I silence (no sound or vibrate) my phone and rely on the watch for all notifications. It's really quite peaceful for me and everyone around me.

For me, the use case of a smartwatch is notifications. It lets me keep my phone on silent all the time without missing important messages or calls. Proper filtering is important so you don't get notification spam on your wrist but some notifications truly are important and checking them without taking out my phone, and even sending a quick reply, is awesome. I also use the "extend unlock" feature of Android which works with any Bluetooth device but especially well with one that is always on your wrist. Locating a lost phone is another great feature. Timers and alarms are a given of course. Maps navigation directions on your wrist can also be useful (but you get this for free with a proper implementation of notifications).

To me the paradox of the wearables market is that it seems like the only reason people buy them is as fitness trackers which they are actually pretty bad at. The numbers they report might as well be made up in many cases, and the weird metrics they provide aren't useful. The sensors make the watch thicker and less comfortable too. Meanwhile, it's actually super useful to have phone notifications on your wrist, but people don't seem interested, and e.g. Android Wear really sucks at it. (Can't speak for the Apple Watch as I don't have an iPhone, but I've always felt that the hardware design was ugly.)

In certain situations it also greatly helps when there's a high rate of notifications due to some activity (sometimes I work events, for example), and there it can be helpful if you are part of a group of folks who are using messaging to coordinate in real-time to be able to not have to dig out your phone constantly to stay caught up. Typically you'll read many more messages than you'll write, so optimizing for reading without breaking your workflow (such as if you're working with your hands, walking, or doing something else) is practically a game changer.

Also, for me, I spent many years without a watch because it seemed superfluous during the cell phone era. And for a while when I owned a smartwatch I had only used it during events when I really needed it to keep up with a near continuous communication stream. But I spent a while experimenting with just wearing it everyday, partly to help with maintaining a more consistent schedule, especially with sleep. I have alarms (which just vibrate) on my watch to remind me when it's time to go home from work and when it's near bed time. That may seem like overkill but they are very unobtrusive and they've made it much much easier to avoid staying very late at work or staying up too late for no good reason. Also, I switched to using a cloth (NATO) watch band which makes wearing a watch much more comfortable than with a plastic or even leather band, in my experience.

Overall I've been wearing a smartwatch essentially every day for about two years now and I wouldn't go back easily. It's nice to just have a watch when you need it, it's nice to get notifications less intrusively, it's nice being able to leave your phone on silent forever, it's nice having a step counter without having to worry about it, it's nice having a way to control fitness apps like STRAVA so that I can go on a bike ride and see how many miles I've ridden, my average pace, etc. (although they dropped support for pebble unfortunately).

The thing I like particularly about pebble, and the reason I haven't upgraded since then even though I could easily afford it (I've even resorted to running an old version of STRAVA on my phone that still works with pebble) is that it's always on (it has a transflective LCD display), has weeklong battery life, and in general it doesn't try to be a 2nd smartphone just a complement to my existing smartphone. Unfortunately, so many other smartwatches seem to fall into the trap of being blingy high-status toys that are expensive and flashy but have super short battery life and displays that are only on sometimes. I wear my pebble when I go hiking or camping, starting from a full charge it works just fine as a regular watch even with my smartphone off.

Let's set aside whether you or I want to live that way, or if we think it's rude. It's their reality. A smart watch might be really useful for those folks if it works well.

That's the key--if it works well. The first iPhone didn't do much that any other smart phone did. It just did those things way better. Same with iPod and MP3 players. It seems at least possible to me that a similar jump is possible with smart watches.

I do own a smart watch, but I don't use it in the typical manner.

I don't ever want to see notifications on my wrist. People seem to think it's ok to read notifications in situations where looking at a phone would be rude, such as at dinner or whilst having a conversation.

I wear mine when doing sport. I like that I can play music and track my activity without my phone.

And I wear mine when navigating cities. I like that I can pay for public transport and check map directions without making myself a target by getting my phone out.

Other than that, I don't wear mine. I don't see the point of wearing it day to day.

How hard is it to take out your phone, which is with you in your pocket or on your desk already anyway to see a notification?

For me, the point of a smartwatch is that it serves as a secondary interface to my phone. I like that my phone stays in my pocket more, because then I'm less likely to be rude because of my phone, or to have to drag it out just to see what that notification was.

I've owned and used an earlier Garmin watch for running and I loved it, but eventually stopped using it because I just didn't need to maintain another separate device. But clearly you're up to something else than me.

In any case, I wear it mostly for the health monitoring. Notifications as described above are a benefit for me, but I would probably not wear it for that alone.

What are some examples? Doing any physical work is a perfect example. Maybe you're cooking, or plugging together and configuring a rack full of networking or AV equipment, or soldering, or building a house, or basically doing any of the million things people do every day where an interruption long enough to check a smart phone is a serious disruption to the flow of work.

And what happens when you're not just receiving 1 notification per hour or even every 10 minutes but perhaps 10 notifications in 1 minute? Not all day, but all it takes is 10 notifications per minute to happen once or twice a day to make having a smart watch worthwhile.

It may not be the sort of thing that is ever useful to you, but that's fine, don't buy one. But they are plenty useful for a lot of people.

The Moto 360 looks great. The only issue I have with smart watches is battery life. It does seem pretty crap to have to charge a watch.

* EDIT: Yes, I could just ignore notifications more, or turn them off, but generally I've configured it so that the notifications I get are ones that I actually want.