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Lance asked: “I bought a Pebble watch and I like it but they have gone out of business. The Apple watch is just too pricey for me. I was wondering if you knew of any other lower priced smart watches that would be good and have durability.”
Lance, there are options, but keep in mind that if you’re ruling out Apple Watches, you’re basically looking at Android devices.
There are other options, the Fitbit Blaze is a kind of smartwatch, it’s really a fitness tracker, but it does have some smart features. The same goes for some watches from Garmin and TomTom, they’re primarily fitness trackers, but they offer a smart feature or two.
As far as real smartwatches go though, you’re probably looking at Android Wear devices, and of those the durable ones are usually the “sports” smartwatches.
As far as real smartwatches go though, you’re probably looking at Android Wear devices
The Motorola Moto 360 Sport would probably work for you and it’s around $100, or for a heftier choice the Samsung Gear S3 Frontier, but the S3 would put you around the same price of an Apple Watch. There are a few no-name watches that claim to be very durable and are inexpensive, but from all we’ve read, you may want to steer clear of them. Most Pebble owners liked their watches, most people who bought this cheap no-name Android watches seem far less satisfied.
Just keep in mind that if you’re on iOS, and you mentioned Apple Watch so we think you may be, you won’t have access to every feature on an Android Wear watch. Some things will just not work at all, some thing may work but they won’t do as much as if you were pairing them with an Android phone.
None of them will do as much as an Apple Watch would with an iPhone, but most Android smartwatches will work at least in a limited fashion with an iPhone and many will cost you less than the Apple Watch, just don’t expect lower price tags from nicer ones like Samsung’s Gear line.