Smartwatch with an 'always on' sunlight readable display?

[e100]

My 3 year old Garmin vivoactive monochrome LCD watch finally died today after the screen chipped and water got in. Alas that particular model is no longer being made.
 
Aside from the Garmin range there seems to be an ever decreasing range of smart watches where usability is the primary goal.

My requirements are pretty simple:
1) Always on display that works well outdoors. (Having to press a button just to see the time is insane.)
2) Multi-day battery life. My old Garmin watch ran for about 8 days in between charges. That was OK.
3) Shows the day and month number all the time. Mechanical watches from 50 years ago could do that so any smart watch should be able to do that - right?
4) Shows notifications from my phone (obviously it's a smart watch).
5) Standard size replaceable strap. Proprietary straps are just plain evil.
6) If it has a touch screen then it should ignore drops of rain or water splashes,  and not go berzerk changing screen at random! Seriously, do the creators of these things ever use them for real? Hello Samsung are you listening?
7) Not fugly. Things have improved over the last few years but anything sold as a 'sports watch' still looks terrible. I suspect there are special design rules built into Autocad that automatically engage ugly mode if it sees 'sport' in the product name. Seriously, anyone who thinks a large red button on the side of a watch looks cool or elegant should consider a career change.

Currently the market seems to be focused on fancy multi colour OLED touch displays which have to be switched off for 99% of the time because of the battery draw, and even with power saving the battery life is measured in hours not days. In bright sunlight these multicoloured displays offer poor contrast compared to their monochrome cousins.

Normally I look to youtube for product reviews but in the case of smart watches these cannot be trusted as the reviewers are given free product in exchange for superficial reviews.

So what are people's experience with the current range of smart watches?

[cnering]

I have the Garmin vivosport and it fits all your requirements except the changeable bands.  It has a display that is extremely easy to read without a backlight (it's a lot like ePaper, although I don't think it's exactly the same), has a face that shows the day and date permanently at the bottom (no month number but I don't find myself often forgetting what month it is), runs for 7 days between charges, shows all notifications, has a touchscreen that I've never accidentally activated, and I don't think it's fugly.

[PlainName]

Amazfit Bip - Amazon non-affiliate link

You can get them cheaper from the likes of Bangood and similar.

I've had several smartwatches (Sony, Asus, Martian, Fitbit, etc) and none of them have been perfect. The closest was the Asus, which is very nice but the vibrate is a minor tingling. Other watches are too thick so don't get a look-in.

The Bip is a revelation. Battery life is... well, I don't know because it's never run flat. I charge it every 5 or so days and it's never been down to 90%. Screen is always-on daylight readable with backlight if necessary. The resolution isn't high, but you'll find a suitable display from the many available. Vibrate is good enough to wake me (and that's saying something).

It falls down on your fugly metric a bit, but I don't care. I just want a watch to tell me the time, fire off an alarm twice a day, and tell me when I have a call or text. This one does all that plus monitors sleep and measures heart rate. It also has built-in GPS if you use it for weirdo pasttimes (like walking or running) but I've never investigated that bit.

The one thing I'd say is don't use the official app. It is pants. Notify & Fitness is quirky but far better and does a load of stuff the official one doesn't.

[BravoV]

+1 Amazfit, currently drooling too at Amazfit Stratos, friend has one and hearing his experience and also tested it briefly myself, I really like it, really tempting. 

Regarding the shape & look, personally I like it as at a quick glance, it looks like ordinary rounded watch and has big buttons, not the weird rectangular/squared ones, you know, those dorky look. 

[e100]

The 'Ticwatch Pro' has an interesting hybrid display with an OLED display under a transparent monochrome LCD display which is used for the always on low power mode. It's the first time I've seen this arrangement. The downside is that the OLED clarity seems to suffer slightly, but I wonder if this sort of technology is the future for low power devices.

[PlainName]

I saw that and might be tempted if it weren't such a huge lump. But that hybrid display does look like it could be the precursor to something interesting.

[kathy]

For sunlight readable tft, a transflective tft would be a good solution for smart watch display, it would be save lots of power consumption, and also it is a color display. but i don't think it is a good idea to add a capacitive touch on the tft lcd screen, it is too small to touch for a smart watch screen, but a color tft display would be a good trend on smart watch display.
http://www.szmaclight.com/new/How-to-make-sunlight-readable-tft.html

[PlainName]

The aforementioned Amazfit Bip is transflective colour (although I have a mono face on mine). The colour is definitely colour but a bit washed out.

It's also a touch screen which works well, both stabbing and swiping.

[e100]

Found another watch with a hybrid monochrome LCD & colour OLED display, the Casio Pro Trek WSD F30.
This is marketed as an outdoor activities watch which unfortunately means that it's even more fugly than a regular sports watch

[Marco]

5) Standard size replaceable strap. Proprietary straps are just plain evil.

Looking at the vivosport, making it integral does allow them to make it a lot more compact ... also more disposable, but it's modern electronics, it's a given.

[e100]

5) Standard size replaceable strap. Proprietary straps are just plain evil.

Looking at the vivosport, making it integral does allow them to make it a lot more compact ... also more disposable, but it's modern electronics, it's a given.

Standard widths for watch straps go down to 8mm which is narrower than any current smartwatch strap.
Garmin did an Apple and put looks before usability. 

[spudboy488]

Another bump for the Bip. Battery life is amazing if you pick a watch face that does NOT display seconds. I got 8 days or so with seconds displayed. I changed to a face without seconds and charged it 24 days ago. I'm at 46% on the battery. Also, it's really not that fugly.

[PlainName]

Casio Pro Trek WSD F30

Bit of a brute, that one

Going from the the spec, a plus point for it is Wear OS. It's not the best smartphone OS but it's the de facto Android one and people write apps for it (the excellent 'Feel the Wear', for instance). With a proprietary OS you're usually stuck with the manufacturers abortion of an app and little in the way of third-party support. The Bip, for instance, would be rubbish were it not for N&F and even that's - how to put this - an acquired taste.

On the downside the battery life of the Casio is rubbish. Only 1.5 days in normal use, but you can stretch it to a month if you turn everything (i.e. Wear) off. Might be OK if you still get notifications, alarms and stuff but with Wear disabled surely that's all disabled too.

[e100]

As a follow up to this thread, I bought a Garmin Forerunner 35 as it was on a close out deal. I was aware that it had a proprietary strap, but I saw that low cost third party replacements were readily available.

Six weeks later and the original strap has already fallen apart. The polyurethane strap has a hard plastic insert that is glued in place. The two halves just separated at the bond line. I had no idea that glueing soft plastic to hard plastic was even possible. Apparently it doesn't work too well.

Today I have ordered my first replacement strap. I wonder if this is going to be a regular thing...

[Kilrah]

You can still find Pebble watches at clearances etc, often new and cheap. Still the best offering there ever was in this category IMO.

[e100]

As a follow up to this thread, I bought a Garmin Forerunner 35 as it was on a close out deal. I was aware that it had a proprietary strap, but I saw that low cost third party replacements were readily available.

Six weeks later and the original strap has already fallen apart. The polyurethane strap has a hard plastic insert that is glued in place. The two halves just separated at the bond line. I had no idea that glueing soft plastic to hard plastic was even possible. Apparently it doesn't work too well.

Today I have ordered my first replacement strap. I wonder if this is going to be a regular thing...

And more followup... it turns out that the glue debonding issue has been known to Garmin since 2013, but they continue to sell the same flawed design today.
In my case Garmin have offered to replace the watch under warranty, but of course the replacement will have the exact same flaw that led to the original failure.

[Halcyon]

And more followup... it turns out that the glue debonding issue has been known to Garmin since 2013, but they continue to sell the same flawed design today.
In my case Garmin have offered to replace the watch under warranty, but of course the replacement will have the exact same flaw that led to the original failure.

I'm not sure which country you're in, but in Australia, under consumer law that would be considered a "major failure" and you would be entitled to a full refund (either through the store you purchased it or direct from the manufacturer).

[@rt]

I wonder why someone hasn’t gone to Epaper.
There are smaller displays sold as Arduino shields that are updating clock displays by the second.
I don’t know if you get to turn the display off between those seconds or not though.

[Kilrah]

They only have a benefit on consumption when you don't update them. If you update each second a reflective LCD (almost negligible consumption) does better.
And they're pretty ugly with "rests" of previous images and/or blinking if you want those more cleanly erased.

[tom66]

And more followup... it turns out that the glue debonding issue has been known to Garmin since 2013, but they continue to sell the same flawed design today.
In my case Garmin have offered to replace the watch under warranty, but of course the replacement will have the exact same flaw that led to the original failure.

I'm not sure which country you're in, but in Australia, under consumer law that would be considered a "major failure" and you would be entitled to a full refund (either through the store you purchased it or direct from the manufacturer).

Same in the UK. Under the Consumer Rights Act, you would be entitled to reject the product and receive a refund.

[e100]

... and more follow up, today the battery in my Garmin Forerunner 35 went short circuit and cooked itself. The plastic case got so hot I had to rush to take it off before it burnt my wrist. It's dead.
 

[apis]

I have the Garmin vivosport and it fits all your requirements except the changeable bands.  It has a display that is extremely easy to read without a backlight (it's a lot like ePaper, although I don't think it's exactly the same), has a face that shows the day and date permanently at the bottom (no month number but I don't find myself often forgetting what month it is), runs for 7 days between charges, shows all notifications, has a touchscreen that I've never accidentally activated, and I don't think it's fugly.

I have one as well, got one as a gift a while ago. You can read the display without the backlight when there is enough light. It also has a backlight that can be set to enable only when you twist your wrist to look at it for when it's dark. It's not perfect but works ok.

Problem with it is that the electrical contacts on the back contain nickel so I get a rash from it because of nickel allergy.