Apple Watch Diary: End of an era, as I return to dumb watches

I bought the original Apple Watch back in 2015, not expecting to keep it, but of course was wrong. Nine years later, I was still wearing one – though I had managed to limit myself to just two upgrades over the years.

Fast-forward another couple of months, however, and that has changed – all thanks to a couple of random events …

The random events

First, I got Officially Old, by Transport for London standards. In most parts of the UK, you have to be of pensionable age before you get a pass entitling you to free, off-peak local travel – and that’s limited to bus travel. But London has a much more generous scheme, where you ‘only’ have to be 60 to get unlimited free travel within the city on tubes, trains, buses, and trams.

The one downside of this is that there’s no digital version of the pass, so I had to revert to carrying a physical piece of crushed oil, meaning no more Express Transit. This had probably been my most-used Apple Watch function.

Second, YouTube randomly recommended a watch guy video to me, and I watched it. For anyone who hasn’t yet encountered the phenomenon, these are folks who love traditional watches, and build up collections of them.

There are WGs at every price point, from multi-millionaires who have some watches in their collection costing six or even seven figures, down to those hitting up Aliexpress for Chinese watches costing $50 or less.

I enjoyed the video. To be honest, I quite often enjoy videos where people express their passion for things, even if I don’t share their interest in the thing itself.

YouTube of course did what YouTube does, and immediately recommended another one. Let’s just skip from there to me spending a total of several hours over the course of a quiet weekend watching people enthuse about watches.

I somehow found myself feeling just a smidgin of the appeal.

A smart start to a dumb watch experiment

Before I went any further with this madness, and started spending money, I decided a smart first step would be to determine whether I really could give up the benefits of an Apple Watch. I bought a dirt-cheap Aliexpress watch (less than $20 delivered) and wore it for a week.

There were a few times when I did find myself lifting my wrist expecting to see my AW, but on none of those occasions did I feel overly disappointed when I didn’t.

Using my iPhone instead of my Watch for Apple Pay was admittedly slightly less convenient, but since shopping in person is something I avoid as much as possible, that wasn’t a major sacrifice.

All-in-all, the experiment left me confident enough to spend some money (with one proviso I’ll get to at the end).

Nearly buying a Swiss mechanical watch

Of course, almost all watch guys love mechanical watches, and there was one they all recommend as a first purchase: The Tissot PRX Powermatic 80 (above).

It’s a retro-look 70s design, specifically echoing the Tissot Seastar from 1970 – though borrowing the waffle dial effect from the eye-wateringly expensive Audemars Piguet Royal Oak (starting price around $23k, and rising very rapidly from there). The Tissot, in contrast, is available for around $500-600.

While the design isn’t normally my style, I did find myself grudgingly admitting that it had a certain something. Perhaps it’s that Officially Old thing again, having been alive in the 70s (albeit in miniature form).

A couple of things gave me pause, however. One, even massively expensive mechanical watches are less accurate and more hassle than quartz ones. Two, all the watch guys recommending the Tissot described it as the gateway drug to mechanical watch addiction. I had no desire to become a watch guy who ends up spending thousands on an array of mechanical watches.

From mechanical to quartz

Additionally, in conducting my one-week experiment, I realized how nice it was to look at my wrist and see something different. After nine years, I was just a bit bored with always seeing the same thing.

Sure, you can mix up the look with different faces, complications, and bands – but in truth, there are only a handful of AW faces I like, and I always quickly reverted to the most minimalist of these: the Simple face, white on black, with a single date complication. Likewise, the white sport loop band suits the ceramic watch so well, I never wore anything else.

Spending a similar sum on a mechanical watch was simply going to give me the same problem again some time later.

So that led to a rethink. If I instead opted for quartz watches, then I could have two to four really nice-looking watches for a similar budget – and mixing and matching between very different designs should provide enough variety that I wouldn’t get bored.

As a bonus, where the same watch is offered in both mechanical and quartz versions, the quartz is usually significantly slimmer – which is something I very much appreciate. The thickness of the Apple Watch had always been the thing I least liked about it.

Sternglas and Nordgreen

I blame my colleague Michael Bower for pointing me to Sternglas, and a Google search for reviews of minimalist quartz watches for the Nordgreen.

Of course, tastes in watches vary enormously, so you may love or hate my choices, but my personal view is that either of these watches could have been designed by Apple. Each of them puts a smile on my face every time I look at it.

If at some point I do want more variety, I can add another couple of models at a similar price and still spend no more than I would have done on my next Apple Watch.

Keeping my Apple Watch for now

I have decided that I’m happy not to wear an Apple Watch routinely. I haven’t decided for sure that I will never want to include one in the mix.

So despite the fact that I convinced myself the pair of watches was free, as I could eBay my ceramic AW for the same sum, I haven’t sold it yet. I’ll likely give it a month or so before making the decision.

In the meantime, take my advice: Beware random YouTube recommendations.

Photos: Sternglas, Nordgreen, Tissot