Gadgets, Gizmos, and Thingamabobs

This week, one of the foxes asked, “What’s your favorite gadget?”

Merriam-Webster defines gadget as “an often small mechanical or electronic device with a practical use but often thought of as a novelty.” Since I don’t cook, clean, or garden, most of the gadgets I collect tend to be computer related.

I have my laptop, my iPad, my iPhone, and my watch, all Apple products. I get separation anxiety when I’m without the phone and watch. I wear the watch all day, and the phone is usually within arms’ reach. The two devices are both connected to my laptop, so I can use any of the three to send and receive phone calls and texts, and video connections (Skype and FaceTime), and I can access email on them all, too.

So which is my favorite? I guess I’d have to say it’s my watch. I know I’ve written about this watch before in my flash fiction story about inspirational jewelry called Watch the Watch, as well as my post about technology in my life “The Good Old Days”. But since those posts, I’ve learned even more about this gadget.

As I mentioned before, I wear it most of my waking hours. Before I got it, I hadn’t been in the habit of wearing a watch, since most places I go have clocks, but this little gadget does so much more than tell the time. Here are a few things I do with this watch:

1. I keep track of my exercise. On the Activities App, I keep track of steps walked each day, calories burned, and time I spend standing as opposed to sitting.
2. When I travel, I often use the GPS on my phone. Since the phone is connected by Bluetooth to my watch, I get a “tapping” signal on my watch whenever I get to an intersection where I have to turn. So I don’t have to look at my phone when driving. This works really well when I’m driving on busy city streets.
3. I can screen my phone calls. If someone calls and my phone is in my purse or in another room, I can glance at my watch to see whether it’s a call I should answer or simply let go to voicemail.
4. If I forget to silence my phone and it goes off when it shouldn’t – like during a class I’m teaching, in the middle of a rehearsal, or a church service – I can silence it by simply covering the watch face with my right hand.
5. In orchestra rehearsals, when I have long periods of time when the conductor is working with another section, I can check my emails and delete ones I know I’m not going to read, saving time later.
6. The watch face I use most often has the date, so if I’m writing a check or filling out a form, I just look at my watch to confirm the date.
7. It also has the current temperature, so I can glance at it to see if I need a jacket.
8. A banner across the bottom notifies me if I have an event on my calendar, and sends me a reminder when it’s time to leave, telling me what the traffic is like, and how long it will take me to get there.
9. I get alerts if I receive important messages either through text or email. A quick glance at my wrist tells me if they’re important enough to read the actual message.

Yeah, I know I’m more connected than most people, but I’m happy.

What gadgets do you use most often?

 

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