OPINION: Less data; more time

When the first wave of smartwatches hit the mark over a decade ago now, the emphasis was on performance, metrics, and tracking. But have watch brands raced forward by deliberately standing still and embracing its place away from the technology rat race? Journalist and wellness entrepreneur Jenny Stewart ponders whether disconnection is the new black in the watch industry.

As both a writer and a wellbeing advocate — as well as a yoga teacher — I spend much of my time helping people tune in: to their breath, their bodies and their nervous systems. And yet, increasingly, I see people outsourcing that awareness to something worn on their wrist. A quiet vibration tells you to breathe. A ring closes to confirm you’ve moved enough. A sleep score greets you before you’ve even had your coffee, subtly shaping how you feel about your day before it has begun. We are living in an age where wellbeing has become measurable, trackable, and optimised and, if I’m honest, a little exhausting.

For the watch industry, this raises a strategic shift: the quantification of wellbeing is creating a divide, and for luxury brands, choosing not to participate in that data-driven race may be a long-term advantage. Let’s start with the reality. My Apple Watch can track everything from heart rate variability and resting pulse to step count, calories burned, respiratory rate, and sleep quality — complete with a neatly packaged score. On paper, it’s incredibly powerful. But there’s a tipping point where information stops being helpful and starts becoming noise.

As a parent of two children under four, I’ve had to switch off sleep tracking. Not because it’s inaccurate, but because it creates anxiety. When you already feel tired and are then told you’ve had a ‘poor’ night’s sleep, it reinforces the feeling. It becomes a narrative you carry into your day and one that disconnects you from your own instincts. This is something I see consistently in my work: data can pull us away from intuition. We stop asking, “How do I feel?” and start asking, “What does my watch say?” In a world that already feels overstimulating and demanding, it’s worth asking whether more inputs are really what we need.

When everything is tracked, nothing ever feels finished. There is always another metric to improve or another notification nudging you forward.”

From a business perspective, the rise of health-tracking technology is entirely logical. Consumers are more health-conscious than ever, preventative wellbeing is booming, and data offers a powerful sense of control. In uncertain environments, control feels like safety — and that’s a compelling proposition. Technology companies, led by Apple, have executed this shift brilliantly. The watch has been transformed from a simple timekeeping device into a personal health dashboard — a constant companion that interprets and evaluates your body in real time. For many consumers, that is not only useful, it’s also reassuring.

But it also introduces a subtle tension. When everything is tracked, nothing ever feels finished. There is always another metric to improve or another notification nudging you forward. Wellbeing risks becoming a performance — something to achieve rather than something to experience.

And this is where the watch industry begins to diverge. On one side, technology brands continue to push deeper into data, insights, and continuous engagement. On the other, the luxury watch sector — particularly heritage-driven, analogue-focused brands — is taking a more deliberate, and arguably more strategic, stance. Brands such as Rolex, Patek Philippe, and Cartier continue to focus on refinement rather than reinvention — evolving designs, deepening storytelling, and reinforcing long-term value through craftsmanship rather than functionality.

Alongside them, sport-led brands like TAG Heuer and Tudor occupy an interesting middle ground. They speak to performance, endurance, and precision, but through mechanical innovation and heritage — not biometric tracking. And this is where newer players like Norqain feel particularly relevant right now. Positioned around adventure, outdoor performance, and an active lifestyle, Norqain taps into the feeling of wellbeing rather than trying to measure it. It’s less about how many steps you’ve done and more about where those steps are taking you. They’re capturing something far more human — freedom, exploration, resilience  — the things we’re actually chasing when we talk about “wellbeing,” but that don’t translate neatly into a metric or a score.

Mechanical watches still offer something deeply human. They connect the wearer to skill, tradition, and a broader sense of time.”

Across all of these brands, innovation is far from absent. It is simply being expressed differently. Not through constant tracking, but through craftsmanship, engineering, and design. In fact, some of the most sophisticated developments in modern watchmaking are not about speed or immediacy, but about precision, longevity, and even slowness — how beautifully and intentionally time can be measured over decades, not seconds. What these brands are ultimately offering is something increasingly rare: disconnection. And, perhaps more importantly, time. In today’s environment, time — uninterrupted, unmeasured, fully present time — has become one of the most powerful status symbols. Luxury is no longer defined solely by materials or price points, but by experience. Increasingly, it is about how you live. The reality is simple: the more control you have over your time, the more “well-off” you are, in the truest sense.

This is where analogue watches take on a new, almost philosophical significance. They don’t demand your attention. They don’t interrupt your day. They don’t evaluate your performance. They simply mark time — quietly, elegantly and without intrusion. That restraint is not outdated. It’s radical. It also feeds into a powerful emerging dynamic: disconnection as a premium experience. In a culture that celebrates productivity and constant availability, being ‘always on’ has become the default. Choosing to switch off, therefore, becomes an intentional act — and intention carries value.

Luxury watch brands are, knowingly or not, responding to this shift. They are no longer just selling craftsmanship or heritage; they are offering permission. Permission to step away, to disconnect, to experience time without turning it into data. And this is the real opportunity. Consumers are not simply buying products, they are buying identities, values, and ways of living. The first wave of wearable technology was about empowerment through information. The next wave will be about discernment — understanding what genuinely supports wellbeing and what simply adds pressure.

And this is exactly where the luxury watch industry is uniquely positioned. Mechanical watches still offer something deeply human. They connect the wearer to skill, tradition, and a broader sense of time. They are designed to be passed down, not upgraded. There is no algorithm behind them, no need for constant interaction, no dependency on data.

By resisting the pressure to quantify everything, luxury watch brands are protecting something essential: the unmeasurable aspects of human experience. And in a world that is constantly asking us to track more, measure more, and optimise more, that might just be the smartest luxury positioning of all.

This article was first published in the May 2026 edition of Watch Insider.