I am a beginner here. I do not yet own a smart watch, but I would like to buy an inexpensive one, solely for the purpose of learning how to program it with custom faces. Can anyone tell me what are the minimum requirements for this, or can you recommend a smart watch for this purpose? I thought I could use this watch because it is compatible with my smart phone and has Bluetooth capabilities, but the vendor said it cannot download apps:
I don’t even know if a smart phone is also required for this, but I have an iPhone SE, in case that matters.
Maybe later, if I really enjoy programming custom watch faces, then I might decide to buy one of those more expensive watches that I am certain will work. But for now, I would like to just get started with something that is low cost.
@bugman123 Hi and welcome. I see your still in search for your watch. I cant wait to see your faces you make. I know the gifs you make rock. Hang tight and I’m sure one of these guys will jump in and give you suggestions and also @Facer-Staff might have some suggestions also. You might want to mention the type of phone you have because not ALL watches are compatible with iphones…and the type of faces you will want to be making is for android watches.
Soon the Samsung S3 will be dropping in price big time, that will bring one of the best Smart watches to a lot of people…
As soon the new Galaxy watch is available everywhere the S3 is no longer their flagship… But it runs Tizen, no big deal but some people only like Wear OS…
Hey @bugman123, you may want to check out Facer’s smartwatch tracker. It kind of a buried page now, but it has some good information on what the majority of wearers are using: Smartwatch Tracker
The Samsung S3 is the overwhelming winner here. I recently purchased one myself. I go into some detail over the purchase HERE. My main reason was for durability. If I had a preference, I’d go back with a Wear OS watch with similar specs.
Also note if price is your concern, there are always refurbs around. Both my original Huawei and newer S3 are refurbs that I bought for about 40% less than retail. Neither have had any issues. So if you’re willing to risk it, there may be some cost savings available. For deals, I would set an alert on Slickdeals.com for the watches I was interested in. When something went on sale, I’d get an email alert.
As far as programming goes, there’s an interface that handles the majority of things so you don’t need to learn to code or anything like that.
The most advanced thing would be utilizing math formulas to do really complex things, but the community is great about helping each other with those sort of questions.
You can create watchfaces and not even have a watch.
I don’t know much about the design aspect but I love my Gear S3 Frontier. I’ve had no issues and it does all things I need with no issues. Plus there are millions of faces on here for it. And tons of great designers to help with your technical questions.