[carldotac]

I bought one of the first generation Android Wear devices for $50 a few months after they debut. There was some convenience to the simple verbal commands for timers and the instant answers made for a neat party trick, but the speech-to-text wasn't good enough for moderately complex messaging (I once said I would be there in "a bit over 15 minutes" and got the fraction bit/15 minutes) and it was heavy and uncomfortable. I've also become less and less comfortable with being so intimate with Google.

I do see value added in the notification mirroring, however. There are many situations where it's useful to see updates without taking out and unlocking your phone: at a meeting, with your hands full, walking around in a crowd. I hadn't worn my watch for the better chunk of a year until two weeks ago when I needed instant Twitter notifications during business hours should a convention I attend start selling its badges. Now that I have those badges, it's back into the drawer until needed again. My calculator watch is more comfortable and I have metal watches that look nicer. Unless I have a defined need for notifications on my wrist, I currently am better off with a conventional watch.