I am eternally thankful to Alvin for gifting me with a pricey smartwatch two Christmases ago.
It was a device that let me stay connected without constantly pulling out my cellular phone.
It alerted me whenever I have received an email or a WhatsApp or SMS message.
It tracked my sleep patterns, the number of steps I have taken, my heartbeats plus it jerked me off whenever I was horny at night.
Nah, just kidding. But seriously, it did just about everything except that last bit.
But I eventually gave it away after using it for a couple of months.
Sorry, Alvin.
You see, I no longer relish the idea of being hyper-connected. Imagine getting a notification on my watch, then digging out my phone to read and reply to messages! A smartwatch cannot replace my phone! I still needed a phone! It was actually quite silly. Especially when more and more, I like to be in the moment (for this reason, I’ve stopped taking pictures of food, unless I’m dining at Tokyo’s Narisawa, I mean what’s the point of taking photos of ordinary hawker food that look and taste just about the same everywhere?) and not feel tethered to my electronic devices, and having a screen right on my wrist kind of runs counter to that goal.
Someone once said wearing a smartwatch is a vomit of data in your face. But most of the time, I don’t know what to do with that data. OK, so my heartbeats were elevated – especially when I was struggling with constipation while shitting bricks on the throne – but do I need a watch to add to my anxiety by reminding me? Plus it did nothing to fix my constipation.
Bring buzzed all the time became an annoyance. Having to charge the damn thing every night was also quite annoying. As it is, I already find it a bloody hassle to charge my phone every night. As my dad said “Whatever you own owns you.”
“But you can always wear a smartwatch and turn off the notifications,” another gadget-freak friend countered. But do people really buy a smartwatch to do that? That totally defeats the purpose of wearing one!
Last, but not least, a smartwatch is not an investment that will last in time the way a traditional watch will. Traditional watches are something that you might have gotten from your dad and still pass to your son.
Smartwatches? Having spent close to a million bucks on handmade Swiss watches back in the day when I had cash flowing out of my ears, and I was a big spendthrift, yes those good old days when I only flew first class and stayed only in suites in luxury resort hotels, I find it meaningless to now wear a plasticky electronic device on my wrist. Smartwatch versus Vacheron Constantin; Vacheron Constantin wins!
Indeed, can I pass a smartwatch as a heirloom to my descendants? No, definitely not in these days of planned obsolescence when smartwatches will probably give up the ghost in about three years max.