Garmin
I seriously need to use the bathroom…
“… anyway, what time is it?”
I am aware that I should not have done so, but I pressed the upper-left button on my Garmin to illuminate its display.
Every time this happens, there are two possible outcomes. When I see that it is about 2 or 3 in the morning, it’s so difficult to fall asleep again. Yes, I know, that’s why we should never check the time. Anyway, when it is past 5 a.m., I magically sleep seconds after checking the time or coming back from the bathroom. Our brains are so weirdly wired.
But this time I got a strong beam of light coming from the watch. Everything in the display was gone, but a flashlight icon. I had no idea this feature existed, but the moment I saw that, my brain went like: “wow, I can use this instead of turning on the bathroom light. Cool.”
Yes, that was a neat feature, but none of the buttons on the watch worked anymore.
“Okay, how do I turn this off?”
Because there are so many features on this watch, a long time ago I had created a shortcut to bring the display back to the main screen. Well, you guessed it. Holding the bottom-left button for a few seconds didn’t do anything either.
I was already back in my sheets at that point, wide awake and still trying to figure out what to do. “How do I turn off this beam of light coming out of my wrist? I can’t believe I’ll have to get up and look this up online.”
I don’t sleep with my phone nearby, so I would have to go get it in the other room. Then, my dog would wake up and want to play with me. “Definitely a terrible idea.”
“And, what time is it?”
Click, click, click, and it was finally dark again. “How did I do that?” In any case, I could finally check the time. “Two something in the morning! Oh, no!”. But, it immediately clicked when I pressed the upper-left button to turn on the screen. “I bet it turns on and off by double-clicking the light button. I must have done that accidentally earlier.”
“Cool, that’s it. Now, all I need is a way to double-click to turn myself off.”
Evernote and other technologies I used when I was in Morocco
When we entered the boarding area, my wife realized that she had forgotten her phone. In other words, gone were all the messages the travel agency had sent her. Thankfully, Evernote saved our trip to Morocco. At that point, we were unable to go back home and return in time, so I opened my Travel notebook on Evernote to assess the situation. But before I go any further, let me provide you with some context.
Usually, I am the one who organizes our trips, but this time it was different. My wife was doing it. On my side, as I have already shown in past videos, I was saving on Evernote all that she was sending me. Also, I am not a WhatsApp user.
Back to the airport
I had our boarding passes and all instructions in offline notes, but here’s my question. Why would a travel agency send all the information to its clients using WhatsApp instead of email? Also, why would the clients trust WhatsApp with all that information? And I’m not even talking about privacy. I’m talking about access.
😮 Oops, I didn’t take my watch off
Remember my video about why I chose a Garmin instead of an Apple Watch? I was sending and painting for a while when I realized I had forgotten to take off the watch. If you look closely enough, you will notice that there are paint drops on my arm. Some of them ended up on the watch, but that’s alright. All you had to do was wash it, and everything worked out fine.
Why not an Apple Watch or Wear OS?
Before the Apple Watch, there was the Pebble (image below). I loved that smartwatch, but the end was inevitable, the company eventually went bankrupt, and was sold to Fitbit. The final nail in the coffin was the watch being discontinued, and the servers turned off.
Without the servers, many features would stop working, and the experience wouldn’t be the same. To save us, a group of enthusiasts created Rebble to bring life back to the Pebble. I appreciate what they did, but it’s not the same. Our watches would inevitably get old and parts would break.
Long story short, I could never find a smartwatch alternative that would check all the boxes: waterproof, buttons instead of touch screen, e-ink display, long-lasting battery, health sensors, and good quality build. I ended-up moving to a G-Shock, that I absolutely love. However, it was not a complete experience. I was constantly missing the health sensors.
It was only recently that I came across an alternative from Garmin. Yes, I completely missed the original Instinct release. But that’s ok. I recently got the Instinct 2, and I’m thrilled. Not only it checks all the boxes, it looks like the G-Sock I was wearing.
