- convenient timers on a complication: use this a few times a day
- an alarm which can wake me up without jarring my brain, this being the only alarm I've ever used where that's the case: five times a week
- 2048
- ability to set reminders by speaking to it
- heart rate tracker which actually works. I let my heart rate get below 130 between weight sets, and like to check my peak after a set as well. Also, it likes to alert me when I'm having one of my infrequent panic attacks. You'd think I'd notice anyway, but, not always
- unlocks my computer when I'm wearing it. This is a tiny affordance but really a nice one
- pay for groceries without bringing my phone or wallet out. Do I have to? No. Do I like to? Yeah, I'll cop to that. It's nice
- take the occasional call when my phone is in another room or I don't want to dig it out. Works long enough to say "hey I'll call you back", which is usually about all I want to say
- remind me what the date is, because I'm terrible at that. Granted that my automatic watches would do that too
- when I'm feeling nostalgic, load up a watch face that shows me pictures of times when I was happy, and people I love
- pause and play music/podcasts/whatever
I'm sure I'm missing a few, but I'll also say this: it's way less fashionable than my automatics. It's actually kinda dorky when you get right down to it.
But it's so much more functional that I just don't care, I've made my peace with it.
Someday, I'll get to leave the house again and do fancy things, and I have a couple timepieces for those occasions. But in the meantime, and the rest of the time, it's a smartwatch for me.
A cute one: when using CarPlay for driving directions, AW taps your wrist when it’s time to make a turn. And the tap pattern is distinct for left and right.
> an alarm which can wake me up without jarring my brain
Which watch do you use? Sadly it seems Apple are the only ones not messing this up, as the other watches I tried alarms on, while effective in waking me up quietly, made me feel like my hand was going to fall of for the whole day.
The haptics in general are one of the best things about it. The only other smartwatch I've had to compare it to is the Withings Steel, which is just a very different beast.
No matter what you do, a smart watch will always look worse than a regular watch without seriously crippling the watches features. If you want something that looks nice then get a normal watch. The core feature of a smart watch is fitness tracking. I love using mine for going on a run and seeing my heart rate as well as switching music. And then if I stop at a cafe I can use it to pay. All without bringing any phone or wallet with me.
The core functionality is just gamification like step counts, "hey get up reminders" and some rather pointless blood metrics.
What is great imho is the customizable watches and bands. The bands are like 1$ each and the are like a thousand of brilliant watch faces.
I think smart watches are much better for fashion than function.