When I was in high school, all I wanted was a Baby-G Casio watch — partly because it came in fun colors, partly because all the cool kids had one. When I finally convinced my mom to buy me one, I loved it to bits until its battery died much later. It’s been over 20 years since then, but as Y2K fashion invades my TikTok algorithm, I’ve been thinking a lot about how my watches were just watches that looked OK. Sometimes I feel like I want to go back to those days… then I remember that the main reason I turned to smartwatches was step tracking.
And then I found out about the Casio WS-B1000, which costs only $55.95, syncs with your phone for a while, and tracks steps. What!?
It’s not surprising that today’s Casio watches can be more than the analog watches of my youth. Still, I hadn’t thought to check. Never mind that I reviewed a more robust Casio Wear OS watch a few years ago — it was a massive multisport watch at a time when the Wear OS battle bus had a perpetual flat tire. But after a little digging, it turns out that Casio has upgraded a few of its watches to have a bit more fitness tracking functionality while still keeping that classic Casio design.
The WS-B1000 is one such watch, although it keeps things very simple. No optical heart rate monitor, OLED display, fancy health sensors, contactless payments or LTE connectivity. This device has Bluetooth to connect to your phone, an accelerometer to track steps, your classic stopwatch and timer functions, alarms, movement reminders, and an LCD screen with a backlight button. In other words, smart enough to be considered a fitness tracker — but just barely.
A few years ago, this feature set probably wouldn’t have appealed to me. But these days I’m at a point in my fitness journey where I’m recovering from mental and physical burnout from prolonged overtraining. It’s a frustratingly long process, and to my surprise, what keeps me going are devices and apps that prioritize relaxation and simplicity over “hard.” Many current smartwatches throw active minutes, standing goals, calorie burn goals, and other goals at you—so many goals to accomplish each day that it can be overwhelming. So the fact that the WS-B1000 can only tracking steps or working as a stopwatch? That’s a plus.
And you know what? The three weeks I tested the WS-B1000 were delightful. I had forgotten how good it feels to set a simple step goal and try to reach it. With this watch, I could just look down and say, “Oh! It’s 4pm and I’m 2000 steps away. It’s 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 exactly how I wanted it. In terms of accuracy, I was usually within 500-1000 steps of my Apple Watch Ultra — which is pretty much a margin of error considering they were worn on different hands and I talk to my hands. But if you choose something like this, the overall goal is just to move more, and this is great for that.
There were other little things that I appreciated. Because the watch doesn’t need the sensors, chips, and huge battery of a smartwatch, it’s extremely light to wear. It only weighs 36 grams and for once I didn’t look like I had a giant hockey puck strapped to my wrist. Also, I’ve never had to worry about charging the damn thing – it runs on a CR2016 coin cell battery that lasts approx. two years.
The nice thing about the Casio app is that it automatically syncs the time, so you don’t have to sit around fiddling with buttons to reset the time or set alarms. (I am terrible on older watches at that; (I can never remember how to do it or which drawer I stuffed the user manual in.) You can program these things from your phone.
$56
The Casio WS-B1000 combines retro chic with step tracking, Bluetooth connectivity to your phone, and classic handheld features like a stopwatch, alarms, and timers.
Obviously, this won’t be the watch for people who want the most out of their smartwatch. But if, like me, you want to take a break from the gym-tech grind every now and then, or you like the cool, low-tech ideal of fitness, this is a great option. And may I remind you that it’s only $56?! Most basic trackers in this range tend to be fitness bands, while this is a cute, retro-chic Casio watch.
Alas, I only have two wrists, and as a wearable reviewer, I have to give Casio a whirl for the next smartwatch in my testing queue. But I have a pretty good feeling that between the products, this is the watch I’ll be reaching for.
