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.
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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.
yeah but then you look like a pisspants triathlete
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no, an asshole
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Former triathlete. Not a big fan of the community. I’ve moved on to other athletic endeavors.
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.
It’s probably a bit of both. They save money with a worse design and they make more money on more sales.
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
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?
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!
They’ve got the internet on computers now, eh?
I understood that reference!
Definitely falls under the “evil” company vibe.
My solution is to steer clear of Google products. They excel at producing disposable… everything.
I will continue to go to them when I’m buying Android phones because 3rd party manufacturers still suck at getting OS updates onto their phones. Even the best manufacturers have delays of weeks / months.
Same, but I will not buy direct from them because of the their absolute shit customer service.
I just bought a Pixel 6a, from TigerDirect! Who knew they we’re still kicking!
Ya, that and taking pictures of moving objects. I tried Samsung but the camera couldn’t do kid photos unless I was outside on the brightest of days.
The only way I was able to get continued OS support and updates was by going the way of installing custom ROMs, which is absolutely not ideal. It’s also the only reason my backup Nexus 5 is still kicking.
I was mostly referring to update timeliness, but yeah, continued support is an issue. Google only promises 3 years of major releases for Pixels. The Nexus was even worse.
Still a far stretch from Apple, who’s usually going 5 or 6 years of major OS releases, and then security updates on top of that.
Apparently the replacement parts for their phones are significantly cheaper than almost every other manufacturer. (I have just been hearing this so I don’t know for sure if it’s true, correct me if I’m wrong.)
Overall their phones seem to just be to a high standard. 5 years of support and other components that make them the choice for GrapheneOS (Privacy/Security focused rom that has greatly contributed to upstream Android)
Tbf isn’t that every tech product? There’s absolutely no reason apple needs to release 7 different models of phone every year when they really don’t make any large changes. Do one every two years.
Absolutely bonkers
Their phones are up there in software support at least. Only true contender at this point is Samsung.
Samsung phones are so full of bloatware, I’ll never buy them again.
Sadly, this sums up just how bad the Android ecosystem is. Google and Samsung are both notoriously shit, yet they’re still the best when other consumer brands don’t want to compete and just want to get something out to churn profit.
I say this almost yearly, but the Android marketplace has never looked so poor.
I’m happy with OnePlus. Will never touch an Apple device, they are so unintuitive and locked down. If android follows that trend, I’d rather have no phone.
My main phone is still my OnePlus 6 (after being a proud user of the OnePlus 1), and after a battery replacement it’s still working extremely well. Sadly, they have regressed over the years, and seem to just rip off whatever Apple does, so I can’t support any phones after the 6.
I’ve had bad experiences with Google (outside of phones) and Samsung in the past, so hesitant to support them. Being an Android user often feels like being surrounded by manufacturers that could create a top-class phone that ticks most people’s boxes, with history of doing just that - but for some reason choosing not to. Asus, Nokia, Sony, hell even Microsoft could probably easily build a phone with great features, a near-stock experience, and robust hardware, but the Android market is a choice in picking a flaw you can live with.
For all Apple’s faults, their users rarely are left wanting for more, and the incremental “improvements” still seem to have fans happily wanting to buy the latest tat. Android users, in comparison, expect more, and always end up disappointed.
I typed that (and this) comment from a Pixel 7 for a reason lol
Not just bloatware but some Samsung phones also have malware that installs garbage without consent and has a no obvious way to turn off unless you know the app is called appcloud and go disable it.
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Cool i’ll just buy a watch that can be repaired then
I think I will stick to my dumb watches, thanks. Mechanical or quartz.
I always see the software working people go nutty for the new hardware and dohickies.
Meanwhile a lot of people I knew who worked on hardware live in the woods “off grid”.
I know a hardware guy that lives on a farm and uses raspberry pi for his garden hoses.
Yeah that tracks. Doubt they are buying the apple solution for water management.
I tried to set it up but couldn’t keep it from leaking and spent more than I would’ve on a smart hose timer.
Programmed with an open source application, no doubt.
My dream life.
Eventually I hope to get my garden smartened up with water and rain sensors and an open sprinkler controller.
If by “software” you mean Web or Java or something like that, then, well, for the purpose of this conversation they are enthusiasts.
While people working on hardware are forced to get some understanding of how the world around us works.
I think the difference is simply between who has to go on site to fix an issue and those who “theoretically” could.
So true. The more I work with all these services and social networks the fewer of them I have. More to the point, I have bunch of devices around my home which are IoT and similar but almost none have access to internet, printer included. Funny thing is, my friends keep asking why am I slowly removing my presence from all of tech even though I am on forefront of it… but when I go and explain how each search can be exploited and abused they laugh and say naaah that will never happen or “I don’t have anything to hide”… and it keeps happening and privacy keeps leaking.
Some people have a hard time imagining bad outcomes or “thinking like a bad guy”. I guess that’s why infosec people are needed lol.
(Almost) my entire house is smart, but nothing talks to the cloud anymore.
So nobody can get that data except me. Some exceptions are that I dont have or want smart locks, that just seems to insecure and unreliable.
Though in IT, I do have a (limited) smart home but also old tech like a 40s Western Electric phone, a few 1920s-40s typewriters, a few vintage woodworking tools, myriad vintage and new fountain pens (I use them to take notes… you know, on paper gasp). I have and wear lots of budget watches (err, but, one at a time) … from the 1890s - present, mechanical and quartz.
The nicest oldest ones are a 1895 Elgin hunter pocket watch (ladies size 6) and a 1930s Hamilton open face size 10. I often wear vintage wristwatches: Bulova, Elgin, Waltham, Timex, and Seiko. I have more modern ones including Fortis, Orient, Casio, Bulova, and more.
My G Shock is super reliable and will never need a battery. No way I’m swapping it out for some fragile piece of junk screen that mostly displays a clock that dies every few days.
Yup, some great g-shocks out there. I have dw5600. Awesome watch. Some day I will get the 5610.
I have had the same automatic (self winding) for over a decade. Wear it almost everyday, it gets beat up and used hard but still works great. And no batteries is nice.
Nice, what brand?
I like mechanical watches a lot although I don’t like the service cost lol.
Well this one is more of a happy accident. It is a Fossil, and was a warranty replacement for a battery watch I bought. Have had not much luck with the battery Fossils but they seem to make a solid (or did not sure if they still do) automatics.
Sweet. I’ve heard good things in the past about 'em over on watchuseek forum.
This is peak “smart” watch for me: Sony-Ericsson MBW-100
Having something similar with modern technology the battery life would be much longer, I don’t need a wrist phone.
I wear a Shark Leash every day. I lost my Apple Watch and haven’t missed it at all.
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 don’t wear mine anymore really, but the use case for it for me was to see notifications quickly and easily without taking my attention away from whoever I am with. You can quickly just glance at your watch to see if the text/phone call/email is important or not and then just twist your wrist to dismiss.
I used to think I had to decide if I wanted to reply to a notification immediately.
Besides my smart doorbell notification and actual phone calls everything else can wait an hour until I finish what I’m doing. And for those two exceptions they have special vibration patterns in my pocket.
Don’t be that guy who has to reply to notifications immediately
Not all notifications need replying to, and it’s sometimes nice to have them be glanceable. I don’t use a smartwatch per say, the battery life on them suck, but my Garmin watch still has some of the same general functionality along with the fitness stuff I mostly have it for. Plus underrated feature for me is using it to ring my phone when I can’t find it ha
The point is I don’t feel the need to reply to almost any notification immediately. There are emergencies that can’t wait sometimes though.
I agree on principal, but unfortunately in today’s world there’s things like work that demand an immediate response. Is it healthy? Nope. Do they care? Nope.
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.
Ever since the eu repair bill came out, my goal is to not buy electronics until i can get electronics that comply with that law.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Google makes a big deal out of its partnership with iFixit and the availability of replacement parts for its products, but one Google product that doesn’t seem fixable is the Pixel Watch.
After spotting some posts from Pixel Watch users seeking a remedy after cracking the glass and coming up with no clear answers, The Verge got Google to confirm that, even 11 months after launch, there is no repair plan right now.
Google can’t fix your watch.
The whole top half of the watch is one big glass hemisphere, so it’s not difficult to bang one of the glass corners into something and shatter the watch.
This might all seem like it’s against the spirit of Google’s big repairability announcement in 2022, but that blog post says the program is for Pixel phones, not any of the other stuff Google sells.
With the Pixel Watch 2 coming out soon, we’ll be sure to ask Google if there are any repair plans this time.
The original article contains 216 words, the summary contains 164 words. Saved 24%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
The amount of E-Waste our society generates is truly abhorrent. It will take hundreds of thousands of hours and countless amounts of money for future generations to fix this.
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 don’t mind that excuse about my Mi Band 6, because it was like £25.
I would mind that excuse when we’re talking about a £339 smartwatch. So I won’t buy one.
I won’t buy a Fitbit either, because the wife had one and every week was a complex dance of restarting the phone and watch several times until they agreed to connect to each other.
And they pretty much have made most of the utility locked behind an $80 subscription
No thanks
Why would a smartwatch need a subscription?? what does it even do?
Without the subscription, you have to pay 99 cents to check the time.
I get Google bad but what watch face is that in the thumbnail of the link?
