(Almost) Anti-Smartwatch

Dive watches are no longer the primary timing tool for professional divers. Most pilots aren’t required to wear mechanical watches as a backup for flight instruments. Duly noted. But divers (and the rest of us) do still wear dive watches. Pilots still love a decent chronograph (don’t we all?). As technology continues to disrupt the established ways we do things, there are some artifacts — such as watches — we have a hard time letting go of. Nostalgia might drive the sentiment, but newer technologies don’t always do a better job than the things they replace (I do miss a good QWERTY keyboard on my phone). There are scenarios in which watches are still the best tool. Furthermore, the very relationships we have with watches have their own momentum, maintaining practicality in certain realms for as long as we collectively agree to wear them... More here.

Horses for courses, but I do find myself leaning back towards real watches with only 1 or 2 functions done very well.