I am looking at replacing my garmin in the near future as long as the battery life is at least a week and would love to go for an as EU as possible replacement below the 300 euros mark.

The Nothing watch was my first pick due to price for quality, but knowing this I would like to look at alternatives instead.

[–] JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nl 2 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

No, nobody manufactures in the EU. It is all done in china and india. European electronics manufacturing is mostly for high-margin or high-spec industries like medical, industrial, and B2B products where the cost of manufacturing and the high cost of assembly labor are acceptable.

Polar at least used to do their designs in-house which is how their H-series chest straps became the gold standard for heart rate measurement during activities. They have been doing bio-sensing applications since the 1970s so they definitely have the skill in-house. They also have thousands of employees, so they have the manpower to develop the devices. They also don't have too many devices, though they seem to be releasing more watches recently.

Withings is much smaller, and they release MANY more devices. Based on their job postings, it seems they have design teams in both france and china. They likely design some of the devices in france and some in china. It's a toss up with them it seems, but that is still much more integrated and to the benefit of europe industry than Nothing, as a comparison.

[–] Kualdir@feddit.nl 1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

You sir are a legend, thank you for all the information! Will most likely be going for Polar knowing all this