Published: 6/28/2026
I have a watch. I bought it before my wedding last year. It is not a particularly expensive watch as far as watches go, nor is it flashy, or rich with features. It is a simple watch that I enjoy putting on my wrist every morning. I am not a materialistic person and I put a lot of consideration into the purchase I make. My watch to me is a symbol of everything I value in a piece of hardware.
It is durable. Its band and casing is made of titanium with a sapphire crystal, making it resistant to scratches and scuffing. It is somehow light yet substantial simultaneously. It is perfectly fitting in a way that feels like a natural extension of my body. I can wear it to a fancy restaurant, but I feel equally comfortable having it on while working in my garden.
It is low maintenance. My watch is waterproof, and the titanium body means I can give it a good scrub with just soap and water when it gets dirty. It is solar powered, meaning that it will always keep ticking as long as it’s not left in total darkness for an extended period of time.
It does one thing, exceptionally well. My watch tells the time. It tells the month and day of the week to boot. That is all it does, and it does its job predictably and reliably in a way that adds an aesthetic value to the most mundane of tasks.
Compare this to most products available to us these days. In an age where weekly firmware updates and agreement to ever evolving “terms of service” are prerequisite to our use. My watch cannot be bricked when a new model comes out, my watch can not spy on me or sell my data. I cannot be prosecuted for modifying my watch or investigating its inner workings. Outside of the lifetime warranty, my watch’s relationship with its manufacturer was completely severed at time of purchase. It doesn’t do these things because I’ve “opted out”, it is physically incapable of these things by nature of its design.
Durability, simplicity, reliability, privacy, these are the “features” I look for in modern devices. They are becoming harder to come by, but they do exist are worth seeking out when choosing the things we own.