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.
On the other hand, a Garmin Fenix can be easily opened with an inexpensive tool and replacement parts are easily found online.
Garmin watches look amazing. I just wish they had more smartwatch capabilities. I’d love complications on the watch face, and I feel like I should be able to start the assistant with a hotword.
I’m not sure if the Google Watch can do the latter.
On the other side of things. I’m super happy that garmin watches don’t have more smartwatch capabilities. Their laser focus on sports wearable is what keeps them massively competitive there and keeps me on weeks of battery life instead of hours of battery life
I totally understand that. They look perfect for their target market.
As far as I know, they’re the only wearable that does realtime stroke/length tracking for swimming, which is really cool. If I was more serious about exercise, that’d be the perfect
excusereason to buy one.That’s exactly why I have my Garmin Descent.
It’s a dive computer, with basic smart watch features like notifications and general health tracking which are the only ones I need.
I happily paid 1k for it.
I’ve got an OG Garmin vivoactive. Besides the naming bullshit of this being vivoactive and there now being a “vivoactive 1”, it’s great. It’s a sidegrade to thebpebble, which I never thought I’d find. So now I just swap between this and the pebble when the mood suits me.
Love Garmin smartwatches.
I’ve been wondering what to get when my beloved Pebble dies. Good to know!
Check out the pebble communities online though, even the subreddit. There’s new batteries you can get, and guides to repair. Barring that, there’s always someone looking for even dead pebbles.
I’m leaning this direction because I don’t really use any smart features in my watch. Just my fitness shit.
Any recommendations on Garmin watches for a guy who likes to bike/bike but not crazy sports level enthusiast?
Whichever one you like the look of and is cheap. Garmin watches are just divided into styling and features. If you don’t need specific features you can just get the cheapest one that fits your styling.
I started out with a vivomove because I liked the hybrid look (real watch hands) and only needed basic health stuff. Did notifications which is all I really care about for smart stuff.
There’s plenty of watch faces with cool shit on them in the store, same as with Google
And having had watches that do respond to “hey Google” they were super iffy and inconsistent. Buttons are easier to avoid frustration, which the Garmin has.
As far as “smartwatch capabilities” I haven’t missed anything from my Wear watch. I certainly don’t miss charging it every day or having it die by 5pm because I actually used it
I’m charging my Garmin this morning. Haven’t charged it since Sunday… a week ago Sunday
Buttons on smart watches are a must. I really appreciated them on my Pebble.
The Venu has 3. Forerunner 5. I use both (buttons and screens, not both devices)
What kind of smart watch doesn’t have complications? Does it at least have sleep tracking?
Fitbits. AFAIU, Garmins don’t.
My Garmin most certainly has sleep tracking
I was referring to complications.
I’m lost - what is a complication? From my initial Google, it does seem like my Garmin can add additional things to the face but I’m still kind of unclear as to what a complication is. For reference I have heart rate, step count, mileage, body battery and weather on my vivoactive3 face.
Complications are additional snippets of information displayed right on your watch face, such as activity tracking, battery life, media controls and more.
From https://www.google.com/amp/s/blog.google/products/wear-os/5-ways-to-personalize/amp/
Basically, I’d like to know if I have unread messages by looking at my watch. My Fitbit can’t do that. AFAIU, Garmins can’t, but I could be wrong.
They should be customizable by third party developers, but I think I’d be happy just knowing about SMS, Gmail, and maybe upcoming appointments.
EDIT: also the high/low temperature for the day. It’s helpful for choosing kids clothes for the day.
deleted by creator
Thanks for the clarification. your response was ambiguous given the opposing questions in the former comment
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.
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.)
But before that make it like a tire. Bought a pixel watch and it died in a year an a half? If the device should have lasted 3-5 years, you should be able to send it back to the manufacturer for a percentage of the cost back. Sure, google can say it’s watches only last 12 months, but as a consumer would you buy such a disposable item?
Probably both tbh
Let’s mint a new razor: assume both malice and incompetence
Casmael’s Razor. Has a nice ring to it!
Greed and incompetence is more accurate
Nest Hub for $600? Which one is that expensive?
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.
And expecting our government to have the knowledge to regulate is crazy. I agree with you but our current government doesn’t have the slightest clue what technology is.
It seems to run on some form of electricity!
It’s not just some truck you can dump things on… it’s a series of tubes!
I understood that reference!
They’ve got the internet on computers now, eh?
Their support is infamously hard to contact, they discontinue projects very often, and now this. Google makes some very interesting products, but there would have to be a huge shift at the company, which won’t happen, for me to buy them.
Google is first and foremost an ad company. Everything else they do is only to improve the worth of their ad business.
My pixel had issues with the screen (p7p) contacted google, within a couple of days I had an advance replacement device in my hands and a return label for the faulty device.
My watch is giving me issues currently so I’m planning on hitting up support about that too, as it’s not within what I expected from the watch (won’t connect via bt after a month or so, requiring a factory reset).
In AUS we have great consumer protections, if my watch continues on the way it is currently I’ll be returning it for a full refund.
I love being in Maine and quietly mentioning our Implied Warranty and willingness to contact the Secretary of State about a faulty product. I’ve had success multiple times and only needed to write the Secretary office once.
Unfortunately that huge shift would require a complete change in Google’s corporate culture and that’s not gonna happen.
I had my own experience with their customer support after purchasing 2 Pixel 6’s. They were utter garbage. Both had the cellular connectivity problem and the fingerprint sensors were completely useless. Those sensors failed 100% of the time in brightly lit stores. There’s no way in hell that Google was unaware of those problems, and they were in fact well documented (but not resolved) after six months and one major software “fix”.
Lucky for me a request for help on Reddit resulted in multiple people saying they despised their Pixels and to return the damn things before it was too late.
They immediately lost my business with no public followup on 911 dialer bugs on Pixels. Plus there is ALWAYS a huge hardware problem on flagship Pixels, every single generation. Went iPhone SE and really why would I ever move back?
I’ve had a lot of pixels in my family and the only one that had major issues was the Pixel 4.
I think you may be buying into overblown anecdotal nonsense.
As have I, and my experience is similar to the other guy.
Fingerprint on the 6 drove me nuts.
On 7 pro now. My tap to pay goes away randomly sometimes until I restart the phone. 7pro camera is hit and miss, mostly missed. Takes very detailed photos, but the quality is far worse than pixels older than pixel 6.
There were multiple public reddit posts about a Pixel 911 dialer bug - NOT the Teams one that we already had, but a new one. No follow-up on that and from what I’ve heard it’s more productive to scream into the void than contact Google support, so I picked up and left. Glad I did too, Android is death by a thousand laggy cuts compared to iOS. For me, the choice was simple: I need rock solid 911 support, immediate attention on critical bugs, and a phone that didn’t lag. iPhone is the only major flagship that can do everything on that list
deleted by creator
Google support for literally anything is non existent. Same could be said about Meta.
I am slowly shifting away from Google. Gmail and Google Photos is going to be the hardest. :/
For those thinking of moving away from Gmail… I strongly recommend buying your own domain name so you actually own your address and can switch e-mail services whenever you want without needing a new e-mail address. Hell, I’d recommend this even if you’re planning on staying with Gmail for a while.
Honestly, aside from having to point people at your new e-mail address… Gmail is not particularly hard to move away from, especially if you already use an external mail client. I don’t really miss it, anyway. The only pain point I experience is that if somebody sends you a Google Doc / Sheet you need a Google account to edit it, but that’s not a huge concern for me personally.
I’m self hosting my personal e-mail right now, and it’s pretty great if you know how to do that stuff. Super cheap to host, and I can have as many aliases and send as many e-mails as I want. It’s not for the faint of heart, but it’s very doable if you already host your own stuff. Otherwise there’s a bunch of e-mail services like Proton (kind of expensive, and a little annoying in that it’s not just IMAP), Tutanota (dunno much about it), Fastmail, etc… But it’s also worth mentioning that if you have a domain / VPS already your VPS provider and your registrar may both provide e-mail services that you can use… And if you just want to get out of Google and you have an iCloud+ account already (which is very possible if you have an iPhone and wanted more iCloud storage, but otherwise it’s $0.99/mo) you can also use iCloud+ for e-mail with a custom domain.
You could look at trying immich. I haven’t set it up yet, but it seems to be the solution to me moving away from Google photos. https://github.com/immich-app/immich
You can find more info on these
https://matrix.to/#/#selfhosted:selfhosted.chat
I did set it up. Survive multiple upgrade in place just fine.
I can say it beats all my apps until now. The best part to me is delete from app request to delete from my Android as well. So unlike most, it works ironically like iPhone. And I prefer that
Yup, I am aware about it. It’s just dislaimers that look a bit scary (not production ready), even tho multiple users reported using it without any issues.
Proton if you want email, privacy and cloud storage.
Edit I use murena and it comes with cloid storage and online only office suite
Already thinking about proton:)
I recommend tutanota, cheap clean and few frills.
I pay(my inner pirate is screaming) for proton’s subscription and so far it’s absolutely worth the cost. The only issue being, I have yet to make it work on my Orange pi. Other than that it’s all smiles.
I moved from Gmail. I’ll link to my previous comment to save trying it out again…
https://lemm.ee/comment/3347046
If I ever move away from Protonmail it will take about 5 mins for all my 300 websites to start sending emails to the new mailbox.
deleted by creator
LoL…so you gotta pay for a service? That’s just crazy!?!
S/
For Gmail, I switched to fastmail. For google photos, I switched for immich.
The services that I still use from them are google maps, YouTube and SSO. They are all services that I wouldn’t mind them shutting down. It’s just that I find them much better than any alternatives.
How is immitch for you? I’ve been considering this for quite awhile.
I installed this week, so I’m not a long time user. But it’s by far the best self hosted photo app that I’ve used. Before that I used nextcloud, but the user experience isn’t as good Imo.
The only things that I miss are automatic albums based on face recognition and pet recognition. I still use google photo to share with family though.
For SSO, are you talking about Google Authenticator? I was able to switch to Aegis, which is just an open source alternative, but does the same thing, except you are not forced to back up to Google.
This is TOTP. I use my password manager for that. I used to use Bitwarden, but I recently switched to 1password.
SSO means single sign on. If I sign on to Google, it automatically sign me on other apps. I use a forward auth on my self hosted services. I used to use authentik but I switched to google since it just works much better. If Google makes a shitty move in that department, I can always fall back to authentik.
I don’t mind using proprietary softwares if they’re good, I just prefer to think about an alternative in case I need to switch.
try with apple
I was considering this on and off, but never really attempted to do this.
Biggest dealbreaker was lack of USB-C cable, but here are few other issues:
- No easy & free way to sideload apps.
- No ability to install 3rd party OS.
- No proper files management.
- Clipboard and files sharing is still a joke. It works, but is uncomfortable as fuck.
- Lack of cusotmization almost for every aspect of a phone.
- Inability to self-repair. Apple made it harder on purpose.
- Overpriced smartphones & gadgets.
- Can’t simply upload & download files from my PC (both Windows & Linux).
- Shitty media format support.
- Apple wallet does not support discount cards.
- Buying an Apple device means I would literally support anti-consumer company with shitty behavior towards its users.
Apple doesn’t allow “questionable” apps like emulators, bit torrent clients on its store and of course you can’t sideload them either.
Yes, that’s what I am saying. Apple decides for you. You are not the one who decides how to use your phone.
I have an iPhone, but I will say for me the biggest deal breaker with it is absolutely not the lack of USB-C support (though that sucks and THANK GOD they’re switching)… The lack of sideloading for apps is a much bigger problem IMO, because it’s really hard for free and open source apps to even exist on iOS (which makes paid apps, subscriptions, and advertising much more common). Honestly, I’d care a lot less about the lack of sideloading if it wasn’t for the other inconvenient facts, like the a $100/year developer license to publish anything on the App Store, or the fact that you pretty much need to have a Mac to develop for the iPhone… The $100/year developer license is just a death sentence for any open source apps and hobby / passion project apps. It’s not thaaaat much money, but it’s a lot to pay on top of putting in a bunch of free work to build an app in the first place.
Inability to self-repair. Apple made it harder on purpose.
Can you repair android phone nowadays? Afaik, they are just as hard as apple
Clipboard and files sharing is still a joke. It works, but is uncomfortable as fuck.
Never had a problem
No easy & free way to sideload apps.
this should come before March 2024
Overpriced smartphones & gadgets.
True for the gadgets, smartphones are just in line with other android phones but at least the phone is supported for 5-6 years and it doesn’t go to shit after a few years of use
Shitty media format support.
Preach.
Buying an Apple device means I would literally support anti-consumer company with shitty behavior towards its users
Then buy no phone and remove google, etc. For a computer, buy a System76 et similia -but do not use Nvidia/AMD/intel GPU/CPU; no Samsung for SSD, no Intel network card etc.
Apple wallet does not support discount cards.
But you can?Maybe it’s new, idk
Can’t simply upload & download files from my PC (both Windows & Linux).
True. I use iCloud webApp on Linux or transfer the files on Mega
No proper files management.
It works for the most basic use cases
No ability to install 3rd party OS.
True, but on the other hand iOS is the reason you would buy an iPhone. I’m a power user on desktop but I can’t be bothered on mobile: back when I had an android, I used the stock apps too and never did anything “”“weird”“”. I’m a desktop user throughout, so if I have to do anything I will just use my PC instead of relying on my phone
– That said, if you don’t mind paying:
- try protonMail, there is the auto import and forward for gmail;
- MEGA has a sync feature for the photos. I use it but on iOS it’s not that great, for example the photos never get deleted but just uploaded;
So you basically confirmed my points 😅
Never said you were wrong lol
If you value freedom over comfort, then obviously an iPhone doesn’t cut it
freedom over comfort
With freedom comes the confort. It’s me who should decide what I need, not Apple. Apple should adjust to my needs, not me to Apple.
With freedom comes comfort
lol, tell me that when you use a banking app outside the Google play services
Freedom [to install your own OS on a mobile device] for sure won’t bring me any comfort, and in fact it’s something I don’t care about.
Beside, it’s a naive take: Apple doesn’t force you to buy its phones so you can just go wherever. And I doubt most people who buy an android do so for the freedom to install their own OS
Cool i’ll just buy a watch that can be repaired then
So they should be labelled “disposable” and priced accordingly.
Oooooh, that’s a neat idea in light of the current EU legislation concerning the Right to Repair: Introduce a mandatory, highly visible, and standardized seal that all electronic devices have to display on the front of their box:
Repairable
or
Disposable
Then tax the shit out of disposable products please as we already waste way too much
Do the same thing with phones that have non-replaceable batteries, too.
I would also suggest mandatory price caps on disposable products, to incentivize the elimination of production of such devices.
It’d be more fitting to mandate every product to include its ecological price. Disposable vapes, for example, would disappear instantly.
Also a good idea. I’m trying to make it too expensive to manufacture the vapes, you’re making them too expensive to purchase.
Seems to me that €2,50 is a fair price for a throwaway watch.
Even then it feels like disposable cup kinda bad
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.
Yeah fuck all of that.
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.
Pretty clear stuff like this is why we’re speed running to a dystopian future. Hopefully Googles profits can survive. /s
I get Google bad but what watch face is that in the thumbnail of the link?
Concentric!
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
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.
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.
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.
It’s shit like this that’s the reason I haven’t gotten another pixel. My pix 5a died in within a year, I sent it to a Google certified repair shop, they couldn’t fix it, concluded it needed to be sent to Google.
Once it got to Google they claimed it had water damage. It took me 3 months to go through all the bullshit and get a new phone from them. I had gotten an Azus Zenfone 9 by that point.
Removed by mod
What’s a warranty worth then?
Removed by mod
