This is a potentially modifiable post, and I will time-date my entries accordingly as I gain experience with the device. The original post is dated 12/14/15; any latest update will be tagged at the end of this opening paragraph.
[12/14/15]. Ironically my last post hinted at the current topic. I know I'm hardly the first one to buy a smartwatch. In some cases, I've been an early adopter of technology (e.g., I owned one of the first VCR's at a time they started at over $1000, and I remember demoing to classes at ISU pen computing with a DOS spreadsheet), but in other cases I've been later (e.g., I started my CD collection only after I found it difficult to buy new albums on vinyl, and I got my first smartphone last year). I had zero interest in spending hundreds of dollars for the latest incarnation of an iPhone like many of my colleagues; I had alternatives for multimedia content, a Garmin device for GPS, etc. I could buy a decent laptop for less money. What changed my mind? Limited personal access to the Internet at work (e.g., filtered external email portals); I might want to check the weather, news or my brokerage accounts, status on a shipment, operating hours for a restaurant, etc. during work breaks or on the road. Lower prices for functional smartphones (the one I own now cost under $100); lower bundled services (e.g., I now have unlimited voice, text and data for just a modest increase over a plain vanilla 300-minutes/month cellphone plan I've had in recent years: granted, only a certain level of data usage is available at higher speeds). None of this is unusual but it reflects my personal pragmatism; I still recall my first graduate MIS course when my professor mocked people buying a PC for thousands of dollars to do something like store recipes when a 99-cent plastic recipe box would do.
One of the reasons I was interested in buying a smartwatch was its integration with my smartphone platform. True, I can always tell the time by checking my cellphone, but a smartwatch can be a stylish, more functional alternative to your standard watch, with convenient access (a few button clicks) to key information from your smartphone like local weather conditions. Now I haven't worn a watch for years; as a kid, I had mechanical watches I had to manually wind--which I vastly preferred over your typical battery-operated modern watch. My Mom once asked me about gift ideas for Christmas or my birthday (I've mostly lived in other states since 1993, and I usually buy what I want or need without telling her). I suggested a mechanical watch, specifically noting I hated the hassle of replacing modern watch batteries. She got me a battery-operated watch, dismissing my pet peeve. (It ended up in an unpacked moving box.) Now like a smartphone, a smartwatch runs on a rechargeable battery; in this case I need to recharge the watch once or twice a week and it's fairly easy to check the watch's battery status.
There were 2 things that led me to choose a Martian Notifier in particular. First, I wanted a smartwatch that looked like a watch, and the Martian Notifier looks like a stylish traditional watch (mine is black). The scroll line is discreetly along the bottom of the watch face; the design is well-done. While I've been writing this post, I tested integrating the Martian Notifier with the gmail account I use with my smartphone, and a test message scrolled beautifully on the watch. Second, just as I didn't want to pay a high price for my smartphone, the same held true for a smartwatch. A Martian Notifier sells for a decent price, under $50. I didn't place my order with the problem vendor described in an earlier post but through another prominent Internet vendor.
As someone who has written articles and book chapters on usability, I often judge a natural interface by what I sometimes refer to as a "toaster test". By that I mean I know how to power and use a new toaster without reading some enclosed instruction booklet or consulting others. There were a couple of minor issues I experienced. The first was the USB cable connection to the watch for the initial 3-hour charge. There's a small door in front of the female connection in the upper right quadrant of the watch rim which can be difficult to open without good fingernails. (This video, published by the vendor, is helpful.) The second was the pair (watch/phone) connection (cf. a relevant video here). I had gotten to a point of waiting for connection. I expected something to happen, like a pop-up launched on the smartphone, something like at the 2:10 mark of the clip. (I did see a 6-digit code appear on the watch scroll line, but it wasn't clear what I was supposed to do with it.) The connection eventually timed out. However, the Bluetooth pop-up in the video led me to drill down into the Bluetooth system setting on my phone where I found a prompt asking me to confirm the code appearing on the watch.
