It’s not always easy to pull out your phone, especially if you’re sitting. You don’t always have free hands. Your phone isn’t always on your person. Stuff like that. Also, it’s really nice to, at a glance, see what the notification is and know that you don’t even have to bother pulling out your phone.

So, I teach. Having a text just go “zzt” on my wrist, I can check the sender at a glance, and if it’s important, check the phone. Same with calls. Otherwise I can dismiss it and check later.

I also have my watches set up with reminders for things lile “10 mins left to class” that silently buzzes in my wrist so I know to wrap up, and both track my movement and sleep. Fun bits of data for myself, to see if I’m sleeping poorly or being as lazy as I think I am one day. The pebble even has an 8:30PM wrap-up for the day that tracks my average steps and lets me know if i’m ahead or behind my usual.

They’re useful when a phone would be too many features or too much noise.