{"id":134516,"date":"2025-08-10T14:16:13","date_gmt":"2025-08-10T14:16:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/134516\/"},"modified":"2025-08-10T14:16:13","modified_gmt":"2025-08-10T14:16:13","slug":"i-ditched-my-smartphone-for-a-cellular-smart-watch-heres-how-it-went","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/134516\/","title":{"rendered":"I ditched my smartphone for a cellular smart watch \u2014 here\u2019s how it went"},"content":{"rendered":"

Leaving the house without my phone is the stuff of nightmares. Leaving the house without my phone on purpose? Are you kidding? What if I need to take a picture of something? What will I look at if I need to wait in line? What if disaster strikes or a War of the Worlds happens? The possibilities are too overwhelming. But in the face of all this uncertainty, I (mostly) left my phone at home for the past week \u2014 on purpose.<\/p>\n

I wanted to see if I could get by with just an LTE-enabled smartwatch, an experiment I\u2019ve been itching to run for a while. I, like many of my fellow elder millennials, look at my phone entirely too much. It\u2019s my job, but still. A break now and then would be nice. I haven\u2019t been convinced by minimalist phones, which never seem to have all the functionality I want. A cellular smartwatch isn\u2019t meant to be an all-purpose smartphone replacement, but it seems like an entirely viable alternative for someone looking to cut back on screentime and stay connected. You can still send messages, read your email, and play your podcasts while you just, like, exist. The dream!<\/p>\n

What would it be like? Waiting to pick up my coffee order, not a screen in sight, just vibing? Would I feel more connected with my fellow man? Could I rewire my brain, cure my anxiety, maybe unclench my jaw for two god damn seconds? Sort of, as it turns out. But it wasn\u2019t exactly a snap.<\/p>\n

Day one: The Apple Watch starts with an iPhone<\/p>\n

I used an Apple Watch paired with my iPhone 13 Mini for this exercise. I was tempted to try it with an Android phone and a Pixel Watch with Gemini<\/a>, but bringing an AI assistant into the mix felt like introducing too many variables at once. More on that later.<\/p>\n

I had visions of myself sitting at a table at a sidewalk cafe, sipping a cappuccino, probably wearing a billowy skirt (I do not own a billowy skirt), reading a newspaper and pausing occasionally just to take in the lovely summer day. The reality wasn\u2019t that glamorous. It was a lot more furious swiping on the watch\u2019s tiny screen, pulled over on my bike to the side of the road, sure I\u2019d forgotten about an important call that afternoon. Often, it looked like me hunched over my wrist, dictating texts in a quiet, direct voice: \u201cOn my way home exclamation point.\u201d Mumbling into your watch in public is a great way to look very normal and not weird at all.<\/p>\n

It felt awful and wonderful, all at once<\/p>\n

That first afternoon, I left my iPhone face down on the dining room table, only to come running back in the front door a few minutes later to log into Strava and Spotify on the phone so they\u2019d function properly on the watch. Just one of several reminders that the Apple Watch\u2019s existence depends on an iPhone. With that done, I set out on my bike unencumbered. It felt awful and wonderful, all at once.<\/p>\n

At the coffee shop, I learned that swiping to type on the watch\u2019s teensy keyboard is surprisingly accurate, if tedious. Voice input is definitely the way, but I hate talking to technology in the presence of others, so I either painstakingly type out text replies or \u2014 more likely \u2014 just don\u2019t respond until I\u2019m at my laptop later. This is more or less what I expected.<\/p>\n

At the end of day one, my morale was high. I didn\u2019t feel any smarter or less anxious, but instead of pulling out my phone to scroll that night I did some pencil-and-paper Sudoku puzzles and felt righteous about it.<\/p>\n

Day two: This little smartwatch goes to the market<\/p>\n

I should disclose that I cheated a little. Throughout most of this exercise, I carried a second phone as an ereader. But I don\u2019t think I violated the spirit of the challenge because it a) didn\u2019t have a cellular connection and b) I kept it in a mode that mimics e-ink<\/a>. I banished social media apps and downloaded Ali Wong\u2019s book, which I bought years ago and forgot about until now, to the Kindle app. It\u2019s a fun read.<\/p>\n

I headed downtown to Pike Place Market on my bike with the watch on my wrist and the fake e-reader in my bag. I also powered off my iPhone and put it in the bag, too,<\/strong> I guess as a break-glass-in-case-of-emergency last resort. Which is how I learned something that seems obvious now: if your iPhone is off, it can\u2019t relay all of your notifications to the watch.<\/p>\n

\"Apple<\/a><\/p>\n

Swiping out messages on the watch\u2019s tiny keyboard isn\u2019t as terrible as it seems.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll still get access to anything that has a native watch app, like messaging and emails. But I somehow expected to get Slack messages on the watch, which didn\u2019t happen because there\u2019s no watch app. On the other hand, I did get a little vacation from Slack for the afternoon, and nobody died, because I\u2019m a writer and not a surgeon on call. There\u2019s a lesson to be learned there, I guess. Anyway, the watch battery managed some heavy use, including a 40-minute call to my sister, so I call it a win overall.<\/p>\n

I left my phone at home to go pick up my kid from daycare, which I\u2019ve done unintentionally before. This time it was on purpose, and it was reassuring to know that I\u2019d be able to make an emergency call if needed. Things were going well \u2014 until it was time to Duolingo.<\/p>\n

Forgive me, for I have scrolled. I got into bed and completed a lesson to protect my streak, but once I was done, old habits came creeping back in. I spent 20, maybe 30 minutes scrolling? I finally came to my senses and put the phone on my charger. Lesson learned: if I\u2019m going to allow some phone time for things like Duolingo and catching up on messages, I need to maintain some boundaries. No more bedtime Duolingo.<\/p>\n

Day three: Who\u2019s gonna drive me home tonight?<\/p>\n

The bus ride went fine; it was just a matter of when to get off. Is the Union Street stop closest to the Symphony light rail station? Or is it Columbia? When did they start calling it Symphony Station? I\u2019d glanced at the directions before I set out, confident that I knew the route well enough not to turn on navigation. But my particular brand of anxiety is one in which I constantly question things I know to be true.<\/p>\n

Normally, I\u2019d pull out my phone, look up the necessary info again, calming my nerves with solid reassurance. I could have done the same with the watch, but it would\u2019ve taken too long, and it was too fiddly anyway. I decided just to trust that I\u2019d remember the stop when I got to it, and I did. Union street. Woman triumphs over anxiety. I was one with the city.<\/p>\n

I could have just called a yellow taxi service like people did for decades before Uber existed<\/p>\n

I came crashing down from my high later when I offered to share an Uber home with a friend who lives near me and then realized that I had no way of requesting said Uber. Rude. My friend kindly hailed the Uber and I Venmoed him my half later. But the unexpected snafu shook me a little. What would have happened if I didn\u2019t have a friend kind enough to arrange a shared Uber? Would I simply have to live at that one brewpub in the U District for the rest of time?<\/p>\n

Realistically, I could have gotten back the way I came on public transit without a problem, it just would have taken an extra hour. Or, I realized, I could have just called a yellow taxi service like people did for decades before Uber existed. Uber offers an option to call and request a ride over the phone<\/a>, as it turns out. Everything would have been fine, and with a little planning ahead, I could have gotten by without asking anyone to spot me a ride home.<\/p>\n

I fell off the wagon a bit. I mostly brought my phone along as a backup for when I needed to do something out of the watch\u2019s reach, like quickly finding an open restaurant nearby for lunch and putting in a pickup order. I had to take my husband to an outpatient procedure anyway, and leaving my phone at home felt a little irresponsible. But I maintained the no-phone policy when it made sense, and between the audio cues and haptic wrist taps even found Apple Maps entirely usable on the watch while driving. Ikea\u2019s online order pickup was a little tricky, since it only offered a QR code and web address to let the store know I\u2019d arrived for my order. Hej, how about a phone number, Ikea? But I walked into the store and used their WiFi to check in on the e-ink-ish phone \u2014 disaster averted.<\/p>\n

Even a few days of a no-phone or phone-light existence has helped dissuade me from reaching for my phone every waking minute. Now, rather than keeping my phone constantly at my side around the house I realize that often I have no idea where it is. I\u2019ve been walking around using AirPods and the watch listening to a podcast, or reaching for that paper Sudoku book when I have a few minutes of downtime. Not a bad outcome.<\/p>\n

What using an Apple Watch as my phone taught me about B2B sales<\/a> (and other learnings)<\/p>\n

Pulling this off takes more planning and discipline than I anticipated. You have to be a little more conscious of where you\u2019re headed and what your plans are for getting home. Putting the phone number for Uber\u2019s service in your contacts would be a good idea. Keeping your phone out of your bedroom and following Casey Johnston\u2019s DIY dumbphone method<\/a> would help when you inevitably pick up your phone again. I also had to think more about charging my watch than I ever have before; getting the biggest, beefiest watch you can muster would be the right move here.<\/p>\n

I can also see how an AI assistant would be a really, really nice thing to have on your watch if you want to ditch your phone more. Finding things on my calendar or checking details in a Google Doc could really come in handy. Siri, you may not be surprised to learn, isn\u2019t up to these kinds of tasks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Apple<\/a><\/p>\n

This watch didn\u2019t exactly take my phone\u2019s job.<\/p>\n

As tidy as it would be, I don\u2019t think there\u2019s one gadget or one fix for our phone addictions. But I do think an arsenal of tools can help us help ourselves, and a cellular-connected smartwatch is a really good tool. Maybe a little NFC tile can help you reclaim your attention in a particular situation<\/a>. Or maybe the best minimalist smartphone might just be your current phone with a few good focus modes. Maybe all of the above.<\/p>\n

And I can\u2019t learn this lesson enough times in my life, but I have much more success creating habits when I focus on adding something enjoyable to my routine rather than feeling like I\u2019m depriving myself of something. Having a jigsaw puzzle at the table or a Sudoku book next to the couch ready to jump into helps my brain grab onto something before I can get twitchy about the thing I\u2019m trying not to do.<\/p>\n

Practice is the thing, as it always is<\/a>, and it takes practice to build a new habit and chip away at a bad one. Whatever tool you can use to claw back an ounce of your attention helps. Not all at once, and not forever, but as an ongoing thing to keep relearning and opting in to. That\u2019s what I\u2019ve been reminded of by this smartwatch experiment. It wasn\u2019t The Answer, but I\u2019m going to keep the cellular watch on my phone plan to give myself more of those practice opportunities when I need a break from my phone. And it hasn\u2019t helped with my jaw clenching, but that\u2019s probably a medication side effect anyway.<\/p>\n

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