Worn & Wound
Reconsidering A Smartwatch: The Garmin MARQ 3
One side effect of working in the watch industry is becoming the default person to ask when there’s a watch-adjacent question. While I have a go-to answer for most questions, the occasional “What smartwatch should I buy?” was always a bit of a curveball. Until last month, I would have recommended that you stay within your phone’s ecosystem to take advantage of any integrations and connectivity that were built in, with only one exception. When it comes to fitness tracking, especially for runners, I’ve always heard that Garmin was the brand to go with. Now, I’ve always considered the smartwatch to be an extension of your phone, so mechanical watches were the perfect way to become a little less connected, but this newest release has me thinking that maybe I should add a smartwatch back into the collection. While I don’t think I’ve ever explicitly mentioned my age in an article or on the podcast, smartwatches really started to take off when I was in high school. Around that time, I remember buying a rather affordable Xiaomi-branded smartwatch for myself. Despite being a fraction of the cost, it packed many of the same features as the current-generation smartwatches: phone notifications, step counting, and it even tracked just how little sleep I was getting each night, making it an easy purchase for an unemployed high school student.I’ d go on to wear this watch throughout high school and college, before ultimately becoming interested in mechanical watches and...
