Living and Parting with a Smart Watch

Life with a Smart Watch

So it's official I bought, used, and then sold a smart watch.  It was fun while it lasted but I think I'll wait awhile until I jump on the smart watch bandwagon again.

I puchased the Samsung Galaxy Gear 2 Watch. A great watch in comparison to all the other smart watches on the market because of its long battery life, sleek design and multiple features.

I'm going to summarize three main points about my experience with this smart watch and hopefully my story will help you with your decision on whether or not to get a smart watch.  The first part is buying the watch...

Buying the watch:

I was excited, eager, and not worried about the cost.  So I bought the smart watch directly from Samsung's website.  The total came to $315 after tax.  A lot of money for something you wear on your wrist but not as much as the plain non-smart watch from NIXON that I wanted for $550.00, so I rationalized it as such. If I was to do it all over agian I would wait two months and buy a used watch on ebay for about $100 less.

 There are other smart watches on the market like the Android models from LG and Motorola.  Also, there's the Apple Watch, but for the features and build quality I would say that the Samsung Gear 2 is king for now, butttttt it has one major limitation which is that it only works with Samsung cell phones.

Using the watch:

The watch came in the mail all pretty and Apple like in beautiful packaging.  The instruction were easy to follow for setup and in no time I was stupidly using it to make phone calls and awkwardly take pictures.

After months of use the main functions of the watch that I appreciated and found beneficial were 1. The ability to glance at texts messages and email without digging for my phone and 2.  I could make audible text responses with very accurate results.  I also really enjoyed using the music player function with my wireless headphones for workouts and runs.  It allowed me to leave my phone at home and easily play my music without having to strap something around my bicep.  The final reason I loved the watch was because everyone looked at it.  It looks great around your wrist and everyone was curious about who was wearing it and what it was.  I mean that's like 95% why we wear watches these days anyways, but this watch actually does a lot of other stuff that can make your life a little easier.

Selling the watch:

Disclosure, I haven't used eBay in a long time.  That didn't stop me from selling my 6 month old high tech smart watch on it though.  I kind-of royally f*** my eBay posting when trying to sell the smart watch.  Lesson # 1 Do not sell high priced electronics using the auction style bidding.  Half the people bidding on these types of products are frauds and will not actually have the money to pay for the product.  Instead, list your item as a BUY IT  NOW option and go into advanced settings to select that you will only allow the product to be sold to paypal credit secure members that have funds automatically deducted from the buyer accounts when product is purchased.  I sold mine for $200.00 plus $13 for shipping.  I could have sold it for about $15 dollars more but was frustrated by the first several times with fraud eBay account members bidding on my original auction style post.  

All in all it was a good experience and I know that smart watches are a interesting addition to our connected lifestyles.  I hope to get another one again soon but I will wait until the cell phone is no longer needed to sustain an internet connection with the watch. 

-Reese's Pieces