5 Smart Uses for Your Old Clock

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Technological waste is real, especially for enthusiasts who are constantly upgrading their gear. I personally have a bunch of old phones, and to keep them from gathering dust in the closet, I turned one into a dashcam, the other into a security camera. The same can’t be said for my old smartwatches, but should it be?

While big companies like Samsung and Apple are still removing chargers from their inner box contents in the name of protecting the environment (and selling them separately, gasp!), there’s something we can all do. Although we may not directly use our tech gadgets, sometimes the best way to recycle is to repurpose.

When you remove the notifications and stress of health metrics from a smartwatch, you’re left with a powerful, compact computer that can serve many purposes. If your smartwatch has a decent processor, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and a display to work with, you can use it well. In this guide, we’ve put together a list of five smart ways to give your old smartwatch a new lease on life.

Since phones became “smart,” many things have changed. Cameras, music players, and even alarm clocks, no longer need to be separate devices. However, if you like to be a little different, try turning the smart watch lying in your closet into a beauty desk clock.

To do our job, first you’ll need to buy a cheap stand (or make one) to dock the watch to your liking. Then you can keep it permanently connected 24/7, making possible battery damage negligible. If your device supports always-on mode, you can customize the watch face to show the watch how you like it. There are a gazillion looks available in the Google Play Store and App Store to help match the vibe of your space.

If you want a watch that does nothing but show you the time, Pomodoro Timer is the best app, especially for Wear OS watches. If you have an Apple Watch, the Nightstand mode works surprisingly well, and will show the time when you touch the table top it’s sitting on.

Dedicated baby monitors are incredibly expensive. For the price of a budget smartphone, you usually get a low-resolution camera and mediocre features. If it has Bluetooth, Wi-Fi, and a microphone, your classic smartwatch can serve that purpose just as well, if paired with the right app. For example, we used the Cloud Baby Monitor app to turn the Apple Watch into a baby monitor, enabling live feeds over Wi-Fi, cellular data, or Bluetooth and automatic alerts when motion or sound is detected.

You can leave the watch on the shelf or tie it securely in a safe place and easily use it to listen or quiet your child. You won’t be able to watch your baby, as smartwatches don’t come with a camera, but they do make for excellent audio monitors. With this setup, you can continue to mow your lawn or water your plants while your baby sleeps. As soon as they wake up, the smart watch will detect the sound and send you a notification via the baby monitor app.

You can also give your child your old smartwatch and let them play freely in the area if they are not ready for their full smartphone yet. This way, you will be able to find them with the Find My app with GPS. If the watch supports LTE, you can communicate with each other to know where you are.

One of the best ways to use your old Apple Watch or Samsung Galaxy Watch with LTE/4G is to give it to an elderly person in your life to act as an emergency dialer. To fix it, remove all apps from the phone, leaving the dial app on the main face, and emergency contacts with just a swipe. If using the small touchscreen is a problem, you can also set up the Siri or Gemini voice assistant so that the adult in your life can easily say “Hey Siri, call my grandchild.”

Many modern wearables also come with fall detection features. On my Samsung Galaxy Watch4, this feature is called Hard fall detection and can be turned on by going to the Galaxy Wearable app > Watch settings > Safety and emergency > Hard fall detection. This feature is named differently on smartwatches of different brands – it’s simply called Fall Detection on the Apple Watch – but they all alert emergency services and emergency contacts when the wearer falls hard and doesn’t move.

The best part is that you don’t need to buy an expensive full data plan for this to work. Most network providers offer wearable-only plans that are more than adequate. In addition to this, a smart watch with capable sensors can also work as a smart health tool, monitoring continuous heart rate, ECG, sleep cycle, and sometimes even blood pressure – as long as the adult using it is comfortable with that.

If you like to ride a bike, you probably know that the best cycling gadgets, especially dedicated cycling computers from Garmin and other brands, are very expensive. If you have an old smartwatch, you can put it to good use for multi-tasking. There are several cycle mounts available for smart watches, where all you have to do is remove the watch from the straps and fix it on the mount. Alternatively, you can also use a strap to attach the watch to the handlebars of your cycle.

To use a smartwatch as an advanced display of speed, distance, and health metrics, you’ll need a dedicated app. You can use apps like Strava or Speedometer on smartwatches directly from the smartwatch. The heart rate monitor won’t work without wearing the watch on your wrist, but you can connect it to a cheap chest strap using Bluetooth if you really care about that data. GPS is as accurate as a phone, and you can use it for navigation. When AOD mode is on, you can just give your smartwatch a quick glance on your wrist and get details about your speed, time, and map data.

Battery life is the only real concern with this use, but even an old smartwatch with a damaged battery should last a few hours, enough to get you through a Sunday. If you want extra juice for a long trip, plug in a powerbank.

While modern cars with steering wheel mounted controls, Apple CarPlay, and Android Auto make controlling music while driving easy to manage, an older car with a basic Bluetooth connection or an auxiliary 3.5mm jack presents a major struggle. Fumbling with your phone to change songs or answer calls can be dangerous and illegal in many places. However, you can also open Spotify on your old smartwatch and connect it to your car.

From there, just strap the watch to your steering wheel, and you can keep the ability to play, pause, skip tracks, and even adjust the volume for easy access. If you have a Samsung Galaxy Watch, the rotating bezel can act as a volume knob. On top of this, if you receive a call on your phone, you can answer, talk, or cancel it right from the smartwatch itself, as it will be connected to your phone.

This setup eliminates the need to navigate through menus or turn on the phone’s screen and get distracted during the entire process. You can also set a simple routine that will keep the watch on whenever it detects that it’s charging.