I liked the color, but it was flimsy and floppy, and fell off more than once. It quickly started collecting dust in a drawer. Nothing like the real Nike Sport Band.
I recently saw someone wearing their red Apple Watch with a bright red silicone band and decided I wanted that look too. Apple’s watch bands are $50 though, surely I could find a third party band that didn’t have problems. But each one did. The band sticks out too far, or it rocks around the lug area on the watch, if it stays together at all. Every review showed the same problems I was used to seeing. Thin silicone or cheap plastics. Every band had huge flaws that would make them little more than junk. Even those from higher quality watch makers were often highly textured or featured “sport” padding and bumps like a large G-Shock watch from Casio. They looked too masculine, not the sleek and seamless look I was going for.
Finding the right fit or style for anything is always difficult, but with Apple Watch bands, there is an entire sea of bad ones. Some will look great in photos, but reviews will reveal a different story. Many are just cheap knockoffs of Apple’s watch bands.
Back when I first got an Apple Watch, I actually got a third party band. I wanted a red silicone band like the one I just got for my Apple Watch, but didn’t want to pay $50. So I bought one on Amazon. It was very thin, flimsy, and the connection to the Apple Watch itself was so poor that it actually came off my wrist during a walk home. Fortunately I noticed my Apple Watch sliding off my wrist before it could hit the ground. It wasn’t the first time a third party watch band would do this.
Apple made third party watch bands popular. They made more people look to watches for accessorizing and fashion. Unfortunately, that brought a lot of cheap clones. Sorting through them could be a full time job.
Hey, That’s Why I review!
Seriously, this is why I review watch bands. It’s not some pedantic, watch-obsessed thing. I just realized that it’s so hard to find a good band. Third party bands that actually put work into making a quality watch strap or band have to fight an uphill battle. Cheap knock-offs on Amazon have given third party watch straps a bad name, and I do try to fix that image, at least for the brands that deserve it. I spend far too long sorting through reviews, finding obviously fake reviews, sorting them out with browser plugins, and picking and testing watch bands.
Still, sometimes the search is fruitless. In trying to find a quality silicone strap with the same style as Apple’s bright red silicone ‘Sport’ band, I ended up buying… Apple’s band. Yeah, I couldn’t find a suitable replacement. I coughed up the $50 and bought the Apple watch band from Apple. Which, I realized I’ve never reviewed this, despite using a gray one with my first Apple Watch for years, so, expect a review of that eventually too.
The Curse of Popularity
I’m disappointed that I couldn’t find a better option. Before the Apple Watch, I found plenty of third party watch bands for my Pebble, which uses a standard watch strap. A “springbar” mechanism is what they call it. It was easier to find quality straps and bands back then because there wasn’t a market for knock-offs. People just wanted high quality bands for their timepieces. Now that the Apple Watch has become the most popular watch in the world, and lead to more consumers looking to style their watches to their unique tastes, the Apple watch band market has boomed. Thanks to the high cost of Apple’s bands, cheaper competition flooded the market. Unfortunately, it’s mostly junk.
Amazon and other online retailers don’t help the problem. By selling knock-offs and fakes, they make selling junk profitable. A manufacturer often creates a large volume of these straps and sells them through a retailer that is allowed to slap their own branding on it. These retailers come and go as quickly as possible, so they never have to stand up to actual reviews, criticism, or refunds. This is especially popular with Chinese companies, many are just temporary subsidiaries of certain manufacturers. That’s why you can find so many third party watch bands that look identical to each other, even though it’s a “unique” design, not a direct Apple knock-off.
I typically buy all my accessories for reviews myself (and will state otherwise when reviewing a gift). That leaves me to buying fewer items because, let’s face it, I don’t run Leaf & Core for profit. This is just a (sometimes) fun hobby of mine. That means I can’t spend hundreds or thousands of dollars buying up Apple Watch bands. Still, I’ll do my best to keep reviewing everything I slap on my wrist. I know it can be hard to find the right band, but for now, my advice is to avoid retail sites like Amazon or AliExpress. Knockoffs just aren’t worth your time.