I plug my phone in to charge at the same time. It's really not a big deal.
The only time it might matter is if I was doing a weekend camping trip or something, at which point the connected features of the Apple watch are less useful and a minimalistic Garmin would make more sense.
Edit: People aren't reading carefully. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27321770 clearly means what I've stated and then the parent says that they must not have tried charging their watch at some other time.
At the start I was able to use the sleep tracking to troubleshoot sleep issues and improve. After that, it’s mostly a warning system for when I may need to nap later (and thus plan for it) or make sure to get to bed early.
The steps are also a fun social thing. My dad and I talk about them and have streaks of 10,000. If we handle our days well, that’s what we’d get anyway. But somedays, you slack. Being accountable to each other is a fun game and we walk more and are happier for it.
The key to this kind of tracking is you mostly don’t think of it. It happens automatically in the background.