With no official repair program and no parts, broken Pixel Watches are just e-waste.
Google says it can’t fix Pixel Watches, please just buy a new one | With no official repair program and no parts, broken Pixel Watches are just e-waste.::With no official repair program and no parts, broken Pixel Watches are just e-waste.
Their customer support is also aces too. I’ve got a Fenix 6s and the battery is going out on it, and they’re replacing it for free. No questions or fuss. Just a shipping label.
For as expensive as they are, I’ve been extremely happy with them. When this replacement dies in another 3+ years I’ll definitely be getting another Garmin.
Aren’t all smart watches just e-waste? Always found them ridiculously redundant and wasteful. I mean my gshock is still on the same battery after 11 years and it’s still precise, has a calendar, alarm clocks, timers, backlighting and went through hell and back. I used to swim and take showers without taking it off, crawling in a desert, all sorts of abuse with not even a scratch.
I’ve got a Pebble and an original recipe Vivoactive. They’re both workin’ perfectly fine after all these years, battery lasts about 5 days because I have the GPS, schedule/alarms, and messaging enabled.
Once the pebble battery becomes a spicy pillow, I’ll replace it. I swim, shower, everything with these watches. They’ve both been through hell and back, and I think there’s a small scuff on one of them, at most.
So, I teach. Having a text just go “zzt” on my wrist, I can check the sender at a glance, and if it’s important, check the phone. Same with calls. Otherwise I can dismiss it and check later.
I also have my watches set up with reminders for things lile “10 mins left to class” that silently buzzes in my wrist so I know to wrap up, and both track my movement and sleep. Fun bits of data for myself, to see if I’m sleeping poorly or being as lazy as I think I am one day. The pebble even has an 8:30PM wrap-up for the day that tracks my average steps and lets me know if i’m ahead or behind my usual.
They’re useful when a phone would be too many features or too much noise.
It’s not always easy to pull out your phone, especially if you’re sitting. You don’t always have free hands. Your phone isn’t always on your person. Stuff like that. Also, it’s really nice to, at a glance, see what the notification is and know that you don’t even have to bother pulling out your phone.
I wouldn’t say so. My Apple Watch shows a ridiculous amount of useful information on my watch face and I can easily find any other info I need with it. It’s also got a lot of health and fitness features which can be extremely helpful and potentially life saving. In addition to all of that, the rest of the features are helpful too. Whether some might find them to be redundant or intrusive, I and clearly many others find them to be useful. Just because you don’t find a use for it, doesn’t make it bad.
Expecting companies to be good citizens is crazy. Expecting consumers to be informed consumers is crazy. Our gov’t needs to pass regulations about repairability for just about any consumer product. But expecting voters to be informed voters also seems crazy.
Companies should have fines for at least as much as the revenue they generated with those devices. Designed obsolescence is something that needs to be *abandoned, even if it hurts really bad financially.
Even simpler: If you sell it, and it breaks or becomes useless, you’re expected to take it back and dispose of it responsibly. Electronics retailers can charge a deposit, just like the supermarket does for beer and Coke.
Just imagine if things worked that way —
Find the broken husk of an iPod Shuffle on the beach? Take it to an Apple Store; they give you five bucks.
Find a roadkill Dell laptop on the side of the road? (I did earlier this summer.) Take it to any big-box store that sells Dell laptops; they give you five bucks.
Pixel Watch turned into e-waste? Mail it to Google; they give you five bucks. (Probably on your Google Pay account, yeah, but that’s better than nothing.)
Pixel Buds are the same way. IIRC from a teardown vid, those earbuds (and I’m guessing most of their competitors’ too) are designed to be quasi-disposable in this way. They’re glued together, the only way to open them up destroys them, warranty support consists of replacing defective earbuds.
This business model does create an e-waste issue… More lithium ion batteries ending up in landfills, more gold extracted from components by kids in developing nations burning them and breathing the carcinogens…
Interestingly, even Pine64’s smart watch requires you to silly cone glue the two case halves together if you want it to be waterproof. It does give you that option, though, which is cool.
i bought a P-Watch due to the circular aesthetic, have been wearing mine since release. it’s “OK” but last week i fell on my bicycle and scratched up the watch face pretty badly, so QUITE annoying that there is no repair program.
doesn’t matter though, switching to a classic Cassio watch soon anyways. “Smart Watches” aren’t that helpful for me, ultimately i don’t understand the appeal. it’s just PHONE ON WRIST, seems like another way to “PLUG INTO THE MATRIX”
I wear my smart watch exclusively at work because when I’m on or around heavy machinery, I need to know if that little alert was something important or not. Otherwise I’d be checking my phone every five minutes. But I don’t have to stop or slow down to check my wrist.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !technology@lemmy.world
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
deleted by creator
I get Google bad but what watch face is that in the thumbnail of the link?
If you are a google product adopter in 2023 then you deserved to be relieved of your money.
Cool i’ll just buy a watch that can be repaired then
So they should be labelled “disposable” and priced accordingly.
On the other hand, a Garmin Fenix can be easily opened with an inexpensive tool and replacement parts are easily found online.
Their customer support is also aces too. I’ve got a Fenix 6s and the battery is going out on it, and they’re replacing it for free. No questions or fuss. Just a shipping label.
For as expensive as they are, I’ve been extremely happy with them. When this replacement dies in another 3+ years I’ll definitely be getting another Garmin.
Aren’t all smart watches just e-waste? Always found them ridiculously redundant and wasteful. I mean my gshock is still on the same battery after 11 years and it’s still precise, has a calendar, alarm clocks, timers, backlighting and went through hell and back. I used to swim and take showers without taking it off, crawling in a desert, all sorts of abuse with not even a scratch.
I’ve got a Pebble and an original recipe Vivoactive. They’re both workin’ perfectly fine after all these years, battery lasts about 5 days because I have the GPS, schedule/alarms, and messaging enabled.
Once the pebble battery becomes a spicy pillow, I’ll replace it. I swim, shower, everything with these watches. They’ve both been through hell and back, and I think there’s a small scuff on one of them, at most.
not OP but I still don’t understand instead of turning your wrist, just pulling out your phone for the same if not better features
So, I teach. Having a text just go “zzt” on my wrist, I can check the sender at a glance, and if it’s important, check the phone. Same with calls. Otherwise I can dismiss it and check later.
I also have my watches set up with reminders for things lile “10 mins left to class” that silently buzzes in my wrist so I know to wrap up, and both track my movement and sleep. Fun bits of data for myself, to see if I’m sleeping poorly or being as lazy as I think I am one day. The pebble even has an 8:30PM wrap-up for the day that tracks my average steps and lets me know if i’m ahead or behind my usual.
They’re useful when a phone would be too many features or too much noise.
It’s not always easy to pull out your phone, especially if you’re sitting. You don’t always have free hands. Your phone isn’t always on your person. Stuff like that. Also, it’s really nice to, at a glance, see what the notification is and know that you don’t even have to bother pulling out your phone.
I wouldn’t say so. My Apple Watch shows a ridiculous amount of useful information on my watch face and I can easily find any other info I need with it. It’s also got a lot of health and fitness features which can be extremely helpful and potentially life saving. In addition to all of that, the rest of the features are helpful too. Whether some might find them to be redundant or intrusive, I and clearly many others find them to be useful. Just because you don’t find a use for it, doesn’t make it bad.
Expecting companies to be good citizens is crazy. Expecting consumers to be informed consumers is crazy. Our gov’t needs to pass regulations about repairability for just about any consumer product. But expecting voters to be informed voters also seems crazy.
Same with the Google Nest Hub.
It cost me around $600 and has a known splash-screen issue which I just woke up to one morning.
No fix available when it happens. Nothing I did caused it. I just had to bin it.
It’s either planned obsolescence or just shitty design.
Companies should have fines for at least as much as the revenue they generated with those devices. Designed obsolescence is something that needs to be *abandoned, even if it hurts really bad financially.
Even simpler: If you sell it, and it breaks or becomes useless, you’re expected to take it back and dispose of it responsibly. Electronics retailers can charge a deposit, just like the supermarket does for beer and Coke.
Just imagine if things worked that way —
Find the broken husk of an iPod Shuffle on the beach? Take it to an Apple Store; they give you five bucks.
Find a roadkill Dell laptop on the side of the road? (I did earlier this summer.) Take it to any big-box store that sells Dell laptops; they give you five bucks.
Pixel Watch turned into e-waste? Mail it to Google; they give you five bucks. (Probably on your Google Pay account, yeah, but that’s better than nothing.)
Nest Hub for $600? Which one is that expensive?
Pixel Buds are the same way. IIRC from a teardown vid, those earbuds (and I’m guessing most of their competitors’ too) are designed to be quasi-disposable in this way. They’re glued together, the only way to open them up destroys them, warranty support consists of replacing defective earbuds.
This business model does create an e-waste issue… More lithium ion batteries ending up in landfills, more gold extracted from components by kids in developing nations burning them and breathing the carcinogens…
“But… but… Apple USB 2 ports!”
removed by mod
What’s a warranty worth then?
removed by mod
Shame on Google!
Shame on Google!
Also, look what I found…
Interestingly, even Pine64’s smart watch requires you to silly cone glue the two case halves together if you want it to be waterproof. It does give you that option, though, which is cool.
i bought a P-Watch due to the circular aesthetic, have been wearing mine since release. it’s “OK” but last week i fell on my bicycle and scratched up the watch face pretty badly, so QUITE annoying that there is no repair program.
doesn’t matter though, switching to a classic Cassio watch soon anyways. “Smart Watches” aren’t that helpful for me, ultimately i don’t understand the appeal. it’s just PHONE ON WRIST, seems like another way to “PLUG INTO THE MATRIX”
I wear my smart watch exclusively at work because when I’m on or around heavy machinery, I need to know if that little alert was something important or not. Otherwise I’d be checking my phone every five minutes. But I don’t have to stop or slow down to check my wrist.
Never understood the appeal of Dick Tracey’s phone watch, still don’t understand them now that the are real.