This $56 Casio Watch Is a Step-Tracer’s Dream

When I was in high school, all I wanted was a Baby-G Casio watch—partly because it came in fun colors, and partly because all the cool kids had one. When I finally convinced my mom to buy me one, I loved it so much that its battery died years later. It’s been more than 20 years since then, but as 2000s fashion invades my TikTok algorithm, I often think about how my watches were just watches. consideration Nice. Sometimes I feel like going back to those days… then I remember that the main reason I got interested in smartwatches was to track steps.

Then I discovered the Casio WS-B1000, which costs just $55.95 and syncs with your phone for a while, And Tracing steps. What?!

It’s no surprise that today’s Casio watches are better than the analog watches I wore in my youth. Yet it never occurred to me to check this out. Never mind that I reviewed a Casio watch. Casio Wear OS watch is more durable A few years ago — this was a huge sports watch at a time when the Wear OS bus was suffering from the problem of permanent flat tires. But after a little research, it turns out that Casio She updated some of her watches. For more fitness tracking functionality while maintaining classic Casio design.

The WS-B1000 is one of those watches, though it’s pretty basic. It doesn’t have an optical heart rate monitor, an OLED display, advanced health sensors, contactless payments, or LTE connectivity. It does have Bluetooth to connect to your phone, an accelerometer to track steps, classic stopwatch and timer functions, alarms, move reminders, and an LCD display with a backlit button. In other words, it’s smart enough to be considered a fitness tracker—but barely.

A few years ago, this feature set might not have appealed to me. But these days, I’ve reached a point in my fitness journey where I’m recovering from the mental and physical fatigue caused by prolonged overtraining. It’s a long and frustrating process, and to my surprise, the thing that’s kept me going are devices and apps that prioritize convenience and simplicity over “hard work.” Many current smartwatches force you to set active minutes, standing goals, calorie burn goals, and other targets—so many goals to hit every day that it can be exhausting. So the fact that the WS-B1000 can Just Tracking steps or acting as a stopwatch? That’s a positive.

And you know what? The three weeks I tested the WS-B1000 were fun. I’d forgotten how great it was to set a simple step goal and try to achieve it. With this watch, I could just look down and say, “Oh! It’s 4 p.m. and I’ve done 2,000 steps. Time to go for a walk.” If I wanted to check my history, I could go to the Casio app and see a rough log. There was nothing fancy, and that’s just what I wanted. In terms of accuracy, I was generally within 500 to 1,000 steps of the Apple Watch Ultra — a fair margin of error considering I wear it on two different arms and talk with my hands. But if you’re going for something like this, the overall goal is simply to move more, and that’s perfectly fine.

There were other little things I liked, too. Since the watch doesn’t need sensors, chips, and a giant battery like a smartwatch, it’s remarkably lightweight. It weighs just 36 grams, and for the first time, I didn’t look like I had a giant hockey puck strapped to my wrist. I also never had to worry about charging the damn thing — it runs on a coin-sized CR2016 battery that lasts about 10 hours. Two years.

The nice part about the Casio app is that it automatically syncs the time so you don’t have to sit there and fiddle with buttons to reset the time or set alarms. (I awesome Back then, it was the same for old watches; I can never remember how to do it or which drawer I put the user manual in.) You can program it from your phone.

Obviously, this watch won’t be for people who want to get the most out of their smartwatch. But if you’re like me, and want to take a break from your fitness routine or if you prefer simple fitness, this is a great option. And let me remind you that it’s only $56! Most basic trackers in this range tend to be fitness bands, whereas this is a nice, stylish Casio watch.

Unfortunately, I only have two wrists, and as a wearables reviewer, I’ll have to swap the Casio for the next smartwatch on my testing list. But I have a pretty good feeling that this is the watch I’ll pick between the products.