Thoughts on Apple Watch?

[Expat]

I just recently got my first personal cell phone, an Apple iPhone 15. I was looking through the Health app that comes on it. Now that has me thinking about getting an Apple Watch to better track my exercise and sleep. The daughter also is encouraging me to get one because of the fall detection.
In looking at the options, some say they are cellular and some don't. Why do I need cellular? I thought they connected through the cell phone. I see my phon service wants to charge $5 extra for an apple watch. What is that for? How do they even know I have it and using it in coordination with my phone?
Which Watch? I see the cheaper 9's are aluminum. Does this irritate your skin? If you get the stainless, they are almost the same price as the Ultra 2. Why would someone stay with the 9 at that point?
This is all new to me and I don't know what I don't know.

 

[OneBadV8]

I just recently got my first personal cell phone, an Apple iPhone 15. I was looking through the Health app that comes on it. Now that has me thinking about getting an Apple Watch to better track my exercise and sleep. The daughter also is encouraging me to get one because of the fall detection.
In looking at the options, some say they are cellular and some don't. Why do I need cellular? I thought they connected through the cell phone. I see my phon service wants to charge $5 extra for an apple watch. What is that for? How do they even know I have it and using it in coordination with my phone?
Which Watch? I see the cheaper 9's are aluminum. Does this irritate your skin? If you get the stainless, they are almost the same price as the Ultra 2. Why would someone stay with the 9 at that point?
This is all new to me and I don't know what I don't know.

You should be able to just connect to your phone through Bluetooth. If they do have cellular then it would work without the phone for calls, text etc.

I have a Garmin Venu and I like it better in a lot of ways. However, it doesn’t have fall detection if that’s a feature you like

Edit: Looks like fall detection is standard is a lot of the new models, mine is older. Also has like a 7 day battery life.

 

[04FXSTS]

I have no real first hand knowledge of these but my wife got one about 2 years ago. She upgraded her Apple/Verizon I phone then and got a watch to go with it. Used it a couple months and that was it. Took it off her plan and threw it in a drawer never to be seen again. Her biggest complaint was the battery would not stay charged long enough to be practical. Jim.

 

[Peacekeeper3073]

Got the 1st edition Ultra last year. Works really well. First yearly physical with it compared some of the numbers to the doctor's equipment. Blood oxygen and heart rate were within a couple of points as their devices. Makes me more aware of activity as well by setting goals such as steps, exercise, etc.

 

[INP8riot]

I don't need a watch to tell me I suck at one more thing in life!

 

[tmschuller]

I wasn’t a big fan when I got one.. but now it’s practical and useful. Depends on your needs and what you want to do with it. I can see and answer messages in meetings or use it for several applications and not have to pull my phone out at work.. no phone usage unless you’re stationary.
It’s handy and practical for many applications for me.. I use it daily and now would buy another. You might be surprised like me and find it useful. My .2$ worth. Good luck!

 

[laf]

I had an apple watch series 1 for about 18 months. It integrates very well with the apple software on their phone. Same UI, same battery problems. If you want it for sleep tracking you'll have to charge it during the day. I could only get about 18-20 hours out of my watch. Wife has a series S I think, it's about 3 years old and it's down to 16 hour battery but was never above 24 hours.

Cellular lets you send/get text, make/receive calls, get weather, all while you left your phone at home. Not worth $60 a year and $80 watch premium in my book.

I found that I was annoyed by notifications on my watch and disabled most of them. It was driving me nuts to feel my wrist vibrate every few minutes with emails from work, spam, promotions, texts, app updates about shipping or sales. Dragging my mental health down so I disabled almost all of them but then what was the point of the apple watch? And they were very prone to scratching so I had to spend $15 on a case for it too. Not so with my Garmin.

So I switched to a Garmin Fenix 5+ for 3 years and now using an Instinct 2 for the last month. Weeks of battery life, all day heart rate, pulse ox, gps, compass, barometer, sleep tracking, respiration rate, heart rate variability.

I thought I'd use the health tracking abilities more, but I found that I didn't want to write down everything I did to try and correlate what was happening. Was it the steak and onions why I had a bad sleep score or was it I was up late, stressed from work, kid didn't have a good nap so they were needy, water intake too low? I guess you should decide what you want the watch to do and then go find a watch that does that for you. There's a lot of other choices in fitness tracking that may do what you need.

 

[Pepi]

I've got the older series 3. I really didn't use it much until the 'Clockology' software came out. You can make your own faces or use faces made by others. Wear it every day now. And, Clockology is FREE

 

[Haven]

Like most things, it all depends on what you want to do with it, and what your expectations are.

I have had two Apple Watches. I got a 3, then upgraded to the 8. I did turn off a lot of notifications because I don't use the watch that way. I have Text messages, Phone calls, and a few other apps that notify me. The rest I turn off. Then again, I turn off a lot of those notifications on my phone as well.

My 8 has the cell service. So if I forget my phone at home I can take calls, and make calls without the phone. I can send and recieve text messages even without the phone. If this isn't a concern for you, don't get the one with cell service. That $5 per month that Verizon charges is for the cell service. My battery lasts around two days. I just charge it overnight while I sleep. Though I have friends who drop their Apple watches on the charger while they go take a shower in the morning and they sleep with the watch on at night so it will track their sleeping.

My kid couldn't deal with the Apple Watch, mostly because they wanted all the notifications on, and would burn through the battery in 6 hours.

 

[MrSmitty]

If it had fall prediction, or fall prevention, then I would be in....

 

[JCSR]

My wife is on her second Apple Watch. I have observed that they are useless to me for tracking health because they have to be charged daily. If you work a job and want to monitor sleep this becomes a PITA. Fast charging does help if you have the time and remember to charge it. This is why I have stayed with the Fitbit Versa line. The Versa line needs charging every 3 days. The Fitbit monitors sleep, heartrate, HR varible, resting HR, has GPS, phone connection etc.

Pretty much every flagship Apple Watch model has touted an 18-hour “all day” battery life, meaning with average use, your smartwatch should need to be charged once daily. Models from the Apple Watch Series 7 onward support fast-charging, bringing the device from dead to 80% in just 45 minutes, so your watch doesn’t need to spend too much time tethered to a charger.

 

[JCSR]

If it had fall prediction, or fall prevention, then I would be in....

Apple Watch and a few others have this. We have thought about getting my MIL one but she has dementia and would not wear it or keep it charged. We tried the necklace thing and she would remove it constantly.

 

[OneBadV8]

Apple Watch and a few others have this. We have thought about getting my MIL one but she has dementia and would not wear it or keep it charged. We tried the necklace thing and she would remove it constantly.

he said prediction and prevention… not detection

 

[Expat]

Thanks everyone. I went ahead and bought one of the mid level ones. I guess we will see how it works out.

 

[Hoosier8]

I like my Dick Tracy watch. I can answer my phone on it when I don’t know where the phone is in the house and I can actually hear the caller. I get my email messages on it and when using the map app it comes up with turns. If I go for a walk after about 15 minutes it asks if I want to record it. If I wear it overnight it tells me my resting heart rate.

I take it off if I hand crank my Model T Ford because it asks me if I fell. LOL

 

[Old Dog]

I can barely, adequately, see the screen on my phone. Don't even want to try to see a watch sized screen. I dumped my digital Timex back in 1979 because I never could tell what time it was in the dark or bright sun.

 

[DoggyDaddy]

However, it doesn’t have fall detection if that’s a feature you like

Back in my day, we didn't need a watch to tell us when it was fall. The leaves would start changing colors.

And if you mean "fall" as in "fall down"... We always knew when we'd done that too!

 

[Basher]

I got an Ultra last year at the suggestion of my cardiologist and with some urging from the wife. I’m middle-aged but have advanced atherosclerosis thanks to some bad genes that cause my body to process calcium and cholesterol poorly. The activity/health tracking and heart monitoring have been helpful and reassuring, and the ability to place a call to 911 quickly and without needing a phone were a big plus since I drive a good ways in rural areas between work and home.

Ultimately I probably don’t use the watch to it’s full potential, but it has come in handy a few times. I could likely live just fine without one, but again all of this cardiology stuff is still new to us and right now the added security blanket has been beneficial.

As for charging, mine will last more than two days by turning the night mode on and generally charges fully in less than an hour. While I shower/shave I put it on the charger and it’s all topped off when it would have been off my wrist anyway.

 

[chezuki]

Depends on your needs/wants. I love mine and feel naked without it.

My wife’s actually helped her identify undiagnosed afib. She kept feeling “weird” and ran the ecg when she was feeling this way. Watch registered “signs of afib”. She was able to provide the doc the event record. Doc agreed and confirmed with follow up tests.