I believe the member that you quoted realizes that the Apple Watch is not worth anything long-term, that’s common knowledge. Smart watches in general, like anything tech related, depreciates. That’s the nature of silicon that is superseded by something else annually with newer technology. Even the first Gen 18 karat gold Apple Watch is hardly worth anything compared to what it once was valued at when it launched in 2015, why? Because it’s a tech device that is no longer supported, with the exception of the gold casing.
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Who of you prefers the Apple Watch over his Rolex/Patek/Omega/Breitling/etc?
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I believe the member that you quoted realizes that the Apple Watch is not worth anything long-term, that’s common knowledge. Smart watches in general, like anything tech related, depreciates. That’s the nature of silicon that is superseded by something else annually with newer technology. Even the first Gen 18 karat gold Apple Watch is hardly worth anything compared to what it once was valued at when it launched in 2015, why? Because it’s a tech device that is no longer supported, with the exception of the gold casing.
You are talking about Apple Watch 1 ? I have AW 3 that I can't sell unless I drop the price so low that its better just give it to your grandson to play with
Currently, the supply of stainless steel Rolex sport models is very tight. Some people are on 2+ year waiting lists to get one. Rolex, even without supply constraints, hold their value exceptionally well. Most mechanical and automatic watches depreciate somewhat in value, but level off over the years. With care and maintenance, a mechanical watch will last for decades, so most will retain some value.
It's odd that, for all the discussion the Watch has generated since its debut, how little discussion has centered on its most basic purpose of them all: its function as a timepiece.
Well, let's take a moment to compare it to even the top luxury watches. Back in the day, the quality of a watch was often assessed with reference to its accuracy, and that of, say, the Patek Philippe's +/- 1 second per day was hailed as a masterpiece of legendary Swiss craftsmanship. So let's compare the Apple Watch. The one on your wrist is at one end of a chain. The other end is the atomic clock that relies on the vibration of the cesium atom maintained by the US Navy's observatory in Virginia. The accuracy of that has recently been bumped up to +/- 1 second every sixty million years. And they're talking about replacing the cesium atom with something far more stable, so pretty soon we'll be talking about how many seconds have been gained or lost since the Big Bang.
Any questions? (Sure, there's a time-lag introduced by various links in that connecting chain, but that's too small to be observable by you or by me, and anyway it is at least supposedly corrected by software).
And then there's the issue of flexibility. Here the Watch has a whole bag of tricks: it can automatically adjust for the presence or absence of daylight savings time. It can do the same for leap years. And then there's its best party trick of them all: you're plane is flying into about any place in the world and just about the time your plane lands (sometimes even before its wheels have touched the tarmac) it has sniffed out the local time zone and reset itself accordingly. You don't even have to know how many hours you have gained or lost during your flight and do any math in your head or on your cocktail napkin. You can pass the time this operation has just saved you by observing all your Rolex-owning fellow passengers going through this exercise manually (and in 2019 A. D. "manually" is one of the dirtiest words in the English language.)
Me too, but that's simply because I never have to really rely on a watch, so it's not a big deal if it stops. As I mentioned above, if it was something that I was actually relying on, like in a diving situation, I'd get it serviced in recommended intervals. I still try to get pressure checks every year, though, since I swim in a lot of my watches.
Either way, calling a watch that needs a complete rebuild every decade (on average) "built for a lifetime" is a bit dubious.
Yep - I had a 2000 Rolex GMT II Coke bezel that increased 4x in value before I sold it in 2017. If I had kept it for another year I could have gotten another $1500 out of it. And a 1 year old Submariner Hulk that was $9000 new is now fetching $13,500.
But not all Rolex climb in value that much - my 3 year old GMT II BLNR was $8500 new and it's probably worth $10,500 now but an Explorer II would be lucky to fetch what a person had paid for it (I sold mine at a $500 loss).
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A complete rebuild is only for a neglected watch that's missed it's routine service. They don't need a complete rebuild every decade - a good reputable watchmaker can do a $300-400 clean, lube, and adjust every 4-6 years with little wear to the watch's parts and it will continue to run as a family heirloom for generations to come.
The $300-400 is for a certified repair center but not at the manufacturer's own service center. Last I checked Rolex's very own service center was a little over $600 for a full service, while it costs $525 for a service at Omega.
I can’t speak for indies, but it’s unusal to get out of RSC for only $600. It’s usually more like $800-$1000.
That’s why the metrics don’t really make sense. If you spend $600-$800 every 5 years vs. $1000-$1200 every 12 years, you come out ahead in the latter situation.
Rolex doesn’t actually have a recommended service interval. They say the average is about 10 years, but even Baz on the Rolex Forum (works for RSC) generally just says bring it in when it stops.
I need to respark this thread. I went on a cruise a while ago & saw an Omega. Love at first sight, I came home looked around & found what I consider perfect.
Apple has released Apple Watch 4 & on trying it, I've lost almost 2 stone for one & the other, just looks awesome. As we speak here in UK I have my Omega on my wrist. At the same time, it's on eBay. I don't want to sell the beautiful thing, I just finrd the gold Apple watch stainless steel with milsnese loop keeps drawing me in.
Same way Samsung about to release Galaxy S10, so I'm stuck. Galaxy & Omega, iPhone & Apple Watch. Doing my head in.
Apple has released Apple Watch 4 & on trying it, I've lost almost 2 stone for one & the other, just looks awesome. As we speak here in UK I have my Omega on my wrist. At the same time, it's on eBay. I don't want to sell the beautiful thing, I just finrd the gold Apple watch stainless steel with milsnese loop keeps drawing me in.
Same way Samsung about to release Galaxy S10, so I'm stuck. Galaxy & Omega, iPhone & Apple Watch. Doing my head in.
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Love your Omega. I really enjoy my Planet Ocean 2500 Liquid Metal Limited Edition and my Planet Ocean 8500 Titanium with Liquid Metal bezel. Huge bang for the buck vs my Rolex divers.
I can certainly understand the sentiment expressed in these two posts. I’ve had moments where the Apple Watch has been too distracting, and I’ve had to make changes. But I would argue that your approach of doing away with the Apple Watch has a few problems with it.
First, the most obvious issue is that you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water. You’re not just losing the distractions caused by the Apple Watch, you’re throwing away the benefits it offers as well. I’ll get into the benefits it has had for me in a bit. I think a more sensible approach would have been to see if there was a way to adjust the way you used the Apple Watch that would have allowed you to continue wearing it, while still achieving the change in personal behavior you were looking for.
Second I think it might be possible that you’re overlooking the root cause of the issue you observed in your behavior, and projected your own feelings onto the professor in the other poster’s anecdote. I think the true issue you were facing was the need to establish boundaries. You identified a behavior in yourself you didn’t like, and instead of recognizing that you were the cause of your own behavior, you instead blamed the watch. In the end you may have achieved the change that you desired, but I do wonder if you could have achieved this in another way.
Don’t take this the wrong way. I’m guilty of the same thing. In fact, I was on a cruise last month and there were many times where I realized that I was being distracted by the outside world and not doing what I was supposed to be doing; in that case, unplugging and relaxing. But I managed to catch myself, and every time I did I turned on Do Not Disturb and the distraction was gone.
Getting to the main point of the topic, I do have one nice watch. A Tag Huer watch that my mother gave me when I graduated from college. It’s a quartz, but it’s also quite nice:
This is actually the same model worn in The Borne Identity, which adds to its cool factor for me. Still, I pretty much never wear it any longer. In fact, the battery has been dead for months and I have no plans to replace it. Still, I will wear this watch again for vacations, like the recent cruise, where I know I want to unplug for long periods of time. I may also wear it for some special occasions, but you’ll see why I also hesitate doing so below.
The reason I don’t wear the Tag any longer is because the Apple Watch has just become too invaluable to wear anything else. Yes, there are the health benefits, which are well documented at this point, as well as notification triage and all of that. But for me it serves an additional purpose. I have chronic sinusitis, which leads to pretty bad migraines whenever there’s a big swing in barometric pressure. The Apple Watch allows me to have a complication with the pressure reading that I see every time I look at the watch. This allows me to notice trends over time, and catch those trends in advance and take medicine hours before I would ever feel the first signs of a headache. This prevents the migraines from even starting. So for me, not wearing the Apple Watch means risking being in agony later in the day. Most days that’s fine, as it’s only when storm systems are moving through that I have issues. Still, it’s just one more, very big, reason to always wear the Apple Watch. And yes, I could monitor the pressure on my phone. But there’s a real benefit to seeing the pressure reading every time I check the time that I don’t get from checking it on the phone.
I’ll also mention that there are VERY good reasons to be in touch and reachable all the time. Just the other day I got a call right as I was getting to my desk in the morning. On the other end was my wife, sobbing, telling me that she had been in a wreck, that she had hit her head, and that an ambulance was on the way. I dropped everything and ran out the door. She ended up being ok, though she does have a mild concussion. I never want to risk missing a call like that in the future. Yeah, I could constantly check that I have my phone in my pocket at all times. But before the watch I was already feeling chained to the iPhone. So from that perspective the Apple Watch is liberating. Not wearing it means risking missing that urgent phone call from a loved one. To me not risking that is worth causing some minor annoyance to anyone at work who is bothered by me checking my watch to screen a call.
I appreciate your sentiment, and I completely understand your use case for your migraines. I do not have a use case like that, but I can appreciate that others may.
I tried to tone down the notifications, but what I found was that I never receive any notifications that are so important that they cannot wait. Even if there were notifications I wanted, it was pretty much impossible or a ton of work to try to keep the notifications only to those I deemed important enough. In the end, it seemed silly to wear something whose primary function was not being performed from 8 am to 3:30 pm every day.
The professor was 100% in the wrong. I do not think there is any rationalization for that type of behavior on a regular basis. A day when you are expecting something is fine. Everyday for every notification is rude. I am paying for your time as a student, you should not use it to triage your notifications. If that is now acceptable, I think we have a societal issue.
As for being constantly available, I have to disagree. I get there are anecdotes like the one you share, but ultimately things like that rarely happen and as I mentioned, in the case of emergency there are ways for people to reach me, including instantly on my phone. My wife for example will not call me at work unless it is an emergency. My cell phone is still in my pocket and if I get a call (which is very rare), I am ok checking it. She also knows to call multiple times or to call the school if it is a situation I need to know about immediately.
In the end, I just found that all it did was distract me and did not really offer a lot of truly useful features. My notifications are not that important, and I think that is true of most people if they are honest with themselves. The exercise features never grabbed me. I do not like the rings, nor think they work well (I could fill the exercise ring without exercising). The running and hiking apps never worked terribly well, and certainly not as easy or reliable as my Garmin Fenix. Lastly, I was not a fan of the look. I am not trying to offend anyone, but the Apple Watch kind of looks ridiculous in a professional or dressy situation, especially the aluminum. I understand that is totally subjective, but to me it isn't a good look outside of casual. I enjoy pairing a watch with an outfit and think it is overall a better look than the Apple Watch.
I am not trying to dissuade anyone. I know my preferences are different than others, but I am totally happy to discuss them.
Your points are well taken, and to each their own. The only one that I’ll take exception with is your comments on the looks. First, I’ve seen plenty of pictures of the Apple Watch that look very good. Especially the stainless models. Now, do I think the blue/black Rolex GMT II looks better? Absolutely. Would I buy one if money were no object? Certainly. Would I actually wear it, regularly or otherwise? No.
I work for a financial company which just about everyone in the world is familiar with. What does our CEO wear regularly to all sorts of occasions? A silver aluminum Apple Watch with pink sand sport band. I think most people pay far less attention to watches than most people in this forum, Rolex forums, or watchuseek do. Anyone with a stainless Apple Watch already cares far more than probably 90% of the population does.
Absolutely on the looks. Totally subjective. And you are right on people noticing, they do not!
I love my omega seamaster it was a birthday gift from my wife for my 30th and it's precious to me. Suffice to say i've not worn it very much since getting my apple watch, i've got smart bands and faces for dressing the watch up and every day bands for work plus weekend 'leisure' bands. It's probably the most functional watch i've owned and it's worn every day. It helps me with my weight loss program, it's got my reminders and it's easy to take a quick glance of emails and messages when i'm busy. But I love my omega, every time i see it in my watch box (yes i'm THAT guy - not many of the other watches in the box have been worn much either) I want to wear it, in fact this weekend i'm going to put it on when we go for a nice meal out - it's settled!!!
I love your watch face! Beautiful! Maybe the gold is a bit much, but just a bit. It’s a great looking watch.
My Rolex datejust is 39 years old and has only been serviced twice (at $400 a pop). I wore it virtually every day (and night), swimming, all sports. It ”took a lickin’ and kept on tickin’”. Changed out the face from Champaigne, which was hard to read, to dark blue with diamond numerals. I LOVE that watch...but have not worn it since getting my AW4. Did go SSG probably because aluminum was too big a change.
Fitness tracking is just too important to me to not wear the AW constantly. That compulsion is something I’d like to tone down. Thought it might happen sooner or later, but at 75 I’m as compulsive as ever about getting steps, getting rings closed, and now, those awards too. I don’t find the AW all that attractive in comparison to a good quality mechanical, actually, but they’ve got me hooked!
Glad to see an older person using the Apple Watch. I am 70 and just purchased my first AW, because of its fall detection feature.
I just read through this whole thread and thought I would share.
When I was younger I had a Casio digital, the same my older brother owned, that I loved. I wore it until the band fell apart. At that point, I had no other interest in watches. I stopped wearing them. I have always had an appreciation for the engineering and craftsmanship behind them, but that was all.
Fast forward and I started a job that I couldn’t wear any type of jewelry around. It would be outright dangerous, let alone it would have been severely damaged. Then one year for Christmas my wife surprised me with an inexpensive novelty watch. It was weird to wear at first. Especially since it was only on weekends. I enjoyed having it though. So much so, I started noticing other’s watches.
A couple of years later I bought a nicer all metal watch, I’m not a fan of leather bands. I wore it every chance I got, still wasn’t able to wear anything to work. I secured a new position at work that allowed me to actually wear my watch all day. Then my wife surprised me one Tuesday with my first Apple Watch as a congratulations for my new job. I love the fitness aspect of it for sure. I’ve lost a good amount of weight being in competitions with my wife and stopped using my phone as much.
I’ve bought a few bands for it already and have been shopping for more. I love the ability to customize it like that for a small amount of money. My other watch sits in the valet on my dresser and I don’t know if I have any interest in wearing it any time soon.
When I was younger I had a Casio digital, the same my older brother owned, that I loved. I wore it until the band fell apart. At that point, I had no other interest in watches. I stopped wearing them. I have always had an appreciation for the engineering and craftsmanship behind them, but that was all.
Fast forward and I started a job that I couldn’t wear any type of jewelry around. It would be outright dangerous, let alone it would have been severely damaged. Then one year for Christmas my wife surprised me with an inexpensive novelty watch. It was weird to wear at first. Especially since it was only on weekends. I enjoyed having it though. So much so, I started noticing other’s watches.
A couple of years later I bought a nicer all metal watch, I’m not a fan of leather bands. I wore it every chance I got, still wasn’t able to wear anything to work. I secured a new position at work that allowed me to actually wear my watch all day. Then my wife surprised me one Tuesday with my first Apple Watch as a congratulations for my new job. I love the fitness aspect of it for sure. I’ve lost a good amount of weight being in competitions with my wife and stopped using my phone as much.
I’ve bought a few bands for it already and have been shopping for more. I love the ability to customize it like that for a small amount of money. My other watch sits in the valet on my dresser and I don’t know if I have any interest in wearing it any time soon.
Getting an Apple Watch has actually made me more of a watch enthusiast in general, including classic timepieces. I’m currently obsessed with the Rado Ceramica (if anyone is selling one HMU) but there’s also some really cool new timepieces
I share your views. The Apple Watch was allowing me to appreciate more mechanical watches. Actually, I have purchased more mechanical watches since I have owned the Apple Watch more than I anticipated, as much as I like the Apple Watch, it’s changed my whole perspective on wearing a mechanical watch in general, which is kind of a second passion for me.
As for that Rado Ceramica (The link band looks similar the Ceramica band), I like that design, and actually purchased two watches that were similar to that with a leather band.
I’m curious what watches you have that have that design, as I’m looking for something like it that doesn’t break the bank
Two watches that I ordered off of overstock.com, I don’t know that you have access if you are in the U.K, they May not be exactly like the design you have for that Rado, but a similar perspective:
One was a ‘Citizens Eco-Drive’ in a rectangular form with a link bracelet attached:
This was $175.00
https://www.overstock.com/Jewelry-Watches/Citizen-Mens-Eco-Drive-Bracelets-Watch/10649680/product.html?recset=fd9afacb-25d6-4161-a7b8-d85ce43c1924&refccid=CJ4IYSEP4W3LKDKBMQ6XDHBWCI&recalg=927,923,873,839&recidx=6refinement=case shape:Rectangle
The other other one was a ‘Bulova Stainless supreme’ that retailed for about $160.
https://www.overstock.com/Jewelry-Watches/Bulova-Mens-Diamond-Watch-Silver/14083946/product.html?refccid=DQZWKQMC2FHZ6NCC546U3HAZBA&searchidx=12&kwds=&rfmt=case shape:Rectangle