When comparing analog watches vs smartwatches, the truth is that a smartwatch is just a disposable gadget that straps anxiety and endless notifications directly to your wrist. Switching to a real analog watch, whether mechanical, quartz, or solar…is the ultimate Slow Tech move to reclaim your attention and invest in a distraction-free heirloom.

I am sitting in the sun down in Sarasota, waiting for a Spring Training practice to start. I look down at my wrist.

If I were wearing my Garmin, I wouldn’t just be checking the time. I would be checking my heart rate. I’d see it sitting at 84 BPM and immediately wonder why it isn’t my resting 65. Is it the Florida heat? The coffee? Am I getting sick? Then I would swipe to check my “Stress Score.” If the watch told me my stress was high, I would suddenly feel anxious about being stressed. I would check my “Body Battery” and watch it drain to 40%. Suddenly, I am no longer at a baseball game. I am in a medical diagnostic loop in my own head.

Instead, I am looking at a sweeping second hand on my Orient Kamasu. I see metal, sapphire glass, and a beautiful black dial. It isn’t measuring my Heart Rate Variability. Or anything else. It just tells me that it’s 11:58am.

We strap computers to our wrists because we think we need to optimize our bodies with an endless stream of metrics. But too much data leads nowhere good. All we really do is strap our anxiety directly to our skin, turning every natural heartbeat into a notification to be analyzed. More and more people in 2026 are ditching their smartwatch for exactly this feeling — and discovering a richer, calmer way to wear time on their wrist.

If you want to take a massive step into the Slow Tech lifestyle, take off the smartwatch. Buy a real watch. Though let me warn you, it’s an addictive hobby!

Continue reading “Ditching Your Smartwatch in 2026: The Ultimate Slow Tech Guide to Watches”

I found this bright red box in the Electronics section on the Goodwill website. It looked like a Fisher-Price toy, but something told me to Google it.

I bought it for $4.99.

It ends up being a medical-grade device designed for people with severe memory loss, retailing for nearly **$200**. Good fortune had me stumble upon a pretty awesome minimalist audio device.

Continue reading “The $5 “Dementia Radio” That Became the Ultimate Focus Tool”

I still use my 2024 Kindle Paperwhite for travel. It’s waterproof and has a warm light. But when I’m at home, sitting in my reading chair, I find myself reaching for something else: The 1st Generation Amazon Kindle.

I found this unit on Poshmark for $38, registered to a previous owner named “Paula.” It is in shockingly pristine condition—white plastic often yellows over 20 years, but this one looks like it just came out of the box.

Inside was a digital time capsule. A “personalized” letter from Jeff Bezos to Paula. A library jammed with Sue Grafton novels. And a frozen error message from 2010 where a credit card failed. Time warp time makes me happy!

Continue reading “Amazon Kindle 1st Gen Review: Is 2007 Hardware Worth It in 2026?”

This week’s Enter Safe Mode briefing looks at the “State of the Dumbphone” address, a physical brick that locks your apps, and the privacy-first device actually worth buying.

Continue reading “2026 Is Officially the Year of the Dumbphone”

I was deep in the weeds of Chapter 4 of my novel last Tuesday. The scene is set on a farm, and I realized I had used the word “barn” about fifty times in three pages.

I needed variety. I needed “pastoral.” I needed “agrarian.” I specifically wanted synonyms for “bucolic.”

Normally, this is the moment where I die. I hit CTRL + N to open a browser window. I type “bucolic synonym.” But while I’m there, I see a notification badge on Gmail. Or I spot a “Trending” headline about the Knicks.

Suddenly, it’s twenty minutes later and I have watched three videos of Billy Corgan talking about pro wrestling, and I have completely forgotten that I was writing about a farm.

It’s the Internet Tax. Every time you go online for something simple, you pay a toll in attention.

Continue reading “A Must-Have for Writers: The $7 Franklin MWD-1490 Electronic Dictionary”

How to turn a broken Zune into a distraction-free desk tool for deep work: tips on buying, setup, and more.

OK, so I bought an 8GB Zune on Poshmark for $22 because I wanted to try the Microsoft MP3 player I shunned back in the day. You know the one—wired headphones, retro device, looking mysteriously disconnected from the 5G grid.

I imagined pulling it out of my pocket before I long lunchtime walk, scrolling through the menu with that legendary “Squircle” touch pad, and enjoying 20 hours of battery life.

But when it arrived, reality hit me.

The battery was completely shot.

It holds a charge for exactly four seconds before the screen fades to black. It’s not a portable media player anymore; it’s a brick.

For a minute, I was ready to RePosh. I’ve never been a Microsoft fanboy—I wasn’t an iPod kid either. Maybe I was a Sansa dude? through and through. But holding the device, I realized something: I actually loved the feel of it. The matte plastic back, the weirdly futuristic typography, the “Hello from Seattle” etched on the back. It has personality.

So, I pivoted.

Continue reading “How a “Dead” 8GB Zune Became My Favorite Desk Accessory”

We live in an era of 48-megapixel phone sensors and AI-computational photography that fixes our skin before we even press the shutter. Everything is sharp. HDR-balanced. Basically, everyone is a perfect photographer.

Frankly, it’s boring.

The Kodak Charmera is some temporary relief. It’s a tiny, $30 camera sold in a “blind box.” You don’t know which of the 7 retro designs you’re getting until you lift the packaging. It shoots grainy photos that look like they were taken in the mid-2000s. And that is exactly why you need one.

Continue reading “Kodak Charmera Review: The Blind Box Digicam That Fits on Your Keys”