Sticking with the Apple Watch as Android smartwatches continue to disappoint

I got on the smartwatch bandwagon fairly early on, picking up the LG G Watch as soon as it launched back in 2014. I loved the convenience it offered — the fact that I could view incoming notifications on my wrist was pretty cool Although Android Wear (as it was called at the time) didn’t have much in the way of third-party apps and the design of the G Watch was decidedly utilitarian, it was a promising start.

Then I switched to the Moto 360, and while I liked the design, the battery life was abysmal, and the black bar at the bottom of the screen was infuriating. So when LG launched the Watch Urbane in 2015, I bought it immediately. It was the perfect smartwatch — the design was elegant, the software was a little more polished, and LG added custom features that gave it an edge.

I briefly dabbled with Samsung Gear S3 as I was drawn to its design and the promise of Tizen UI. But as I stayed away from Samsung phones at the time (I loathed TouchWiz), it didn’t make much sense to use the brand’s smartwatch. So I stuck with the Watch Urbane for two years, and when Google rebranded Android Wear to Wear OS 2.0 and introduced Google Assistant and a slew of new features, I was excited for all the forthcoming changes.

That’s when the problems started. Wear OS 2.0 on the Watch Urbane was a laggy mess, and what was promised to be a fluid interface with plenty of features turned out to be a half-baked effort, and it made the smartwatch unusable. Thinking it was down to the older hardware, I switched to the Huawei Watch 2, Mobvoi TicWatch S, and Skagen Falster in quick succession, and it was the same across all devices — the interface was laggy, there were errant freezes, and the experience degraded with every new smartwatch I tried.