# Not-So-Smart Watch

I love mechanical things, analog things. Don't get me wrong, I need my computer, not just for work, but for a lot of other aspects of my life. My phone has changed the way I look at the world, given me endless hours of entertainment, and information, and I've gotten to the point where my life would be worse without either of those two things.

But I'm really interested in things that aren't online, things that aren't digital, and things that have mechanical operation. For example, my keyboards are all mechanical keyboards. I know, their whole purpose is to send a digital signal to a computer (or a phone) to tell the computer what to do, but the mechanical nature of the switches is interesting, and making keyboards is something I can do that doesn't happen virtually, on a screen, or just in my mind. When I'm done, I have a physical object I can (and do) use with my hands.

Another area I'm interested in is fountain pens. I don't build them, but I like writing on paper. It's a slower process, and does require typing what I've written out if I want to be able to edit, or put it online, but it's worth it to me to have a physical copy that I wrote.

Unfortunately, with watches, this doesn't seem to be compatible.

I was never much of a watch person. I got a digital watch in Elementary school and wore that for a little bit, but I was a child and either lost it or broke it (probably lost it -- that seems to be the flavour of my childhood) and didn't ever really get another one until university.

I was very interested in wind-up watches. A friend had gotten a watch that somehow winds itself through the body's movement. Maybe gyroscopes, maybe science. Maybe it was all a lie and it just had a very good battery. At any rate, I was very interested in the idea of a watch that didn't need a battery, just someone to wind it every day. So I went to a pawn shop and bought a wind-up watch.

It wasn't an overly cheap watch, but it didn't work. I mean, it worked kinda. The second-hand ticked away, eventually the other little sticks moved too, at what seemed like an appropriate rate for their purpose. But it didn't keep proper time. I didn't keep notes, and I don't remember the exact numbers, but it was losing five to ten minutes a day. I took it back to the pawnshop. They had a watch repair thing. Don't ask me why. It was Lethbridge, and they do things differently down there. They kept the watch for three days and reported back that it was keeping time just fine. Had I remembered to wind it?

I was pretty used to the "ask the stupid questions just in case the customer is stupid" method of customer service by that point, so I didn't take it personally, I took the watch back and ran my own tests. On the desk, it kept time just fine. On my wrist, it lost five to ten minutes a day. Yes, I did remember to wind it.

Over the years, I have tried various analog wrist watches. I think the only one that kept proper time while I was wearing it was this super-chunky diving watch that was the only groupon I ever used. Unfortunately, that watch was just too big and uncomfortable.

A year or so ago, I bought a smart watch. What I really wanted was an analog watch with a silent alarm, and this smart watch did have analog hands. The time on them is separate from the time that the watch keeps digitally. I'm not really sure of the details around that, but suffice it to say that the analog bit drives the hands, and the digital bit handles the bluetooth, the internal digital clock, the heart rate monitor and the ridiculously inaccurate pedometer.

In the settings for the smart watch's app, there is a function to align the hands. Basically, a manual way to sync the position of the analog bit with the internal clock. You tap on buttons on your phone to move the hands until they're pointing at 12:00.

I have had to readjust the time on my watch a half a dozen times this year, and for some stupid reason, I blamed the watch.

For some reason, my mind completely blocked out the fact that analog watches get stupid on my wrist, and so my first thought was, "Stupid Garmin, can't even make a good watch."

Even my wife reminding me that watches don't work around me was repelled by my brain. It retreated to "No, I'm much more likely to lose things than break them." Because, as I've mentioned, that was the flavour of my childhood. Eventually, the connection bridged in my brain, and what my wife had said made sense. Yeah, of course the hands would get out of sync on this watch. That's what happens. Not Garmin's fault.

So, I've got this watch that doesn't keep time well for me, probably losing five to ten minutes a day. It has a silent alarm and some of the features I think I'd really like in a smart watch. The question is: Do I hang on to this watch, knowing the analog portion is unreliable and the pedometer (and probably the heart-rate monitor) doesn't work properly, or do I just abandon the idea of an analog watch? Or do I just abandon watches entirely?