature I make use of on an Apple Watch IMO, otherwise it annoyingly fiddly to the point where I just use my phone.
what i would like is a fitness/health-tracking wearable that does not have a screen.<p>i want a faceless <i>waves hands</i> bracelet something on my wrist that will track all of my health & bio stats and sends it to/syncs it with my phone.
I always find it interesting that so many people that work in tech are quite into retro Luddite stuff. I’m not entirely not guilty myself - I love me some old school manual transmission sports cars more than the latest Tesla.<p>But I find genuine utility in having a smartphone and smartwatch. I have a relatively expensive mechanical watch but it rarely sees use other than date nights. The time is usually off, and I don’t care because that’s not the point. I don’t use it to keep time - that’s what my iPhone is for. Instead, the watch is purely jewlery, no different from my wife’s bracelet.<p>On the other hand my Apple Watch stays on my wrist almost perpetually.<p>I too hear about watches like the F91 or various g-shocks and get tempted to pick one up out of curiosity. But I know it’s going to be even less useful to me than my expensive automatic watch since it can’t even function as jewelry.
I’ve got a Garmin 7x. Sometimes I think about switching to something like this as I’m going through an unhealthy phase and not utilising the smart watch capability very much. However, I can’t give up the torch. I cannot believe how handy it is having a torch two button clicks away on my wrist, wherever I am, as opposed to fumbling in my pocket or searching around for my phone or a torch. Use it every day, absolute game changer.
I go back and forth. The better battery life and face size of the Apple Watch Ultra makes it more useful for me than my old Apple Watch 3. But I still just wear a $30 Timex Expedition a lot of the time.
tldr; the answer to the clickbait: "I’m having a rest before another challenge crops up, and I really don’t want to think about my heart rate variability, whether I slept well, or even have notifications on my wrist at all – I just want to give my brain a break. "<p>I'm guessing that the only reason he wore it to be able to write this article with this headline.