As someone who loathes jewelry on myself and has no interest in the watch culture, nonetheless I have an interest in smart watches I can monitor things with. I'm turned off by big ugly blocks with childish straps.. is there anything remotely attractive?

This might sound like an odd approach, but buying a small and cheap band (Xiaomi or Amazfit, even last or yesteryear's model) and try it for a while can be great.

You'll get decent tracking and alert management if that's what you're into. I won't be top notch but 95% there, and it will last for a week or two on a single charge instead of dying everyday .

Then after a week or two you'll know if you really cared about these numbers, how it helps you or not, and how you feel about the form factor.

Mine if off in a drawer most of the time and I get it out once every few weeks when hiking, but there is no sunk cost for something this cheap, and now I know I wouldn't have kept wearing something more advanced either.

Look into hybrid smart watches. Withings are fairly good, but there are a handful of alternatives. They're watches that use mechanical hands like a normal watch, but also include smart components like health tracking and notifications and things.

They tend to be less powerful than other smart watches (in particular, you won't be able to download arbitrary apps to the watch or deeply configure it), and if you want a dedicated health tracker, you're probably better off with a minimalist Fitbit or something similar, but I really like them. They strike a nice balance between providing me with useful things, and still looking like a decent looking watch.

The main companies in this space are Withings and Garmin.

Look at Amazfit. Oh, they market to folks who like squares too, but not only. Many of their more classically proportioned models take standard straps, and in several months of use I've found the Balance so delightful as to decide to stock a couple of spares; it's been reliable thus far, but I'm hard on a watch. (It has to keep up!) The customizability and programmability also can't be beat; the experience obviously takes heavy DX notes from Apple, but without almost all the overhead. And I get compliments!

Withings makes smartwatches that do not scream Apple Watch

Garmin is my typical recommendation for decent fitness watches with good battery life. The venue and vivoactive have bright high res screens with raise to wake or always on (with a big battery life hit). There are also things like the lily or the vivomove.

The straps are usually standard watch straps and easily changed.

I like my Coros Pace 2, it's round and looks like a normal watch, instead of the rounded rectangle/square slab of glass that was popularized by Apple Watch, an aesthetic I find terrible.

Try on the smaller versions (sometimes called "women's" versions), a few mms less make a huge difference.

Many smartwatches are simply too large, compared to regular watches.

This company which was reviewed in the article has a ton of smartwatches. This is the URL - https://www.colmi.info/ Pick what you like and then search for the same model on Aliexpress. You will usually find most of their models between $10 and $30.

Depending on what you find attractive, Sensor Watch?

https://www.crowdsupply.com/oddly-specific-objects/sensor-wa...

The straps on this one are replaceable if you'd rather have one made cloth or metal etc.

But, yeah, no denying it is a chunky monkey.

If you are interested in monitoring not the screen maybe a ring would be a better fit?

It sounds like fitness tracker bands or the rings would be a better fit for you

If you use an iphone, get a regular Apple Watch with a metal link strap.

Fossil?