The Grey NATO - Ep 63 - Are Smartwatches Dumb?
Published on Tue, 10 Jul 2018 09:00:05 -0400
Synopsis
The hosts discuss their recent travel and diving experiences. Jason went diving in Lake Huron and got to try out the Aquadive Bathysphere 100 GMT dive watch. They talk about using fitness trackers and smartwatches versus mechanical watches. The listener question asks whether mechanical watches will still appeal to younger generations in 10 years, and if there is a place for mechanical watches with smart features.
Links
Transcript
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| James | Hello and welcome to another episode of The Grey Nado, a loose discussion of travel, adventure, diving, gear, and most certainly watches. This is episode 63 and we thank you for listening. Jason, we're recording this the day before it goes live. I think this might be the latest recording we've ever done for a TGN, just some |
| Jason Heaton | really busy travel schedules the last little while and uh i'm actually thrilled that we're we're definitely going to be able to do an episode and not have to put up some apology yeah it seems like we're always uh lately we've been sort of recording between our various uh trips places it's good it's good you're getting really good at editing because uh you'll have to turn this one turn this one around pretty fast at some point we're gonna have to do these live |
| James | We might get to a point where I just put the files next to each other and sync them up and that's what I publish and I don't spend a bunch of time editing it. Yeah. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | We'll see. Yeah. So how have you been? You're back from some diving, what looked like some fantastic diving. |
| Jason Heaton | Great. Yeah. I mean, it's already mid-July. My jet lag is finally over. That's good. That felt nice to kind of clear that out of my head. And it was just in time too. I did a road trip this time, which I've been kind of hankering for after a lot of flying around. And, uh, you know, once or twice a summer, I try to load up the car with the dive gear and go meet my, my buddy, Chris, who lives down in Milwaukee. And we try to do some, some great lakes diving. And this time really didn't disappoint. We went over to the east side of, of the state of Michigan, the lower peninsula, the mitten, uh, actually in the thumb region, if you look at a map, uh, the way Michigan is shaped, it's kind of this area called the thumb. And, uh, we did some diving out in Lake Huron, which is the third largest of the great lakes. Okay. It was, it was great. We took, so I drove down to Milwaukee and picked up Chris, uh, where he lives and we, we then loaded up with, with his stuff. Boy, the, we have this Volvo SUV and we had so many tanks and heavy gear in the back. I thought one of the springs was going to break or something. It was, uh, really heavily laden, but, uh, didn't obviously. And we drove up to. to Manitowoc which is on the west shore of Lake Michigan and caught the SS Badger which is a historic coal-fired car ferry and took that across the lake. We caught the 1.30 a.m. ferry and got a stateroom and slept for the four-hour journey and then got off on the other side which is in Ludington, Michigan and then drove across the state to the eastern shore which is an area called Harbor Beach which is about a couple hours north of Detroit. Fairly kind of Rural and sparsely populated area, beautiful shoreline. And then we connected with a friend who runs dive charters in the Great Lakes. And she happened to be going out last week with a really well-known underwater photographer named Becky Kagan Schott. And we might have talked about Becky a little bit on the show in the past. Yeah, for sure. If you're not following Becky on Instagram and you like really dramatic underwater photography, you should give her a follow. Really does amazing work. She's really doing a lot of innovation with, uh, underwater lighting and, and kind of deep water wreck photography. And I'm working on a bit of a profile about her for, for a magazine. So that it was kind of an opportunity to connect with her and spend some time diving, uh, in her kind of favorite part of the world. Very cool. Yeah. So, um, the, the one wreck that, that we dove Becky and, and some others were doing some stuff that's a little beyond my, my abilities and my kind of, uh, air breathing, they were diving helium and rebreathers. And we dove the wreck of the Daniel J. Morrell, which is one I talked about in the past. It sank in 1966 and it was a 600 foot long freighter that broke in half and sank in two parts. And we dove the bow. It was spectacular. We had Caribbean style visibility, just well over a hundred feet of vis, which is unheard of in the Great Lakes, just blue water. Just beautiful, beautiful diving. It was awesome. Very un-Caribbean like temperatures. We, I saw a bottom temp of 36 Fahrenheit, which is probably three or so centigrade. So it was, it was chilly, but um, you know, new dry suit hold up. Well, I, I didn't have the new dry suit for this trip. I've got a trip coming next month that it's going to be all ready. I got the new one. Uh, and I thought it was going to be taking it on this trip. This was the Aquila dry suit that I talked about. |
| Unknown | Um, |
| Jason Heaton | But it was cut a little bit too small for me to fit my thermal underlayer underneath it. So I sent it back and Aquila was kind enough to recut it for me. So I should have that in a couple of weeks and give that another try. But it was great. And Becky's very gracious and was a lot of fun to be around. And we were diving with Shipwreck Explorers out of Milwaukee, a woman named Jitka Hanakova, who's the owner of the boat and the skipper and a really accomplished diver herself. you know, to have these two really capable women divers, woman divers, um, and kind of watch them working. It was really, really inspiring and interesting to see how they kind of work together and do these dives. And, uh, just a really good time. We had great weather and, uh, we, we actually spent our time. We, we didn't stay in hotels. We stayed with a friend of, of my friend, Chris's, um, a guy named Robert McGreevey, who, is an interesting guy in his own right. He's older, he's retired, he's in his 70s, but he's a fairly well-known marine or maritime artist, does sort of classical style oil painting on large scale of ships. And he lives just north of Harbor Beach there with his wife in an old converted farmhouse that he's made kind of a studio out of. And Bob McGreevey's grandfather, he actually was born in Belfast, Ireland, and his grandfather And his father worked for Harland and Wolfe, the shipyard that built the Titanic. And his grandfather worked on the Titanic. |
| James | Oh, wow. |
| Jason Heaton | And his father, once they emigrated to the U.S. and settled near Detroit, worked for Great Lakes Engineering and worked on the build of the Edmund Fitzgerald. So a bit of a dubious sort of shipbuilding history. Two famous shipwrecks. But he's a fascinating guy. So it really lent an interesting sort of sidebar to the whole trip to stay with him and get to know him. So all in all, great week. I got back, like you, I got back on Saturday afternoon and kind of decompressed a little bit yesterday and here we are. So tell me a little about your trip to the West Coast. Very different sort of trip, but you were doing some fun stuff. |
| James | Yeah, for sure. So it was a quick trip with Hodinkee. We were doing kind of a variety of projects. The kind of main task for me was We're shooting a week on the wrist with the new Black Bay GMT, which I spoke about on the last episode. No reason to really elaborate there as I've already put in a ton of work along with the video production team from Hodinkee to build what I'm hoping will be a really good review for that watch. So stay tuned for that. It should be up before the end of the month and certainly I'll mention it and link to it on the show when possible. And outside of that, you know, we had a couple of really fantastic meetups. We did a meetup in San Francisco and we did a meetup in LA as well. And they went really well. We met a ton of just the sweetest people and, uh, and you know, for anyone who listens to the show and came up and said, hi, and, and, you know, thank you so much for all the support and the smiles and the, and the kind chats at the, uh, at the meetups. It was really fun. Very cool. Yeah. Beyond that, I got a chance to use the away bag. I actually used it. for almost two weeks, because I went directly from L.A. to Vancouver Island for a week. Yeah. And so I lived out of it for some time. And it's fantastic. I mean, I really, really like it. Once I learned how to pack it, because you can't pack it like a normal soft side. Oh, right. Right. So my first try packing it, I was like, man, this thing's not that big. And then every time I kind of repacked it, because we moved around a bunch while we were on the West Coast and Every time I repacked it, I found that I had more and more space. But yeah, it's super light. It rolls really well. I like the handle. I got good use out of the battery, which I didn't think I would. There was like a few times where either my normal like Aki travel charger battery thing was buried in a bag or simply on the other side of my hotel room or something. And you can just flip up a little door on this and pop out a 10,000 milliamp hour battery. and connect your phone or if you're walking through an airport and you're, you know, not using the phone at the moment, you could, I could tuck the phone in my bag and uh, and then just drop the USB cable down. So that's handy. I mean, I, I definitely questioned why I would need that because I own other batteries that are basically the same, but because it has this kind of dedicated spot, once it's in your brain that it's there, it works really well. |
| Jason Heaton | So it takes, it comes out of the suitcase and you can carry it separately as a charging block or does it always stay in the |
| James | I think that when they first made them, to my understanding, they were removable with a tool from the inside of the bag, but then Delta and United don't allow you to bring hard fixed batteries into an airplane. Yeah. So you have to... We took a short flight from San Francisco to LA with United and it was... Air Canada doesn't do this, but United stopped me. They knew it was an away bag. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | And they said, that battery has to come out. Huh. And so you just open a little door, you press down on the battery and it kind of like toaster shoots out of it. Huh. And then throw it in your bag and that's fine. But I'm super happy with the bag. It was really easy to use and it worked. It worked really well with the Fjallraven tote pack that I spoke about on a previous episode because you could actually take the backpack strap handle strap thing. Yeah. and kind of cinch it on the handle. Because the bag doesn't have a traditional pass-through like a lot of travel bags do, but it was very easy just to essentially use where the handle would be if you had it extended, but then kind of lash it down. It worked really well. So that's a very handy kind of two-piece travel setup and I'll probably use the same for some... I have a ton of upcoming travel and I'll probably kind of continue using that same two-piece set because the Fjallraven fits under an airplane seat much more readily than a fully loaded Tenba. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So if I'm in a scenario where I don't mind having the two pieces instead of one or Or in this case, I'm actually coming back from my next trip with a bunch of new camera gear. Yeah I'll take the away. So oh, yeah. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. Yeah. Well, you're gonna get really good at packing that or even better at packing it after all this you've got coming up |
| James | Yeah, for sure. So yeah, upcoming, I have Portland, Texas, Germany, and New York City, all in relatively short order. That brings me essentially to the end of this month. And in Portland, like I just alluded to, a special thanks to Enrique Machant. He helped me source and I bought a film camera. So that's my next little hobby, I suppose. But he found a full kit AE-1 program. couple lenses, a bag, all that kind of stuff. So that in that case, I'll use the away to bring all of that back. So I don't end up with too many bags to get on the plane. |
| Jason Heaton | Oh yeah. Yeah. Nice. There's a rabbit hole for you. |
| James | It's already there. I mean, like I had, I have so much fun with the old lenses and then I started to look at the cameras and then, uh, Enrique is a, a high, high level enabler. |
| Unknown | Yeah. |
| James | Yeah. Um, and, and so he would just send me these links like, Oh, I found this one. I saw this one on Facebook. I saw this one on Craigslist. I've got some film meeting me in Portland as well, so I should be able to shoot a bit while I'm there. |
| Unknown | Oh, yeah. |
| James | I think that's basically my download since the last episode. I've been moving around a lot. Yeah. You've got some dive watch stuff happening as well, right? You dove with a new one? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I did. I dove with a watch that I've been kind of eyeing for quite a while, kind of keen on taking a look at in person. It was the Aquadive, the Bathysphere 100 GMT. Very cool. You know, we've talked in the past about kind of our not infatuation, but our interest, high interest in GMT divers and kind of there's, there aren't a lot of them out there. I know we talked about the, the Doxa 750T GMT that was around for a few years and kind of lamenting that that was gone. And in Bonaire, I had a chance to dive with the, the the Oris, the pro diver GMT, which I'm still have a review forthcoming for that one in a few weeks. But the AquaDive was one, I just think that name. that brand sort of slips under most people's radar. And I just had a chance to get the new Bathysphere. And it's a little confusing because if you look, and we'll put a link in the show notes, if you look at Aquadiver's website, they list it as the Bathyscaph 100 GMT. And now on the dial of the watch, it says Bathysphere. And if you actually click the Buy Now link, it takes you to kind of their online shop and it says Bathysphere. So I'm trying to kind of chase down the reasoning behind the name change or the discrepancy there. I don't know if Bathyscaph was sort of a Blancpain, sort of they had a run in with them over naming or something. But regardless, great watch. I had tried out an Aquadive probably five years ago and they were big watches, big, tall, heavy, wide watches because they were modeled on the old time depth Aquadive of the early 70s. Just a monster watch, just kind of too big for everyday wear. They've actually slimmed down the new ones significantly. A lot thinner and just much more wearable on the wrist. And this is a really, really great watch. It's about $2,000. It's a 43mm case. I'd say 15mm tall or thereabouts, 14-15. And it runs the ETA 2893 GMT movement, so it's what you've coined the the caller gmt so not the kind that you can independently adjust the local hour hand which you know it's a bit of a hassle but you know it's still you still get the two time zones for sure um this one had the sort of the black and orange oh right okay i've seen the teal one as well yeah they have a teal and then yellow and orange and i think there's a blue and then the all black but um this one's this one it was a really cool watch and it came on the orange isoframe strap which was a perfect fit for it That is a good fit. But it's got a ceramic bezel and German-made steel case and the isoframe strap. Is it an Ickler case? I don't know if it's Ickler. I don't know exactly who makes it, but they list it right on the website, you know, German CNC case, ceramic bezel. So it's really a looker and really a watch that, you know, should be on people's shortlists if you're looking for a GMT diver, I think. |
| James | At 43 millimeters, does it wear like a Bremont? Or is it way bigger? I feel like it might wear taller or longer, I guess. |
| Jason Heaton | It wears like, a bit like kind of a... Because it's that cushion-shaped case, I wouldn't say Bremont-like. More like a Seiko Turtle, maybe? Oh, okay. Cool. Except kind of chunkier. You know, the bezel is quite tall and it just has more heft to it. Very cool. Yeah, it was a cool watch. I'm working on a review. For that one, we got some nice underwater photos in this beautiful, cold, but very clear blue water, Lake Huron. So that'll be kind of fun. Awesome. And then I also took, you know, I talked in the past about this vintage Doxa Teagraph, the shark hunter that I got, I bought from its original owner, I don't know, a couple of months ago. And I had that in for full service at JB Hudson, one of the big retailers here in town. And they've got a Woestep watchmaker who took it apart and I was able to come in and watch him do it, take some photos, and he completely rebuilt it, you know, ultrasonically cleaned the parts, lubricated, et cetera, et cetera, and it's even rated for 10 bar, which is roughly 100 meters of water pressure, and so I wore that on its original Doxa bracelet with that spring-loaded clasp and the beads of rice. It's an amazing watch. I mean, I've always loved the Teagraph. I mean, it's such a, just a cool, cool watch with a great backstory, To have one that has been, you know, rebuilt and sealed up properly for use is pretty exciting because I didn't really have to worry about other than, you know, snagging it and dropping it overboard. I didn't really have to worry about getting it wet or, you know, maybe knocking it or something like that. It felt like kind of having a modern doxa, but yet it's vintage. And so I stopped short of actually taking it diving. I did take it in the water. We did kind of a checkout dive in about 10 feet of water just to dial in our weights the day before we went out on the boat. And I took it underwater then and obviously it did fine. But I guess my question to our listeners would be, anybody have thoughts on whether or not I should take this diving? I'm sure it would be strongly divided between the two camps. My personal feeling is I'm kind of keen on doing something fairly tame and shallow. with it just because I can and I feel like these watches were made for this and it's been serviced so there shouldn't be any issue with it. But on the other hand, people will say it's rare and once it's gone, it's gone. We'll see, I'm just curious. So if anybody has opinions, you can DM me on Instagram or write to TheGreyNado at gmail.com and give us the opinion. |
| James | Even better, just throw it right in the... We can put a poll up on Instagram. dive with it or not dive with it, or just put it in the comments for the post on, uh, at the Grenada. Oh yeah. Yeah. So we can do both or either. It doesn't matter, but that's, uh, I think that's fun. I mean, the picture that you put up, especially like last night, and that's the one when I wrote you when I saw it. Yeah. Because you'd put up a few pictures where I couldn't quite get a good view of the dial. Yeah. And then you put up one last night that just like was in the watch. It just looks incredible. Yeah. Super, super cool. So I'm really, I'm really happy that you've got it back and, and, uh, And that it's, you know, it's had a little bit of splashing around in the water. I think that's great. Yeah. All right. You want to go on to a main topic? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And this one came from a listener question, if I'm not mistaken, right? |
| James | So a listener, Sean, wrote in to ask, do you guys use fitness trackers? And if so, how do you manage the watch tracker combination? You know, he says he wears one on each wrist, a watch and a tracker. And then he goes on to say that, you know, there's a presumption that a lot of people are going to move into smart watches. And, you know, what do we think, what do we think that's going to look like in say 10 years? Is it conceivable that the simple watch concept and especially the mechanical side of it that we all love will not be enough for younger people? And then he says, you know, finally, is there a place for mechanical watches with smart technology built in, or is that notion of the two things kind of being together? Uh, not so appealing. So it's an interesting question. Thanks very much for writing in Sean. I, we definitely appreciate the email, you know, he's got kind of three stages here. You have fitness trackers, which I think is one thing. We have smart watches, which is another thing. We're now pushing into actually replacing a watch, maybe not just augmenting what you would put on your wrist or on your body. And then we have this, the concept of the kind of hybrid watch, like what Frederic Constant makes. Yeah. And I think that it's, I think it's kind of three different things. So we can probably go through it kind of piece by piece. Jason, what's your position on fitness trackers and do you wear one? Do you have any use for it? I think we've been over this a little bit in the past. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I, you know, short answer is no. I've never had, um, a fitness tracker as in sort of a Fitbit or kind of the small, smaller, really not kind of the watch style fitness tracker. Um, I've used, I've had an opportunity to kind of try a few of the kind of smart watches that some of the brands sell. Most recently the Garmin Descent, um, uh, the Phoenix, um, uh, Suunto, you know, a few of those. And, um, you know, for, for me, I guess just personally, just regardless of what's on my wrist, I don't have much use for or interest in knowing in great detail, kind of, you know, my sleep patterns or my activity level. You know, if I'm doing a very specific activity, like, uh, I guess one way that I found that Garmin kind of nice was when I was cross country skiing to just kind of keep track of my my mileage, and, you know, peek at my heart rate just out of curiosity. But over the long term, it's not something that's terribly interesting to me. I do think that, you know, in terms of, you know, kind of the usefulness of it or in a general sense, the small sort of trackers that can be worn sort of unobtrusively on one wrist with a mechanical watch on the other is probably the best scenario. And if I were to go that route, that's probably what I would do. Right. What about you? You use something, don't you use a, or do you just use a smartwatch with activity tracking? |
| James | So I would say for, it's hard to answer. For a while, I used to wear this Xiaomi or Xiaomi Mi band. And I had that on one wrist, my watch on the other, but with that, I actually disabled all of the fitness tracking. I just wanted it for notifications. The day job I had before I went full-time freelance, you couldn't really just have your phone vibrating or beeping all the time. Yeah. You know, for it was, I think I paid $25 for it. It was like an unobtrusive black band. Definitely just looked like a Fitbit or something like that. And it vibrated if you got a message or something like that. And you could, you could control all those. And I talked about it on a previous show. Uh, the day I stopped going to that desk job, I never touched it again. I actually don't, it's somewhere in my office. I never, I never put it back on. Yeah. Yeah. My, my main problem with fitness trackers is I don't think what they track is that helpful depending on your, specific fitness scenario. In my case, I don't care if I know if I took 10,000 steps or 5,000 steps or 20,000 steps. I mean, the phone I have now has it built into the like lock screen. Oh, yeah. And I don't know how to disable it. But that information doesn't help me make more or less healthy decisions. Yeah, like I have a very set workout regime schedule that I've been doing for several years now, six, seven years. Certainly something like like a an Apple Watch can track a run, as can some of the Fitbit products. They do a very good job at that. But they can't track push-ups or chin-ups or lifting weights or anything like that. That still has to be written down on a piece of paper or in an app on your phone. And so I guess that's where my fitness track is. I have a Moleskine book, and I'll write down how every workout went. And for a long time, when I first got into running at a higher level, I wore a Garmin Fenix. And that's helpful, especially if you're trying to get to a certain pace. So I think that that's very useful. But again, this comes back to what we've talked about before with these watches, like the Garmin Fenix, is I much more prefer to use them like I would a dive computer. So if I'm going on a run or I'm going on a hike, then I put the watch on and I use it for that span of time. And then when I come home, I take it off. Yeah. I cannot imagine wearing these watches all the time. And there's lately, I forget to charge the Phoenix. Oh, yeah. But lately I've just been wearing the Aerospace. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Because I just want to know that I ran half an hour or an hour in one direction and then I run back. Yeah. So it's not, it's not something I like. I just find the metrics aren't that helpful for me. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I like the analogy of strapping it on like you do a dive computer. And that's how I've used, that's how I use the Garmin's that I've tried in the past too. It's, you know, I'm not going to necessarily wear my Submariner to go skiing. If I really want to figure out how far I've gone, I will just swap it out for that hour and a half that I'm out with the Garmin and kind of let it do its thing. But yeah, to wear 24-7 kind of on two different wrists, it's a little bit much. And I guess too, you know, if you have specific goals, you use the right tools for those goals. So like when I was more actively cycling regularly, I would use, you know, you can carry your iPhone in your back of your Jersey pocket or clip clip onto the handlebars or something. And you can use Strava or something to track your speed, your average speed, your, your elevation gain and distance. And that can work. But I think also, you know, if you're doing kind of the same sorts of workouts for fitness on a weekly, you know, daily, weekly, monthly basis, you kind of get a sense after a few times we using some of these fitness tracking tools. what a certain workout feels like and maybe what your threshold is and what your speed is. And, um, then a simple chronograph like your aerospace or, or a G shock or anything will, will suffice because you're kind of doing the same thing you did the week before. And today's your speed workout and you did it a little bit faster than you did last week. And so, yeah, I, I think I'm a bit of a old school, maybe a Luddite when it comes to, you know, fitness tracking tools, but, um, sort of seems like, Just having the right tool for the goals you have in mind is kind of the moral of the story for me. |
| James | No, I would completely agree. You need to know what your goals are for this fitness. And if the goal is to simply move around a little bit more and remind yourself to get up from your chair while you're at the office and maybe to walk home instead of taking the bus every day or whatever it is, then I think like your basic fitness tracker or the step counter on your phone. is definitely valuable. If you're past that, I think they become less and less valuable. Pick the right tool for the project. If you want to run a triathlon or get ready for a marathon, I'd recommend something like a Phoenix and not something like a basic Fitbit. It's just they're different tools for different tasks. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. And just one sort of coda to this whole thing is if you truly want the marriage of mechanical and fitness tracking. There is a very cheap alternative and I believe it's less than a hundred dollars. It's called the Kronos and it's a little disc that actually fits. Oh yeah, yeah. It fits on the underside, kind of snaps on, but it sort of fits tight against the case back of a mechanical watch without adding too much height to it. I'd say it's kind of like a flat watch battery that that sort of shape and um, And it tracks some basic fitness stuff. And I believe it might even notify you of text messaging and that sort of thing, but it's very simple. All it does is basically collect information. But if you're looking for something that, you know, isn't expensive and can kind of go along with your nice mechanical watch, that might be a nice, nice alternative. |
| James | For sure. We'll put that in the show notes as well. And then Sean goes on to say, you know, in 10 years, what do we think? Are people still going to be wearing watches? especially young people. Sean, I would say like most things, I think it's probably an ebb and flow. So whatever, whatever there'll be, obviously there'll be something that's trendy. Like you see a ton of Apple watches now. But then you'll also have just the effect of whatever, whatever it captures a generation. Like my generation doesn't buy a lot of cars. Yeah. Millennials don't like to buy cars, but that won't last forever. Like it's an ebb and a flow. So I would say it's hard to predict, but I don't think mechanical watches are going anywhere. Yeah. I think that they've seen a massive resurgence in the last 10 years. I mean, Jason and my, my living essentially, uh, comes from, from that resurgence. And I don't think that's going to fade in the next 10. I think the industry will have some trouble in the next 10 connecting with buyers. Uh, but I don't think enthusiasm, uh, is going to change at a, at a broad level. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah. I don't have, I don't have much to add to that. I would agree. Um, and I think, you know, I was going to compare it to your recently buying a film camera, but actually I think it's a different sort of, interest level, I think watches have a much stronger sort of presence as opposed to vinyl records or film cameras. I think watches occupy a different kind of space in our cultural sort of psyche. |
| James | For sure. And I think vinyl records might be a better analogy. Still, I don't agree that it comes anywhere close to encapsulating watches, but a better analogy simply because they're printing new vinyl now. There's not many new film, like it does exist, new film cameras are being made, but it's not like It's nothing like most good watches are mechanicals. Yeah. Whereas most good cameras, all cameras are digital. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? It's a very... It's a tiny percentage of new film cameras, right? Right, right. I think that's more the space in there. They are making new vinyl, but I think that it's... I don't think that you necessarily get vinyl because you graduated from college from your parents or... There's still these things where watches still kind of exist in the plan for people. Yeah. And I think that if tech, especially if technology becomes more and more obtrusive, people will hold on to things that are from before that time. Yeah. Pens, pencils, watches, even if you don't need them. Yeah. Because you're doing everything on a phone or a screen or whatever. So I think that's where I would land on that. And then finally, is there a place for mechanicals with smart technology built in? I would say definitely. But I think we're just seeing the start of that, of say a mechanical, a watch with a mechanical movement that also has the ability to tell you you've got a text message or something. And I think that more and more brands will start to air into that space. But I don't think the format is locked in. I think that Frederic Constant leans very hard on the fact that it's a hybrid. And I don't know that that's appealing to people who want a smartwatch or people who want a mechanical watch. that like they should go in one direction more or less. Yeah. Because there's tons of smartwatches to choose from, including ones from Frédéric Constant, like genuine smartwatches. And then there's not that many that are mechanical. So I think that they should go harder on the fact that it's a mechanical watch and preserves that part of it, but also has a few of these other features. And I think they could find some people in that. And I think other brands certainly will too. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, I would agree. I mean, I think going back to are to grow and people have a thirst for them, and if the mechanical brands sort of respond to that. But at this point, I don't find them terribly compelling, but... No. |
| James | Yeah, I would agree. I don't think they are. I think that there might be a few people out there who want a watch that looks like a watch for when they're in the office, but still has the ability to tell them some stuff. Yeah. But I think that number's very... I think that's a very small market, and there's an education that needs to take place, and there's also... I think they need a few generations of the product. Yeah. to have something compelling. So, Sean, thank you very much for that email. And of course, everyone who's listening, if you have a question or you want to pose a question to the show or whatever, thegrenadoatgmail.com, we respond to all the emails. And we definitely appreciate when you write in with something that could become a show topic, it makes our job just a little bit easier. Well, Jason, in the interest of keeping this as quick as possible for my edit, how about some final notes? |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, sure. I'll kick it off with sort of a low-tech item here that's fairly cheap too. It's the Field Notes Three Missions Pack, which is basically just a simple set of three small sort of notebooks. Anyone familiar with Field Notes, they're small sort of pocket-sized notebooks with grid-lined pages and nothing particularly special about them. I've used them for years. Hodinkee used to actually give these away or sell them. I don't know if they still do. I don't think they do. They're nice if you're kind of the type of person who still likes to take notes by hand, which I do. And what's neat about the three missions collection is that Field Notes made a set of three different notebooks that come in a pack that are themed around the three major NASA space programs. So Mercury, Gemini and Apollo. And so the cover of the notebook each has sort of a historic photo of a rocket or some scene from those programs. And then the back of the notebook has sort of pertinent information about the program and kind of milestones. And then they come packaged with these sort of punch out flat cardboard or heavy paper um sort of low-tech models that you can build of capsules from each of the three space programs so it's a little nerdy well it's very nerdy let's face it um this is really cool though but it's a lot cheaper than than that nasa or than than the saturn 5 lego rocket that i talked about a few months ago that i built that you know takes up half my office space and took a week to build um this is just something a little fun and and for for space nerds it's just one more thing that you can you can spend 13 dollars on so FieldNote sells them on their website and we'll put a link in the show notes. Just kind of something fun. Oh, and another note too is it came packaged with this great little very retro click style Bic pen, which I love this style of pen. You know, the old kind with a little clip for your pocket and you just push on the end, click, click, you know, to get it running. And I just adore it. It goes really well with the notebooks and just a fun little thing. Might be a make for a nice gift or just sort of a That's a little early to talk stocking stuffers, but, uh, I suppose. |
| Unknown | Yeah. Kind of nice. |
| Jason Heaton | So that's my, that's my first note. |
| James | How about you? Uh, my first one is a new strap from the Hodinkee shop. Full disclosure. This is not an ad. I'm not paid to talk about anything in the Hodinkee shop. I did get a discount on the strap as I am semi-staff with Hodinkee. Uh, but I still paid my own money. It's a really great strap. It's called the Reed watch strap. It comes in several colors. I got it in olive green and light Brown. You can see both on my Instagram. Obviously, I'll throw some show notes. It comes in a few different sizes. It's made out of French goat leather. Arguably, my favorite leather strap that I had for a long time was one that they sell at Hodinkee already, was that aged moss suede leather strap I got from you, Jason. Yes. I don't wear a ton of leather straps, especially not in the summer, but just in general, I don't. Then I saw these and the photography is what sold them on me. They're super comfortable, like a strap you've had for a long time. They look great. The texture feels fantastic. And the color is really good. The green's fantastic, this olive green strap. You know, as far as straps go, they're on what I think would be the more, roughly more expensive side. It's 165 bucks for one. But this is a handmade strap in a great color, in a fantastic leather. And if you're looking for something to pair up with a watch that you really like, that maybe you don't always wear on a leather strap, you want to give something a try, I highly recommend these. Definitely rivals to that suede one, but I kind of like the pebbled grain of this French goat leather, which is interesting. I didn't realize goat leather was really a thing, but great straps. |
| Jason Heaton | Yeah, no, I've checked these out too, and they're cool. I love the full stitch. I love that style. I think, you know, we're seeing so many of the sort of vintage style with the two little stitches on each side, and I think I like kind of something a little different with the full stitch. |
| James | Yeah, I've got the light brown on the Sea Rambler. Oh, nice. And it has just enough orange in it to be perfect. Yeah. And then the green is on my Explorer 2 currently. There's two watches I wear kind of all the time. Yeah. And the green with the white and the red of the Explorer 2 is very good. I mean, I've been into green the last little while. So as soon as I saw that they had a new green strap, I was pretty much sold. Yeah. and uh and on the explorer it's really good so i think that'll be probably the mount unless it's quite hot out yeah then then it's definitely the sea rambler on a tropic is just perfect for a summer yeah all right you got another i do yeah um it's a book recommendation uh it's one i just uh i i learned about because a photographer on that mexico liveaboard trip i did was talking about it and then just last week i was at |
| Jason Heaton | that artist's house and he had it on his bookshelf. And I finally just pulled the trigger and bought it and I'm already about a third of the way into it. It's really hard to put down. It's a book called Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea by Gary Kinder. And it's not a it's not a new book. I think it's from the mid 90s. And I posted a picture of it on Instagram and a few people already wrote and said that they've enjoyed it. So this isn't anything new. But the story is fascinating. It is all about it's nonfiction and it's all about the discovery of a shipwreck off the Atlantic coast of South Carolina. It sank in the mid 1800s en route back from Panama where it had picked up some passengers and a lot of gold that was discovered and found and mined in the San Francisco area. And I believe it goes down as the largest treasure ever found in U.S. waters on a shipwreck. What's interesting is the first half of the book kind of covers the wreck itself, the wreck event, and that sort of thing, and kind of a little background on the gold rush. But the more interesting part, I think, is the discovery of this wreck in 8,000 feet of water, and the recovery of, I think it's 40 tons of gold in bars and coins, and just the technology and the difficulty of doing this. And the guy who did it was sort of a brilliant engineer who had to basically invent a bunch of technology to do this recovery and to find the wreck, as well as all kind of the wranglings around and the secrecy around shipwreck hunting. A bit of an addition to the story, which isn't actually in the book because the book was written before all of this, is the guy who recovered the wreck and all the treasure sort of went on the lam and ditched his investors and didn't pay out entirely what he promised and was on the run for I believe over a decade and was just recently caught about a year or two ago and is in jail and refuses to give up the location of all the gold. So that's not in the book but it makes for a very interesting sort of parenthesis to the whole story and you kind of know that sort of element of the story. It makes reading the book all the more interesting. So, uh, definitely check it out. I got a brand new paperback copy with free shipping on Amazon and we aren't affiliated with Amazon, but I thought I'd just mention that it was $12 for the paperback. So it's a cheap summer read. |
| James | So yeah. Yeah. And my last one is an article from a guy named Ken Sato, who we've talked about previously. He did really great coverage of Concorso and we had linked that in a previous show. And this is actually a follow-up of another piece that he shot while he was in Italy for Concorso. And it's called an inside look at Zagato, one of the world's wildest coach builders. And he does an excellent job of not only like, there's no question he's going to do a great job taking pictures of the cars, but the actual breakdown of Zagato and the various vehicles that he shoots is fascinating. I mean, a huge Zagato fan to begin with, but to see some of the weirder stuff, You know, I think a lot of people might, if you like cars, you might know two or three Aston Martin Zagatos or maybe like an old Fiat Zagato or something like that. Yeah. But they've got some bonkers stuff in there. And I highly recommend this piece. It's even if you don't even want to go in and read everything, just go look at some of these cars. These are coach built cars. So Zagato would work with either very well-heeled customers or in some cases, brands themselves to rebody cars with a new design. It's just, it's just really, really good stuff. And, and Ken's quickly becoming my favorite guy producing anything for Jalopnik. I think his stuff is really, really interesting. And he has obviously a fantastic skill with the camera, which, uh, which really sells the whole thing. So I highly recommend an inside look at Zagato, one of the world's wildest coach builders. Oh, nice. |
| Jason Heaton | I'll check that out for sure. Well, maybe it's time to wrap this baby up so we can, you can get it editing it and we can get it live tomorrow. Yeah. Feel free. Well, as always, thanks so much for listening. Hit the show notes for more details. You can follow us on Instagram. I'm at Jason Heaton. James is at J.E. Stacey. And follow the show at The Graynado. If you have any questions for us, please write to thegraynado at gmail.com. And please subscribe and review wherever you find your podcasts. Music throughout is Siesta by Jazzar via the Free Music Archive. |
| James | And we leave you with this quote sent in by Ashley in Nashville. It's an old hymn that Arthur Hayes Sulzberger retained as his motto during his years with the New York Times around World War II. Lead kindly light, keep thou my feet, I do not ask to see the distant scene, one step enough for me. |