I'd hazard to guess watch enthusiasts would be less likely to like smart watches because they don't really provide the same value/draw. I have an Apple Watch because it's basically just an excuse to touch my phone less. I don't need to take it out when I get a notification, or when I'm listening to music and want to skip a track. I don't wear it as a fashion statement or with hopes I can pass it down for generations. It's just a phone accessory.

I'm a "watch person" and I wear watches 95% for fashion reasons. It's occasionally convenient for actually telling the time when I wear one, but it's not my default action because I only wear one 1/3 of the time when I leave the house and never at home.

I have no interest in wearing a smart watch because I'd never have it without also having my phone, and my phone has maybe a few notifications per day at most when not actively using it - I massively filter my email via aliases, my work notifications go only to my work laptop, and texting with friends usually happens on my laptop. I don't care about the health features.

I also love mechanical watches and own a handful. But I also love the convenience to pay with my apple watch. The way I solved it: I wear my apple watch on the right arm and a "real" watch on the left.

I do this at times when working from home. Never had the guts to actually do this in public. Maybe a fitness band with a real watch

I even tried wearing the Apple Watch upside down on my dominant hand, but very easy to damage the watch that way

There's the Sony Wena which is basically a smart watchband with NFC payment, which seems like the concept that you and GP wants.

That would be amazing (especially if it was an Apple product).

I wear a nice mechanical watch every day, but I do own an Apple Watch to use if I have to be reachable while doing something where getting at a phone would be inconvenient. It's pretty great for that purpose.