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I've read this answer (to What is Hardware) and saw the PCP examples, but I still don't have an answer for my question.

From those two examples (and especially their explanation in brackets) I tend to believe that it does count as on-topic:

  • Microphones (designed to interface with PCP)
  • Mixing consoles (primarily electronic, does meaningful work on its own. Therefore is PCP)

So, to be sure - is it on-topic to ask for recommendations about wearables?

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Well smart watches typically interface with a phone (PCP) and is more or less, a fairly fancy peripheral.

They're also distinct enough that they'd probably make for a good question. I'm going to cheat a lot, and pull in a set of tests Jeff suggested in the past for hardware recommendations on SU (they're good rules, in the wrong place).

This is a niche, and a clear "power user" niche.

I think the modern wearable is that - and they've not gotten that mainstream yet. Recommendations are probably going to be useful.

(edited to fit the next point to the situation)

This is no mere garden variety shopping question. It's very, very difficult to find smartwatch that dosen't have some kind of major shortcoming in practice. These tend to be uncommon, rare and specialized. Exactly the kind of obscure item you need expert assistance sourcing from your peers.

Do you want Apple, Tizen or Android Wear? Round/Flat tyre or square screen? OLED or Eink? Wireless or wired charging. The market hasn't quite gotten to the sort of semi commodity form factor yet that PCs and even phones have gotten to.

There's still a lot of churn in the market, at least 3 distinct OSes in use by major companies, and various feature choices. For example my current smartwatch has a upgrade path of a nicer model with an older non standard OS, or a newer model that drops features but runs AW2... all on the same hardware.

I scoured the web looking for good recommendation threads on this and found maybe three credible links, and most of those were already out of date! There simply isn't any good information on this on the internet, which means it passes all the Are Some Questions Too Simple tests with flying colors.

Yeah - but also, this is the site for hardware recommendations on SE, so this should be where the good information is.

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    Agreed. I don't see any reason for them not to be on-topic.
    – ArtOfCode Mod
    Commented Apr 23, 2018 at 19:38

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