Let down by my wearable tech

I used wrist-based wearable tech from 2018, when I bought a Fitbit Alta HR, the first of a string of fitness bands and watches. 

I liked the idea of them. I didn't need them to play stored music tracks, nor to pick up texts and emails, nor to pay for things. I wanted interesting, informative and inspiring fitness measurements. Plus a handful of useful features, like a watch dial so that I could tell the time, and vibrating alarms, and a countdown timer. 

My Fitbits and my Garmin watch gave me those things. They were easy and comfortable to wear, looked good, and were mildly trendy. Fitness had taken off: you could be dedicated to it, or just a dabbler. Either way, wearing a fitness band or watch appeared to be a gateway to better physical fitness. It was also a desirable lifestyle accessory - one easily obtained - that boosted your personal image and therefore your self-esteem. 

This was my lineup of fitness wearables:

Fitbit Alta HR (2018-2020)

Fitbit Inspire (2020-2021)

Fitbit Versa 3 (2021-2024)

Garmin Vivoactive 5 (2024-2026)

The first two Fitbits were bands with a small screen. The much more sophisticated Fitbit Versa 3 was almost a smartwatch. The Garmin could definitely be described as a smartwatch, although still very much biased functionally towards fitness. None of these bands and watches were of course fully-featured smartwatches in the Apple or Google sense. 

All the devices in my list promised dependable and usefully accurate fitness monitoring by various clever methods. This produced continuous 24/7 measurements that when synchronised to the Fitbit or Garmin app gave a good picture of how I was doing. Meanwhile, while the band or watch was on my wrist it would be notifying me of goals met. I always had a moment of celebration when the display on the device burst into life - with a display of fireworks on my first Fitbit! - whenever I'd reached (say) my daily 10,000 steps target. Yes!  

I was less happy with other analyses. I seemed to be a very poor sleeper, only rarely getting a 'good' - a real downer when you awoke in the morning. The Fitbits were however not overly critical, remaining upbeat and hopeful of gentle improvement, and I felt constantly encouraged by them rather than criticised. Which is what I needed: a carrot, not a stick. 

The Garmin, however, took me to task much more. True, it was for people who might be gym-goers (definitely not me!) and offered advice, both on the watch and in the app. But it came across as the nagging remarks of a coach who felt I wasn't taking things seriously enough. 

The Garmin also offered a wider range of metrics than the Fitbits had, and some (like its 'stress' assessment, or its 'body battery' feature) were worrying. I discovered that I could be badly 'stressed' simply by having a good time with my friends. I eventually decided that Garmin was measuring all kinds of excitement and stimulation, both good and bad. My 'body battery' could start off high, but often it didn't, so that according to the Garmin I was on my last legs by late afternoon. Concerning. And puzzling, when I didn't feel drained at all. 

One metric - 'heart rate variation' - really got to me. Despite reading up about it, I wasn't quite sure what Garmin were really measuring here. Nor was my doctor, when I showed the alarming HRV record to her. I think it told me to what extent my heart could speed up and pump oxygenated blood around my body in any situation where sudden, rapid movement was required. Such as exploding into a sprint. Or running away from a mad axeman. Or from an enraged bull. My HRV measurements indicated that I'd be hewn or gored for sure. And yet I could, without question, react pretty fast in real life. Why the discrepancy?

As recent posts reveal, I grew tired of harvesting fitness data with a device that couldn't tell me the time at a glance, and bought a 'traditional' wristwatch instead, my Citizen Promaster Tough, which simply tells me the time. I had to abandon those celebratory moments whenever I achieved 10,000 steps. But to compensate, I walked away from those worrying metrics that couldn't possibly be good for my peace of mind. I'd grown sceptical of them, anyway, because some of them didn't make sense.

In the Garmin's final weeks on my wrist I was interested only in steps taken, and my heart rate. The heart rate was one of those puzzling measurements. The Fitbits had recorded 'normal' heart rates of 60+ beats per minute, depending of what I was doing. If I needed to climb a flight of stairs, or a long slope, my heart rate rapidly increased into what you might call the aerobic zone. But of course that too was entirely normal, and although possibly somewhat out of puff, I felt fine. And once I got my breath back, I felt excellent. Here are some app screen shots from a Saturday in 2020, when I was wearing the Fitbit Inspire.

This was of course before Google, who had taken over Fitbit, began to mess around with the app and generally dumb it down. Note how my heart rate varied. And how it was usually at least 60bpm, even when resting, and may have slowed to the mid-50s, but was never down in the 40s. 

The Garmin showed a different picture. It often recorded resting heart rates down into the upper 40s. And yet I still felt fine. It was abetted by my Omron blood-pressure monitor, which took a pulse reading as well. Here it is.

The Omron uses a sleeve that squeezes my upper arm tightly before taking its measurements. Just like at the surgery. I have always thought this must be an accurate way of determining my blood pressure. A typical reading for me right now would be 130/70 - not too bad for a 74 year old. But it was also showing low heart rate readings, very similar to the Garmin's. Having abandoned the Garmin as a heart rate recorder, it looked as if I could depend on the Omron instead, with no loss of accuracy or consistency.

But how could such a disturbingly low resting heartrate be reconciled with normal blood pressure? Did I possess an overlarge heart that shifted so much blood with each beat that it could afford to pump slowly? Unlikely! I was no trained athlete, for instance. 

So I asked AI about it. Specifically, Copilot. And Copilot informed me that while the Omron monitor was good for measuring blood pressure, it wasn't sensitive enough to record every beat of my heart. It might therefore miss the odd pulse. I should test this by taking my pulse the old-fashioned way - using a watch for thirty seconds, with a finger on a vein in my wrist, counting the beats, and doubling the result. Which I did. And repeated this watch-and-finger routine at intervals. And guess what? Each time I got a resting heart rate of around 60bpm, just as it should be. 

Hah. 

So I was wrong to trust both the Garmin watch and the Omron monitor when recording my pulse. The old way - with a watch, a steady finger, and an ability to count - is all that's needed for an accurate check. 

It surely follows that every algorithm used by the Garmin watch to create a picture of my fitness from my heart rate must have been flawed, at least in my own case. 

So I feel let down. These devices cannot be entirely relied upon. 

I shall continue to use the Omron for blood pressure measurements. That's primarily what it's for. I'm sure it's quite good enough for that purpose. But I don't think I'll ever invest in another fitness watch. Or things like fitness rings. 

Disappointing for the companies that market them, of course. But look, if their results are questionable, what is the point of spending any money on them? 

Two weeks with the Citizen Promaster Tough (model BN0118-04E)

This post is primarily pitched at women who might be thinking about buying one of these watches. Most reviews on this watch seem to be made by men with outdoor or military pretensions, feigned or real. I'm just a 74 year old woman who wanted something distinctive, solar-powered, strong, water-resistant and very easy to tell the time with. Something simple but enduring. Something that wouldn't nag me or stress me, as a smartwatch certainly can.

To be clear, I'm not fanatical about adventure and extreme experiences, not at all, but I don't mind the image. In reality I'm a comfort-loving creature who doesn't willingly do rough unless she has to. But I do get out and around every day, because I like photography and taking lots of pictures. That can involve going to places that might pose a cosmetic threat to a fragile watch, or a fancy one that might spoil if it takes a thump. My regular caravanning holidays, all year round, often in scenic areas, with forays into characterful towns, do at any rate involve plenty of walking, sometimes in bad weather. Stormy skies and rough seas are both within my range of photographic subjects. I like keeping warm and snug, but if a shot or twelve is to be had, I'm out there. It could be Dartmoor or the New Forest, the Mull of Kintyre or Beachy Head. It could also be a bleak afternoon on some rain-lashed promenade in January.

After two weeks, I'm confident that this watch can cope with anything I will ever throw at it in my travels. It will also laugh at getting messy or accidentally knocked about at home. I've every expectation that it will look good, and keep working perfectly, for years to come with no attention apart from wiping it clean, resetting the time twice a year, and correcting the date seven times a year.  

I've already shown plenty of watch pictures in my post The new watch arrives on 29th September, so this post is in the nature of a follow-up, mostly about the straps I bought and fitted, and any quirks or issues (only two, and they don't matter). 

In the post just mentioned, I'd just ordered a mustard-yellow nylon military-style strap from WatchGecko. The out-of-the-box strap was a dark grey heavily-stitched fabric affair that used Kevlar, the stuff that sails and paraglider wings are made of. It was fine; a bit stiff at first, but after a few hours' wear it was shaping up to be a comfortable strap. I didn't mind the very prominent metal eyelets, and one of those was just right for a good fit on my wrist. But the dark grey fabric was a bit dull. So I was going to detach it with a special tool I'd bought, and substitute a different strap in a brighter colour.

I chose yellow. It would go nicely with the watch face and many of my clothes, both normal and strictly outdoor. And it would lift the mood, so to speak. I wanted some warmth and cheer. So as soon as the delivery man had come, I set to. First, by taking off the old strap. It was done by releasing the watch's spring bars with that special tool. It was more of a fiddle than I thought it would be, but after a few minutes I'd succeeded. I slid the bars out of the strap ends, and popped them back into their holes on the inside of the lugs. Unless I were going to fit a two-piece strap in the future, I wouldn't need to touch those spring bars again.

I put the original dark grey strap away inside the stout envelope the yellow strap came in. I was unlikely to use it, but it was much too good to junk. 

Now the one-piece, double-pass yellow NATO strap went on. It was Y-shaped. The longer part threaded through the spring bars, then though the keeper on the end of the shorter part. After drawing the slack through, I then just buckled up normally. There was a longer than normal section of strap left hanging, but this was a deliberate design feature of a 'military' strap (read on for why) and, as intended, I folded it back on itself and tucked it into a keeper.   

With this type of strap, the watch - although held against the wrist - is on a separate loop of its own. Unless both its stout spring bars fail simultaneously, it will stay attached to its loop and not fall away into oblivion. This is for the kind of situation where one might be sliding about (on a muddy slope, say) and the watch snags on something (a tree branch, say) and is yanked away from the strap. Or, in more ordinary circumstances, the watch gets caught on a car seat belt, or camera strap, or similar. Conceivably a spring bar might fail if that happened (although the Tough's spring bars looked heavy-duty to me). But even then, only one of them, surely. The watch would be left flapping on the wrist, but still secure. Back home, strap off, out with the tool, and a fresh spring bar fitted. 

I think the yellow strap has added a touch of pizzazz to the no-nonsense plainness of the watch. Perfect for meetups with friends.  

And the yellow strap is really comfortable. It's made of woven nylon, quite thin, and it easily moulded itself to both the watch and my wrist. 

Why is it so long? Well, in dire weather (let's say a freezing gale) one might wish to wear the watch over an outer sleeve, and not on the wrist. Worn thus, one wouldn't need to expose the wrist at all. It wouldn't matter to this watch if it were pelted with hail or torrential rain or heavy snow. You'd just wipe the watch face with a gloved finger, and see what the time was. I'll readily agree that I'm never likely to wear the watch in this way, unless wishing to impress the tourists, and see them gasp with astonishment. Somewhere remote that gets shockingly bad weather. Perhaps the Lanes of Brighton.  

Then for an encore I bought another strap from WatchGecko, exactly the same but in grey. That looked good too.

As you can see, grey didn't contrast with the watch face. It blended with it. It was low-key - an advantage in various situations, such as the more formal occasion. But for weddings and funerals, and any scenario where I'd need to be taken really seriously (such as at a tribunal or interview) I would get a black strap, to tone the watch down even more. 

These straps are not cheap - with delivery, it's £30+ a pop - but the WatchGecko ones are top quality, and I may gradually build up a collection of them. Something in teal next, or perhaps a lemon yellow, or possibly mauve. The thing is, these NATO straps can be swapped in and out in half a minute, and each of them modifies the character of the watch to suit one's mood, one's outfit, or the occasion.

Back to the watch itself. I've so much praise for it. Its simplicity and lack of bling make me feel pure, unpretentious and confident when walking around a shopping centre or along a high street, when the Tough is on my wrist and on display. The Tough is definitely different. Nobody else is wearing anything quite like it. There are nice diver and pilot watches around, to be sure - a popular choice - and some of them are unisex. But mostly they are designed for a man's wrist and are way too large. Most women are wearing either a smartwatch, such as an Apple watch, Fitbit or a Garmin, or the traditional small gold watch that you can't read the time from without peering closely at it. 

I'm sure nobody has heard of the Tough, and few might ever consider wearing it. I feel I'm bucking convention. But being different is my style. 

Spot the Tough in this array of Citizen watches in a Crawley jeweller's window: 

Any issues with this watch? Two; but they don't matter. 

The date window is too small. It's OK in good light, and from the right angle, but it's still too miniscule for a quick glance. I wonder why Citizen bothered with it. It's unimportant because my phone will tell me the date, and show me my calendar. And I am never without my phone.

The other issue is seeing what the time is in darkness. Like most watches that aren't smartwatches, the Tough relies on luminous hands, which are painted with a compound that glows brightly when light is first shone at it, but fades over the hours ahead. At its best it looks like this:

That's what I see with my glasses on. But my view of everything is fuzzy without my glasses. If I wake up during the night, and want to see the time, I really don't want to fumble for my specs, or the light switch, or both. So even if the Tough's watchface is still glowing adequately, I see only a mush, because it's completely out of focus. I can't distinguish the hands from the ring of numerals, and can't tell the time. 

I do have a workaround. My discarded Garmin Vivoactive 5 fitness watch now serves as a bedside clock, and a mere sleepy finger-tap will light it up. 

The Garmin's watch hands are different colours, red for the hour, green for the minutes - I set it up that way - so even though it's also out of focus, there's no mistaking what the time is. And with only that one job to do, its recharges last ten days, which is adequately convenient. If away for a week in the caravan, I might not need to bring along its recharging paraphernalia.

It would be absolutely perfect for me if the Tough also had hour and minute hands that were red and green! But nobody does things that way with a watch that I'd be interested in. Besides, could those red and green hands be made to glow in the dark quite as brightly as ordinary pale green lume? Probably not.

So the Tough is not heroic in total darkness, unless you shine a torch on it and have good eyesight, or wear your glasses. But in merely dim light, say the light at dawn or dusk, or in deep shadow, the Tough does very well. The very prominent numerals and hands, assisted a little by the lume, make it easy to see what time it is. 

In my researches I saw some reviewers - men of taste and distinction, one supposes, but at any rate Men Who Know Best - criticise those overlarge numerals and dial markings, one calling them childish, another oafish. 

Well, as I understand it, there are three good reasons for their large size. 

First, sheer visibility in awful conditions. Second, the watchface isn't a solid black metal disc: it's translucent, to let in the all-important light to power the watch. The numerals and markings are therefore big, in order to stand out starkly against that not-quite-black watchface. Third, in the current version of the Tough the water-pressure rating if submerged was increased from 200 metres to 300 metres. To do that, the bezel that clamped the crystal against the front of the watch had to be thickened, making the dial underneath the crystal smaller. That of course left less space for the numerals and markings. But they were not made proportionally smaller, to match the reduced dial area. They were kept the same size for the sake of maximum visibility, and that made them seem extra-large. 

  

Some might see this as a design mistake, certainly a violation of aesthetic principles. I don't. Proportion must surely come second to readability. That, after all, is why the deliberately thick and bold sans-serif lettering on road signs looks blocky and inelegant compared with a beautiful printing font. Its first duty is to be read at a distance from a fast-moving vehicle, without any possibility of error. If those letters (and their spacing) obeyed classic rules of proportion, road signs wouldn't be so clear.

These roadside photos of mine, incidentally, date from 1989 (Broadbridge Heath in Sussex) and 2019 (Eglwyswrw in west Wales). Nowadays the mandatory speed limit going through the latter would be only 20 miles per hour. Thank Plaid Cymru for that.

There's nothing much more to say. I keep coming back to how individual this watch is. It's beautifully well-made. It's certainly not pretty, nor is it elegant; but then this a piece of equipment, and not jewellery. It's a hymn to functionality, unquestionably durable, and honest value for money, given its specification. And despite its plainness, it can be tricked out with colourful and easily-replaced straps. 

Furthermore, I don't think I stand much risk of being robbed for my watch: it's not trendy, nor obviously valuable. In fact, if I put a shocking pink strap on it, it might well be taken for nothing more than a kid's watch - a good disguise, if ever needed. (Sadly, its wearer doesn't look like a kid any more)

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Copilot and Gemini at a price

I knew it was coming; it was clear from the beginning that AI would have to be charged for. The massive efforts made by Microsoft on Copilot, and Google on Gemini, and similarly with the other players, would all at some point need to produce an income stream. Now, after two and a half years, when many of us have experienced the handiness and advantages of AI and are to some extent hooked on it, it is going to be charged for.

As I said, I knew this was round the corner. Surely we all did. Even so, it was a surprise the other day, when I saw that the Copilot icon on my phone had turned grey, and was relabelled 'Copilot (Legacy)'. It still worked the same, at least for my needs - I was researching watches and watch straps at the time - but it felt as if Microsoft had acted rather sneakily. Suddenly the version of Copilot I knew was to have no further development. And anyone using Copilot for something more complex would have to pay. All done suddenly at the end of September, without any great announcement.

And now Google are going to do the same. At least they have given some prior warning, albeit a few days only, although I haven't yet received any email from them about making Gemini a subscription service. 

Concerned, I fired up Gemini, described my typical usage - such as advice on product best-buys, and advice on how to fix things - and asked whether 'free' Gemini would still be the right version for me. And Gemini actually said yes: the free version would be perfectly fine. So no change! Gemini added that if I ever needed to do more heavyweight stuff, like condensing and summarising large documents, or coding, then I'd need to upgrade and pay for it. But I'm absolutely certain that I won't need to do that.

So, at least for the time being, Copilot and Gemini will carry on being free to use, at least for undemanding users like me. And as they are both very useful, and kind of complement each other, this is good. 

I have a feeling however that within a few years there will be a charge even for these basic versions. Or they will scrap them. Then what? Could someone like me get by without AI? 

Probably yes. After all, we all used the Internet 'manually' for some twenty-five years without AI assistance. It was a bit hit-or-miss, and time-consuming - even the current 'free' versions of AI can find good relevant information in a flash. But given enough leisure, one could (and still can) get by without AI's speed. 

And there's something else. An old-fashioned 'manual' search for information or advice can be very, very nuanced. I've noticed that both Copilot and Gemini sometimes misunderstand what I want to know, and don't always dig deep enough. Nor is what they tell me always correct, as I might know from my own personal knowledge. Generally speaking, they are raiding various top-level sources on the Internet, and not all of those will be free of over-enthusiasm, bias, factual mistakes or outright misinformation. And AI engines try so hard to please and not offend, to deliver what they think you want. So the results always need to be carefully considered for credibility and balance. 

It always comes back to one's personal sense of what seems likely or trustworthy. That 'gut feeling'. 

Logically, then, I'd be more inclined to believe an android, an artificial human, who was self-aware. They'd have a personal stake in getting things right, and keeping themselves (and me) safe from harm and undeluded by falsehoods.

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Dodging scams

Now I would say I am alert to scams, and on my guard. I listen to radio programmes like Money Box, You and Yours and Scam Secrets on BBC Radio 4, and read about scams in various online articles. Some, like romance scams, and the kind of scam that involves sons or daughters in distress far from home, are never going to affect me. 

But of course, I am like everyone else exposed to any of the scams connected with identity theft, and all those scams designed to steal personal details for fraudulent use by criminals. Awareness of the danger is a good defence up to a point, but it only takes one slip in an unguarded moment. I am quite sure that one day I will be a victim. 

Maybe I have already been targeted, and some attempt made against me, though with no obvious effect so far. But even if there has been no immediate loss of money or whatever they wanted, somebody somewhere may be sitting on some personal data of mine, and one day it may be used to hit me hard. I hope not; I don't think I have ever been silly with sharing passwords and account numbers or my ID; but I can't be certain. 

The enhanced risk of falling victim of a scam is a major reason for staying away from social media. Not the only big reason in my own case, but social media is known to be a happy hunting ground for criminals, and I don't want to appear on their radar. But wait, you might say. Don't you reveal yourself by blogging and publishing photos? Well, I can't deny that I do make myself easily searchable on the Internet. But neither Blogger nor Flickr are ideal vehicles for perpetrating crime. 

That said, I do get random (and not so random) emails and phone calls from time to time that are definitely suspicious. 'From time to time' means 'only once or twice a month'. I do various things to screen out spam in general, and criminal phishing in particular. But sometimes things get through to my email inbox. Phone calls are rarer. I don't have a landline, and don't advertise my mobile number, although I dare say it circulates; and an automated phishing call will of course find me.

At the end of September I had two rather odd daytime phone calls. Both came from a UK mobile phone number that showed on my phone. The first, on 28th September, was from 07873 552543; the second, on 30th September, was from 07535 933690. Neither was from a person I had in my Contacts list, but as neither was merely a 'Private Number' call, I did answer them. Coming up were a boiler service, a car service/MOT, and a winter flu jab, and either call might have been connected with one of those. 

But they were not. A somewhat artificial-sounding female voice told me that there was a problem with my Vodafone account, and that to resolve it I should speak with a customer service advisor, pressing '1' on my keyboard to connect. 

Of course I didn't press '1'. I simply waited for a few seconds, then hung up and blocked the number. Both times. I haven't been called again, at least not on yet another number.

The giveaway was that I don't have a Vodafone account. I'm with EE, and have been for a long time now. So this dubious attempt to get me to talk fell at the first post. I gather from a little Internet research that it really was a scam, one of those currently doing the rounds all over the country, and that pressing '1' would have connected me directly to a criminal, who would have asked me to 'confirm my details', so that a gang member impersonating me could buy stuff from Vodafone in my name.

Why target my mobile number, if I'm with EE? 

Well, when I bought my first smartphone back in 2012, a Samsung Galaxy S2, it was at a Vodafone shop. And although they offered me a choice of numbers to pick from, they were all Vodafone numbers. So I deduce that the gang behind this has been targeting any mobile number that originated with Vodafone, regardless of who the current owner has their contract with. 

My basic survival tactic is to be wary of any phone call. The caller can text me or email me, if it's a real communication that I should consider responding to. All the callers I trust have both, and don't need to ask.

Sequel on 13th October 2026

No more from these 'Vodafone' scammers. But only yesterday I discovered a very convincing-looking email, fortunately already in my spam box - thank you, Google! - from 'TV Licencing' that said they had been unable to take the latest direct debit payment due, and would I set up my bank details afresh? 

So far as appearance went, it looked genuine, and might well fool the unwary. But I thought it unlikely that TV Licensing would suddenly have this kind of difficulty, not when I'd been paying them by direct debit for donkeys' years without a hitch. Curious but careful, I inspected the thing more closely, including the full email address - which gave it away. A very long string of letters and numbers that included the word 'shop'. Clearly the intention was to lock me into some online entity that would raid my bank account, or even take it over. I deleted it instantly. 

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The new watch arrives

A little more patience with me, please, then I promise to turn to another subject!

Citizen Watches UK have moved fast, and my new Promaster Tough watch was on its way by close of play yesterday. It arrived via dpd at 1.50pm today. 

I'll skip most of the unboxing. The watch was nicely packaged: enough said. Here are the main shots of that event.

As you can see, the crown of the watch was pulled out for transit, freezing the hands. I pushed the crown in and the watch sprang into life, indicating that its internal storage battery had adequate charge in it, and might not need too much more exposure to light for the time being. But I will of course make sure that it gets a daily dose of sunshine, or at least good daylight - a great incentive for going outdoors and having a brisk walk! 

The watch is about double the weight of the Garmin Vivoactive 5 fitness watch that it replaces, but still feels light and easy to wear. Here it is on my wrist:

The strap it came with is nothing to shout about really. It's a thick Kevlar fabric affair, clearly long-lasting but rather stiff, with over-large eyelets in it, and not too may of them. I've achieved a good comfortable fit, but I gather from comments I've seen that this strap is usually replaced with something nicer. Just as I have done already (see below). Besides, this supplied strap is a dark and rather uninspiring colour, a kind of dark grey. All right for a man who doesn't do colour. But in my view the Tough - my Tough - deserves something better. 

It's not a quick-release strap, and will have to be removed with a special spring bar tool before anything else can be fitted. I have bought such a tool. I will keep this strap in reserve, but will probably never use it again.

The new watch is very nicely made, despite not being in the 'luxury' class of watches. The monocoque titanium case oozes strength and quality, as does the thick sapphire crystal. There's a logo near the 6 o'clock marker, and also on the crown:

The back of the case has all sorts of engravings, including the Eco-Drive globe in the middle. My watch has the E168 quartz movement, and its serial number is 662030017. 

There you are. The watch comes from Japan, but the worthy-but-dull strap hails from Thailand. 

You keep coming back to the watch face, and those over-large numerals and quarter-hour markers. It's a very distinctive design, not much changed since Citizen first launched the Promaster Tough in 1999. 

There is very little 'set up' for a watch like this. Its power comes from light. It isn't a smartwatch, so there is no kind of wireless connection to make, no synching to do. Setting the time (and date) is done manually. It's supposed to be accurate to within 15 seconds a month. I set it to precisely the right time at 2.55pm today, and will see how it performs over the next four weeks to 25th October, when we change from BST to GMT, and all clocks and watches go back one hour. No doubt I will open a spreadsheet to record and analyse its performance. What fun I shall have!

There is one major thing that could be regarded as part of the watch's setup - choosing the right strap. I did a lot of reading on this, and decided that a nylon military-style NATO strap was the best choice, as it was totally secure - even if a spring bar failed, the watch couldn't drop from my wrist into oblivion. So I've ordered one, from WatchGecko. The colour is called Mustard Yellow. The picture from their website says £28, but they gave me a 10% discount, and I actually paid only £25.20, with free delivery.

The beauty of this type of strap is that you can swap in another colour according to your mood, or the outfit, or the occasion. One might build up a collection of straps for any occasion, or to match any outfit, transforming the appearance and impact of the watch. 

I admit to hesitating a long time over the colour before settling on this for my first NATO strap. I did boil the final choice down to grey, navy blue or yellow. But grey seemed too bland, and blue seemed too cold. I wanted something bright and cheerful, and yet still chiming with the character of the watch. This was a watch that could stand submersion in the sea down to 300 metres. Yellow spoke of yachts and RIBs and, yes, items such as lifejackets. So yellow was a suitable colour. Besides, if I had taken the watch off, and were looking for it in dim light, a yellow strap would be a great help.

It's also the colour of autumn leaves. Just right then, for my early-November holiday in Dorset!

However, will it go with the clothes I wear? I tried the Tough with various items from my wardrobe. Just imagine it with a mustard-yellow strap, rather than a drab dark grey one:

The drab strap doesn't do badly! But I think a yellow strap will look as good or better with most of the sleeves above.

Finally, how does the Tough compare with the Garmin? Here they are, side by side.

The two shots just above highlight the Garmin's chief defect for telling the time: its display goes blank and you can revive it only by raising your wrist (but not in bed at night), tapping the watchface, or pressing a side-button. I think I could set it to be always-on, but then its battery would need recharging much more frequently.  

Two different kinds of clarity. The backlit display of the Garmin, with its brilliant white, red and green markings set against an inky-black background, lacks presence but is crisp and highly legible. Whereas the physical nature of the Tough's watchface, seen underneath a crystal cover, has to use large, bold markings that are not to everyone's taste, even if they appeal to me. 

The Garmin is just as clear (I could say dazzling) at night - if tapped into life. The Tough's painted-on lume seems feeble by comparison, although much gentler on the eyes. It glows blue.

That's about it for this post. I've been wearing the drab Kevlar strap for hours now, and it's started to feel very comfortable. The mustard yellow NATO strap I've bought should be even more comfortable. I expect to get it before the end of the week.

I already think the Tough and I will have a long and satisfying relationship. 

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I've done it!

After hours and hours of deliberation over the last few days - reading and watching reviews, looking at alternative choices, and so on - I have now taken the plunge and bought the Citizen Promaster Tough mentioned in my last post. 

I didn't mess about: I got it from Citizen themselves, paying £379 but with free delivery. I thought about spreading the cost - various jewellers offered instalment terms with no interest - but I could afford to pay for it outright. And besides that, I was by now heartily sick of loan arrangements. I'd had three years of HP on the car (thankfully almost finished), but there were three still more years of bank loan repayments left on the caravan. I hate any kind of debt. I wanted no more of it. 

Oddly enough, when I inserted the purchase transaction onto my Money Diary 2026 spreadsheet, to study the effect on my future cashflow (I did this before committing myself, of course), I was surprised to see that despite being £379 worse off in the period up to Christmas, at no point was I in any danger of going into the red. I still had a cushion for unforeseen expenditure. It varied, but at its lowest point it was still £340. That's enough for a new tyre or a set of disc brake pads on the car, if suddenly needed. 

So I'm breathing easy. I'm not going to create a financial crisis for myself.

I think this rather adventurous-looking watch will encourage me to get out walking on the South Downs and elsewhere, as I used to do. Or to explore country paths in my area. Or do a section of the English Coastal Path, as I did the other day on Chichester Harbour. All good exercise. And I already have all the other equipment needed for rough walking. 

The new Citizen watch won't give me any fitness metrics, but I don't think that matters. What does matter is my mental attitude towards fitness and strength-building generally. I think the obviously super-tough and all-weather Citizen will work better for me than the less assertive (and comparatively fragile) Garmin can. I won't want to let the Citizen down by shirking a brisk walk I need to take. 

One aspect could be a lot of fun. I don't have to stick with the strap it comes with. There are many others I could swap in, in a variety of materials and styles and colours. I could have a collection of these to suit different outfits and different occasions. Archer Watch Straps, for example, have plenty to choose from.

You can see that I regard this new watch as not only an eye-catching timepiece, but as a fresh approach to fitness. I'm no extreme-adventure junkie. Nor am I a Ray Mears disciple (although I enjoyed his TV shows back in the day, when he'd demonstrate things like how to set up a comfortable hammock for sleeping in winter woodland, or how to bake a salmon to perfection in an earth-covered 'oven'). I just don't want to lapse by default into a weak and wobbly old crone, unable to do much, and apt to nod off all the time.

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