For me it's the opposite. Notifications and payments are my main benefit. I would never wear a watch that shows only the time (hence I never wore one since the late 90s until mid 2010s). Sleep tracking with SpO2 is a big thing for me too though.
I think mechanical watches are much more about being jewellery than function, even though it's impressive engineering. But I'm not a very flashy guy (I don't even own any shirts that fit anymore, just T-shirts lol) so I don't really care.
But it's good to see everyone can get what they like. I'm personally really happy with how far smartwatches have come.
Yes I've seen that kind of watch too. I forget which brand it was but it was one of the mechanical brands.
For what it's worth, the amazfit and Xiaomi products also have very great battery life (around 2 weeks) and some are very light. With the gadgetbridge or notify for Android apps they're really privacy conscious too.
If you're cheap/privacy/FOSS focused like myself, I find the "PineTime" is largely the modern day Pebble watch.
It may not literally watch every breath you take while you sleep, but I haven't wanted that personally anyways.
Only real drawbacks are battery life is only OK (about a week or so depending), the IPS screen can be bright in the dark (though it's a nice flashlight) and it only has 1 meter of water resistance, though it seems well sealed enough to trust it if I fall into water momentarily. (And really, swimming/showering with watches is kind of niche anyways)
I miss my Pebble :( I still have it, but I blame Apple and normiesl consumers for the death of the Pebble.
Consumers bought into Apple's shiny power hungry oled Apple Watch and yet they still complain about battery life to this day. Do you really need slick animations on your watch? Consumers will still buy what is shiny and cool looking over what actually works.
And don't even get me started on WearOS, Google's sorry excuse is such a disappointment, I swear I'd have to actually try if I wanted make as many bad UX & performance sucking decisions as they did.
If that's your use case, definitely check out the Withings Scanwatch line. If you're not using a lot of the other features, the battery can prob go well over 30 days between recharging.
I think mechanical watches are much more about being jewellery than function, even though it's impressive engineering. But I'm not a very flashy guy (I don't even own any shirts that fit anymore, just T-shirts lol) so I don't really care.
But it's good to see everyone can get what they like. I'm personally really happy with how far smartwatches have come.