Living with Moto 360

I’ve been using the Moto 360 for a while now, but this is the first time I’ve swapped the strap. The stock one isn’t bad, supposedly genuine leather, but I wanted to mess with it anyway, and the matching band wasn’t expensive. The Moto 360 theoretically supports most mainstream watch straps, though I don’t know those markets — I’d never worn a watch before the Moto 360.

The band I bought is a black metal strap designed for the Pebble. According to the many people who went before me online, it’s one of the best-fitting bands for the Moto 360, and it’s cheap too — $19–20, with direct shipping to China.

This isn’t my first time buying something shipped straight to China, so I have some experience. You write your address honestly in pinyin, pick China as the country, pay with a credit card, and wait. The people who went before me said it ships from Singapore and should take about 5–7 days to reach China.

In reality, two weeks passed with no news… until one day I found a notice posted downstairs:

“XX Li, you have an international registered letter. It cannot be delivered because the address is incomplete. Please contact the XXXX post office.”

What the hell. Did this idiot not write my phone number on the address? Also, who is XX Li? Did the post office read the foreigner’s reversed surname-first-name format straight through? Did they turn “Li” into “Li”?

So I called the post office and went in person to get the strap back…

So once I had it, I started swapping.

The Pebble strap comes with a tool that lets you pry off the Moto 360’s original band, pull out the pin holding the strap, and put the new one on. By the way, since the new band uses a metal butterfly clasp, its length isn’t adjustable out of the box — luckily it supports removing links so you can control the length. As for how to swap it, tutorials are everywhere online, even videos — just search.

At first I made the strap too short. It fit just right when worn, but had no room to move, so I had to add a link back. It’s a bit loose now, but acceptable.

Final result:

So, my impressions:

First, compared to the original strap, the metal one feels better — at least it looks a bit more mature. It’s also faster to put on than leather; it’s a butterfly clasp, so you just snap it shut, and taking it off is easy too. The downside is it’s a bit loose; the overall length is awkward — add a link and it’s too long, remove one and it’s too short. To promote blood circulation I had to add a link. One last thing: if you exercise often, leather is better. A watch with a metal band basically wobbles around when you run, so heart rate readings are bound to be off.