I like both, but I mostly wear a smartwatch. I don’t always hear notifications on my phone. Having my watch vibrate at the same time has been a huge improvement. It is also nice to be able to view and dismiss notifications without pulling out my phone.

I started experimenting with smartwatches soon after they first appeared. There were a lot of limitations, but having better access to notifications made them worth the tradeoff for me. Over time, the hardware and software have both gotten steadily better. I have owned and used four previous smartwatches. My latest, a Samsung Galaxy Watch6 Classic, is the first I’ve had with the battery life, display quality, and speed to make me feel like I’m no longer compromising. It works well as a basic watch, in addition to all the other features.

My other reason for sticking with smartwatches was not something I expected. I was able to build my idea of the perfect watch face for myself, using the Watchmaker app. Getting it to do everything I wanted required some serious programming, among other things, but I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to have exactly what I want on my wrist.

I do still wear regular watches, sometimes for particular occasions and sometimes just for fun. I have a Citizen Promaster Skyhawk A-T Titanium that serves as a dress watch and a Casio Pro Trek 3500T for when I’m camping or just need a watch I can’t accidentally break. Both watches are solar powered and both set themselves to the Bureau of Standards radio signals.

I would hate to have to choose one type over the other, but my smartwatch get most a lot more wear time than my others.