Wearing A Casio GBA-900
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Wearing A Casio GBA-900

Byrichard

For years I have worn Suunto, Garmin and Apple watches. During this time I have tracked hikes, climbing, scuba diving, snorkeling, swimming and more. Recently I felt the desire to wear a Casio watch as I used to do when I was a child.

Over the years these “watches” have given you live information about barometric pressure, altitude, depth, and other information but with time they gave you the chance to track what you were doing by GPS. After this they started to track your steps and your heart rate 24 hours a day, except for when you’re charging. It went from being a watch that you used for the time, and to track acvities. Now they track everything.

The only time they do not track you is when you’re charging the watches.

The advantage of a Casio watch is that you can wear it for years in a row, without ever taking it off, except for when you’re flying, before you need to replace the battery. You get to the end of the day and you don’t need to charge it.

Of course, you don’t need to wear it for three to five years in a row. You can take it off when you’re showering, sleeping or other. You can even take it off for a tan, if that’s what you desire.

What sets the GBA-900 apart from other Casio and smart watches is that it gives an analogue display, rather than a digital one. it gives the time with a digital display but it’s small and hidden behind the hour and minute hands at certain times of day.

The advantage of an analogue watch is that you know the time as fast as a digital watch, once you take some time to re-habituate yourself to reading a less precise time display. I say less precise because you need to re-learn the art of reading analogue time.

Tracking

It automatically counts the number of steps you take in a day and estimates the amount of energy you burned in a day. If you want to track a walk then it’s simple. You start the timer when you start your walk, and stop the time at the end of your walk. It then uses the time information and your phone’s location data to extrapolate the track of your walk. You can then get it to sync with the phone and keep track of your walks over time.

No False Inputs

I found that with the Xiaomi activity Band 7 and the active band eight I would get false manipulations with the touch screen. With the casio that’s impossible, due to it using button presses.

Playing

If you’re playful then, at night, you can charge the fluorescent paint on the hour and minute hands with a flashlight or your phone’s light. At night you can then check the time, by looking at the glowing hands, rather than pressing a button.

Beep Beep

Do you remember that 80s or 90s sound. The Beep beep that we would hear once an hour, every hour? This watch allows you to live with that signal notification. It could be useful, if you want to keep track of time, without constantly staring at your watch. “Beep beep”, time for lunch soon.

And Finally

The Apple watch nags you about washing your hands for long enough. Garmin and Apple nag you about being too static for too long. By using a Casio watch you escape the gamification that makes Apple and Garmin so annoying to use. It was fun, until you realise how unforgiving they are, streak wise, and until you realise that they’re designed to get you adddicted, rather than interested in your own progress. I like wearing a simpler device, especially while I walk more than I cycle, hike, or other.

TimeTagger and Christmas

TimeTagger and Christmas

Byrichard

It’s the twenty fourth today, and people who have been good will soon get things, and those who haven’t will get a lump of coal. Given enough pressure that coal could become a diamond. At such a time it’s interesting to take stock of how productive, or unproductive the year has been. One tool with which to do this is timetagger. Timetagger is either a free app, if you set it up on a local machine, or a paying app if you use a cloud services version.

What makes this app interesting is that it allows you to keep track of tasks by title, and tags. Imagine that you’re writing a blog post. You can use writing, blogging and relevant terms to make finding all time spent working on a specific topic quick and easy.

Resume

An interesting feature of this app is that if you work on a task, and then get interrupted to make coffee or for a fire drill you can pause the activity, and then return and set a second start time. You can count the same task and keywords more than once. If you have a task that you do on a regular basis this saves time.

Simple to Use

To start tracking you press play. It doesn’t matter whether you’re looking at yesterday or another day. It will automatically start “today”. You then press stop and you’re done.

At the end of the day, week, month or quarter you can see a report for specific tags in isolation, or relevant tags. It’s quick and easy to use.

So far I have tracked twenty hours but by this time next year I will have tracked several hundred. I find that by using this server based app I don’t kill the battery on my phone as fast as before. I start the timer and know precisely what I have been working on. I know by title and tags.

If you’re tracking for yourself then you can add as many tags as you want, but if you’re tracking for a client then avoid using more than one tag, unless requested to use more. I experimented with reports and you can select to see all “linux” time, but you also see secondary tags. This might look less professional if you use this app to track time spent professionally.

If you’re working as a freelancer you can use the name of a client as the tag and log the time you arrive, and the time you leave. Even if you don’t need to give a time sheet you can double check it to make sure that the hours are correct.

A To Do Variant

For a while I was playing with To Do apps. You give yourself tasks that you have to complete on a daily, weekly or other basis and you just tick that you did it. Time tracking is taking the To Do list a step further. You’re actually tracking the time that you spend on a task, daily fo weeks or months at a time. It’s important to account for the time you spent, not just what you did.

It’s a good habit to have, whether you’re being paid to track or not. If you get into this habit, in your free time it will be able to do this automatically when you can justify your hours. This app only allows you to track one activity at a time. You can start a second activity but it will pause the first. You can’t track “Time spent in the office”, and then “time spent on a sub task”, at the office.

Self Hosting vs Paid Solution

Self hosting is free but you need to configure the app, and make it accessible when you’re away from the server. With paid solution, for three francs per month you have access from anywhere.

And Finally

With this app you can track the time you spend filming an event, and then you can track the time you spend ingesting footage, logging and more. You can track the time you spend editing and then the time you spend exporting the video files. You can then track time spent on modifications. The application is highly modular and you can start and stop timers with ease, and tag tasks.

The beauty of self-hosting on your local network is that the data is private. No one can use it, other than you, and those you hand reports to. Other solutions may use AI and other tools to quantify the data you give them.

With TimeLogger you could track “learning Linux” or “Learning German”. With this you can track “learning ‘irgendwie’, ‘irgendwo’, ‘irgendwas'” and more. It’s as modular as you want it to be.

Casio GBD-800-1B – First Impressions

Casio GBD-800-1B – First Impressions

Byrichard

For 92 CHF you can buy the Casio GBD-800-1B from conrad via Galaxus and it will track you steps 24hrs a day and map your walks without you pressing a single button. This means that you can track your life, without thinking about it.


The problem with watches from the last five or so years is that they track steps, heart rate and more 24hrs a day, but need to be charged, and want to know what you’re doing. They invade your life. “Are you walking now”, “you should get up and walk for one minute”, “you should go to sleep.”


Feature Watch


Today I thought of a new term. Feature watches. We have smart watches and more. They try to get us addicted to their apps, and to tracking everything we do. Feature watches are the opposite. You put them on, and in theory you can wear them for three years before you remove them.


When I go for a run I will take the Garmin or the Apple watch, because they track heart rate and provide an idea of the fitness progression over time but the rest of the time I’d be happy with the Casio.


The advantage of a feature watch was demonstrated today. I put the watch on this morning and when I decided to go for a walk the phone’s GPS tracked my movements automatically. The watch tracked the number of steps I took. When the walk the watch synced the step data with the phone app. I had a map of the walk I did, automatically.


Initially I had been tempted by a higher spec casio, specifically the Casio Pro Trek PRT-B50. It has many of the same features minus thermometer, barometer, altimeter and compass but for 110 francs more and it is large. It is nice to have watches that fit under sleeves.


And Finally


Although this watch promotes itself as a step tracker it offers more than that, by allowing you to automatically track walks, hikes, runs and more, without having to press any buttons or pay attention to the walk. It starts when you start, and it ends when you end. I need to experiment with cycling and driving, to see how it reacts in those situations. I am still forming my opinion but so far it feels good.


The Old Habit of Walking In The Rain
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The Old Habit of Walking In The Rain

Byrichard

A Walk In The Rain


Today it was meant to rain for the entire day but there was a brief window which it stopped raining so I went for a walk. I expected not to be rained on but within minutes I could feel a small spray of water falling on me. I walked anyway. It was nothing to worry about. I did the usual walk and although groups of people were walking they were easy to avoid. The rivers are nice and full today so rain is having an effect. Rain has melted the snow that had covered the landscape and filled the rivers. In some places there are traces that the water is slightly polluted.


Reading and Projets


I am listening to The Age of Wood as I walk. I am struggling to get into it. I did read about the Chemin De La Mature and that does sound like an interesting place to visit. It is a path cut through the rock. They didn’t cut through the rock from top to bottom though. They cut through it horizontaly. It looks like an interesting experience to walk along that path. In some images it looks narrow, but in others it looks comfortable to walk along. I need to find more information about the GR-10 walking route, to see whether it would be interesting to see the larger context.


Tracking, Without Charging


I tracked the walk the usual way, with a gps watch, but I also tracked it with the Core-S4 and so far the results are good. I have tracked two walks over two days, without charging between the two walks and the phone is still fine. I don’t need to charge it every day. I like this. I like that I have a watch that I charge once a week or less, and a phone that I don’t need to charge every evening. This means that I could travel away for a weekend carrying less weight. I could go without chargers for the first time in years.


We will see what I play with tomorrow.

The summer eccentricity.

Byrichard

There are four phones on my desk that are well adapted to tracking hikes. There is the nexus one, the e51, n95 and n97. The reason I mention this is battery life. In my experience if you go on a long hike at least one of the phones will die.

You could buy an extra battery or two to make sure that this never happens but a more practical solution is to take all of your phones, install the tracking application on them and swap phone once the battery dies.

Of course this would involve taking three chargers with you but at least this way you could track the hike in terms of chapters and somehow aggregate the data for a true hike map.