Talking Tech - Samsung Galaxy Watch 4
Wearable technology has been a thing for a while now, but is it still relevant? Is the Galaxy Watch by Samsung worth your money and your attention? I’d say yes.
After skimming through some old posts, I realized that I discussed my old Moto 360 watch, but I never got around to writing about the Galaxy Watch 4. You see, the Moto 360 was a fine watch. I really liked it. Problem is, I am absurdly clumsy and I dropped it. In the shower. Yes, I realize that wearing a watch in the shower is stupid, whether it is waterproof or not, but I was curious to see if the waterproofing actually worked. Physical shock is known to gradually reduce water resistance, and dropping it from eye-level into an actively running shower is probably the worst thing I could’ve done to it. It sorta kinda worked for a few days after that and died altogether soon after. RIP.
Looking back through messages to establish a timeline, I didn’t realize how quickly I broke the 360. The guy I bought it from first mentioned selling it around October 2017. I bought it in December 2017 and reviewed it in January 2018. The first mention I can find of it being broken is in September 2018. I didn’t even have the watch for a full year before it broke. That’s depressing.
As I mentioned in that old post, that smartwatch was absolutely not a productivity device or something that I explicitly needed. It was a cool gadget that I occasionally used some of the features to make my life easier. I couldn’t justify buying another device that was basically just a toy, ESPECIALLY not at full price. If I found another smartwatch at a steep discount, maybe I would grab one, but I wasn’t going to the store the next day to grab one.
A few years went by where I considered getting the Moto 360 repaired, but I really didn’t want to sink the effort and money into shipping it off and maybe not being able to repair it at all. I kept suggesting it to myself here and there, and I kept deciding to postpone. Eventually, there came a time where even if I did choose to repair it, it would be so far out of date that it probably wouldn’t even be receiving software updates anymore and may not connect to the latest phones at all. That ship had sailed.
In October 2020, I bought a pair of Willful branded smartwatches for my wife and I. If we weren’t going to get something high end, a budget option with some pared down features should be adequate for our needs. Unfortunately, these devices were terrible. They didn’t connect directly with a phone. Instead, they worked with an app installed on the phone. Notifications rarely worked at all, and were delayed the few times that they did. Fitness tracking was hilariously inaccurate. The UI wasn’t customizable in any way, and it wasn’t good to begin with. We used these watches for a little while, but we both abandoned them after a few months.
Some time around the middle of 2022, we got my wife a Galaxy Watch 4. She wanted something that could connect to her phone and display SMS messages that she could then respond to without using her phone. As a teacher, she can’t exactly check her phone regularly, but she did want a way to communicate discreetly and easily. In that regard, she made a compelling case for a smartwatch, and the Galaxy Watch 4 was a capable device from a popular manufacturer that seemed to be very well received.
After playing around some with her Galaxy Watch 4, I really started to miss my old Moto 360. Notifications and music controls on my wrist are just really convenient, and I don’t have to rely on my kids to tell me when someone called or texted me if they’re watching or playing something on my phone. I started looking around for deals. It was time to replace my old smartwatch.
I held off for a while because Google had also just released the Pixel Watch. I love Pixel phones, and first party hardware is normally a safer bet. Reviews of the Pixel Watch weren’t exactly stellar, but I wasn’t fully turned off from it yet. When a coworker got a Pixel Watch, I finally got the opportunity to mess around with one in person. Unfortunately, the reviews were spot on. The bezel is just huge, and the software isn’t really great. Google had numerous iterations of smartwatches to learn from and they still managed to put out a mediocre product. I was disappointed, but I knew I wasn’t getting a Pixel Watch.
In October 2022, Costco had a deal for $80 off the normal sticker price of $280 for a 44mm Galaxy Watch 4. I was sold. My wife’s 40mm was fine, but just a little small for me. The 44mm was more in line with the size I wanted, and I already knew from playing around with hers that I would like the UI. Call it an early Christmas present, but I had to have one.
After just a few weeks with the new watch, I was tremendously satisfied. It worked so much better than the cheap Amazon smartwatch, and honestly seemed like a marked improvement even over my old Moto 360. Android Wear has gotten to a point where the UI is intuitive, consistent, and generally pleasant to use. This is the smartwatch experience that I wanted.
Notifications are responsive, and super helpful in times when I don’t have my phone on my person. Navigation is a very convenient additional screen for times that my phone isn’t plugged into Android Auto, or when my kids have it. When I need to be discreet about notifications, such as during a formal event or something where phones really should be kept tucked away, it’s a life saver to be able to casually triage a notification and pursue the more important issues appropriately. And perhaps the best thing about the Galaxy Watch 4 is to be able to play 2048 when the kids have hijacked my phone to watch Netflix and I’m bored out of my mind waiting for something. Seriously, never underestimate the value of entertainment when you’re stuck somewhere like the DMV.
If I had to list a negative about the watch, it’s definitely connecting to a new phone. To switch between devices, you basically have to factory reset the watch and start over new with another phone. It isn’t a huge deal, it’s not like the watch has a ton of configuration settings or apps that I need to spend a lot of time recovering, but it does seem unnecessary. Porting over everything the way that I have it to a new Bluetooth connection seems like it should be a trivial feature. And sure, I’m not changing phones every week, so it’s rarely a problem that I even notice, but it would be nice to simplify that process instead of redoing the same setup procedure with every new phone that I get.
At this point, I’ve had the watch for nearly 2 years and it’s still running strong. I really do think that it’s worth the price that I paid, and I like the fact that Android Wear (or I suppose WearOS now) seems much less influenced by the planned obsolescence that plagues so many consumer devices. Even though I’m sure it will eventually start to slow and I’ll have to replace it with something newer, I haven’t had any issues so far and it still seems just as snappy as the day that I got it. That’s a rare compliment for anything in the tech field, and I feel like that adds value to an already worthwhile purchase.
Looking back through messages to establish a timeline, I didn’t realize how quickly I broke the 360. The guy I bought it from first mentioned selling it around October 2017. I bought it in December 2017 and reviewed it in January 2018. The first mention I can find of it being broken is in September 2018. I didn’t even have the watch for a full year before it broke. That’s depressing.
As I mentioned in that old post, that smartwatch was absolutely not a productivity device or something that I explicitly needed. It was a cool gadget that I occasionally used some of the features to make my life easier. I couldn’t justify buying another device that was basically just a toy, ESPECIALLY not at full price. If I found another smartwatch at a steep discount, maybe I would grab one, but I wasn’t going to the store the next day to grab one.
A few years went by where I considered getting the Moto 360 repaired, but I really didn’t want to sink the effort and money into shipping it off and maybe not being able to repair it at all. I kept suggesting it to myself here and there, and I kept deciding to postpone. Eventually, there came a time where even if I did choose to repair it, it would be so far out of date that it probably wouldn’t even be receiving software updates anymore and may not connect to the latest phones at all. That ship had sailed.
In October 2020, I bought a pair of Willful branded smartwatches for my wife and I. If we weren’t going to get something high end, a budget option with some pared down features should be adequate for our needs. Unfortunately, these devices were terrible. They didn’t connect directly with a phone. Instead, they worked with an app installed on the phone. Notifications rarely worked at all, and were delayed the few times that they did. Fitness tracking was hilariously inaccurate. The UI wasn’t customizable in any way, and it wasn’t good to begin with. We used these watches for a little while, but we both abandoned them after a few months.
Some time around the middle of 2022, we got my wife a Galaxy Watch 4. She wanted something that could connect to her phone and display SMS messages that she could then respond to without using her phone. As a teacher, she can’t exactly check her phone regularly, but she did want a way to communicate discreetly and easily. In that regard, she made a compelling case for a smartwatch, and the Galaxy Watch 4 was a capable device from a popular manufacturer that seemed to be very well received.
After playing around some with her Galaxy Watch 4, I really started to miss my old Moto 360. Notifications and music controls on my wrist are just really convenient, and I don’t have to rely on my kids to tell me when someone called or texted me if they’re watching or playing something on my phone. I started looking around for deals. It was time to replace my old smartwatch.
I held off for a while because Google had also just released the Pixel Watch. I love Pixel phones, and first party hardware is normally a safer bet. Reviews of the Pixel Watch weren’t exactly stellar, but I wasn’t fully turned off from it yet. When a coworker got a Pixel Watch, I finally got the opportunity to mess around with one in person. Unfortunately, the reviews were spot on. The bezel is just huge, and the software isn’t really great. Google had numerous iterations of smartwatches to learn from and they still managed to put out a mediocre product. I was disappointed, but I knew I wasn’t getting a Pixel Watch.
In October 2022, Costco had a deal for $80 off the normal sticker price of $280 for a 44mm Galaxy Watch 4. I was sold. My wife’s 40mm was fine, but just a little small for me. The 44mm was more in line with the size I wanted, and I already knew from playing around with hers that I would like the UI. Call it an early Christmas present, but I had to have one.
After just a few weeks with the new watch, I was tremendously satisfied. It worked so much better than the cheap Amazon smartwatch, and honestly seemed like a marked improvement even over my old Moto 360. Android Wear has gotten to a point where the UI is intuitive, consistent, and generally pleasant to use. This is the smartwatch experience that I wanted.
Notifications are responsive, and super helpful in times when I don’t have my phone on my person. Navigation is a very convenient additional screen for times that my phone isn’t plugged into Android Auto, or when my kids have it. When I need to be discreet about notifications, such as during a formal event or something where phones really should be kept tucked away, it’s a life saver to be able to casually triage a notification and pursue the more important issues appropriately. And perhaps the best thing about the Galaxy Watch 4 is to be able to play 2048 when the kids have hijacked my phone to watch Netflix and I’m bored out of my mind waiting for something. Seriously, never underestimate the value of entertainment when you’re stuck somewhere like the DMV.
If I had to list a negative about the watch, it’s definitely connecting to a new phone. To switch between devices, you basically have to factory reset the watch and start over new with another phone. It isn’t a huge deal, it’s not like the watch has a ton of configuration settings or apps that I need to spend a lot of time recovering, but it does seem unnecessary. Porting over everything the way that I have it to a new Bluetooth connection seems like it should be a trivial feature. And sure, I’m not changing phones every week, so it’s rarely a problem that I even notice, but it would be nice to simplify that process instead of redoing the same setup procedure with every new phone that I get.
At this point, I’ve had the watch for nearly 2 years and it’s still running strong. I really do think that it’s worth the price that I paid, and I like the fact that Android Wear (or I suppose WearOS now) seems much less influenced by the planned obsolescence that plagues so many consumer devices. Even though I’m sure it will eventually start to slow and I’ll have to replace it with something newer, I haven’t had any issues so far and it still seems just as snappy as the day that I got it. That’s a rare compliment for anything in the tech field, and I feel like that adds value to an already worthwhile purchase.
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