Apple Watch's A Dud For Some Owners

[r0k]

I'm growing tired of my AW. I've worn it pretty much every day for close to a year now but here are some things I'm tired of...

1) Bluetooth. AW BT connection to my iPhone 6 is spotty at times. In the morning, I want to put my watch on, unlock my phone and my watch unlocks and stays unlocked until I take it off at night. This is not repeatable. I think the problem is unstable BT software on both the phone and the watch. I've had both replaced under AC and while slightly better, the intermittent connection continues to be a huge demotivator for wearing my AW. What good is a smart watch if my phone buzzes and when I glance down to see why all I see is a padlock on the watch face?

2) Inability to Globally Lock touch screen input. I loved my AW until the weather started getting cooler and I started wearing long sleeves. Now it just plain sucks. My sleeve invariably puts the watch off in the weeds so when I glance down to see what time it is, the watch is on some useless other screen my sleeve picked for me. The workout app has the ability to force touch to lock the screen. This should be a global setting so the touchscreen ignores all input until I'm really ready to interact with my watch. I like to use the utility screen so there is lots of data on the screen. If my sleeve touches the calendar area, I glance down to see what time it is and all I see is a list of the day's appointments. Lame. If my sleeve brushes the temperature, I don't see time, I see a weather forecast.

I could "solve" both of the above issues. I could remove applepay from my watch and eliminate the unlock code. I could go to a simpler watch face such that unintended taps would be ignored. But that's not why I purchased the AW. I already own watches that have a simple watchface that always works. I wanted complications layered on top of the time of day so I can see data at a glance without touching my watch. I also want the watch to ignore unintended touchscreen input. Of course I want Apple Pay to be available on my wrist so that means putting up with the AW unlock code which in turn puts a vivid spotlight on Apple's buggy bluetooth implementation.

3) Lack of meaningful fitness stats. I ran a marathon wearing my AW and all I got was 64000 steps. All my pace and other data was lost. The base workout and health apps should be at least as useful as those offered by competitors like Fitbit and Garmin. Sadly they are not. For this reason I went out and bought a Garmin Forerunner 220 I war for running. With my increasing dissatisfaction with AW, I'm considering a higher end Garmin model that displays text messages and I might just sell my AW and consider owning one again someday.

4) Lack of consistent Apple Pay availability. I don't care if the banks botched it. I don't care if the retailers botched it. I just want to use ApplePay so I'm not digging for my wallet. Even at Disney World, I had to use the Disney MagicBand for everything Disney including fastpass, roomkey, meals and purchases despite the fact initial AW testing was done at Disney! So I know the Disney terminals could have worked with AW. When I ran the Disney Marathon in January, I actually had 3 things on my wrist: My Garmin, My Disney MagicBand and my AW. The AW could have been the only thing I needed if Apple's end to end execution was up to snuff. If I have to dig my cards out some of the time, it means I must lug them with me so shelling out for a relatively expensive product to "replace" them doesn't make sense. Yet. And it might not make sense for years to come.

When and if I'll stop wearing and sell my AW is not clear but unless an upcoming software update radically increases Bluetooth reliability, I'm on a trajectory to put this experience in my rear view mirror.

 

[CJRhoades]

I'm growing tired of my AW. I've worn it pretty much every day for close to a year now but here are some things I'm tired of...

1) Bluetooth. AW BT connection to my iPhone 6 is spotty at times. In the morning, I want to put my watch on, unlock my phone and my watch unlocks and stays unlocked until I take it off at night. This is not repeatable. I think the problem is unstable BT software on both the phone and the watch. I've had both replaced under AC and while slightly better, the intermittent connection continues to be a huge demotivator for wearing my AW. What good is a smart watch if my phone buzzes and when I glance down to see why all I see is a padlock on the watch face?

2) Inability to Globally Lock touch screen input. I loved my AW until the weather started getting cooler and I started wearing long sleeves. Now it just plain sucks. My sleeve invariably puts the watch off in the weeds so when I glance down to see what time it is, the watch is on some useless other screen my sleeve picked for me. The workout app has the ability to force touch to lock the screen. This should be a global setting so the touchscreen ignores all input until I'm really ready to interact with my watch. I like to use the utility screen so there is lots of data on the screen. If my sleeve touches the calendar area, I glance down to see what time it is and all I see is a list of the day's appointments. Lame. If my sleeve brushes the temperature, I don't see time, I see a weather forecast.

I could "solve" both of the above issues. I could remove applepay from my watch and eliminate the unlock code. I could go to a simpler watch face such that unintended taps would be ignored. But that's not why I purchased the AW. I already own watches that have a simple watchface that always works. I wanted complications layered on top of the time of day so I can see data at a glance without touching my watch. I also want the watch to ignore unintended touchscreen input. Of course I want Apple Pay to be available on my wrist so that means putting up with the AW unlock code which in turn puts a vivid spotlight on Apple's buggy bluetooth implementation.

3) Lack of meaningful fitness stats. I ran a marathon wearing my AW and all I got was 64000 steps. All my pace and other data was lost. The base workout and health apps should be at least as useful as those offered by competitors like Fitbit and Garmin. Sadly they are not. For this reason I went out and bought a Garmin Forerunner 220 I war for running. With my increasing dissatisfaction with AW, I'm considering a higher end Garmin model that displays text messages and I might just sell my AW and consider owning one again someday.

4) Lack of consistent Apple Pay availability. I don't care if the banks botched it. I don't care if the retailers botched it. I just want to use ApplePay so I'm not digging for my wallet. Even at Disney World, I had to use the Disney MagicBand for everything Disney including fastpass, roomkey, meals and purchases despite the fact initial AW testing was done at Disney! So I know the Disney terminals could have worked with AW. When I ran the Disney Marathon in January, I actually had 3 things on my wrist: My Garmin, My Disney MagicBand and my AW. The AW could have been the only thing I needed if Apple's end to end execution was up to snuff. If I have to dig my cards out some of the time, it means I must lug them with me so shelling out for a relatively expensive product to "replace" them doesn't make sense. Yet. And it might not make sense for years to come.

When and if I'll stop wearing and sell my AW is not clear but unless an upcoming software update radically increases Bluetooth reliability, I'm on a trajectory to put this experience in my rear view mirror.

Your issue with the watch locking has nothing to do with Bluetooth. When I get out of Bluetooth range the watch stays unlocked and continues to be after the phone reconnects. Once the watch is unlocked, it should only relock itself if you take it off. For some reason, yours isn't detecting your wrist. This can happen if you're not wearing it tightly enough.

 

[Newtons Apple]

I'm growing tired of my AW. I've worn it pretty much every day for close to a year now but here are some things I'm tired of...

1) Bluetooth. AW BT connection to my iPhone 6 is spotty at times. In the morning, I want to put my watch on, unlock my phone and my watch unlocks and stays unlocked until I take it off at night. This is not repeatable. I think the problem is unstable BT software on both the phone and the watch. I've had both replaced under AC and while slightly better, the intermittent connection continues to be a huge demotivator for wearing my AW. What good is a smart watch if my phone buzzes and when I glance down to see why all I see is a padlock on the watch face?

2) Inability to Globally Lock touch screen input. I loved my AW until the weather started getting cooler and I started wearing long sleeves. Now it just plain sucks. My sleeve invariably puts the watch off in the weeds so when I glance down to see what time it is, the watch is on some useless other screen my sleeve picked for me. The workout app has the ability to force touch to lock the screen. This should be a global setting so the touchscreen ignores all input until I'm really ready to interact with my watch. I like to use the utility screen so there is lots of data on the screen. If my sleeve touches the calendar area, I glance down to see what time it is and all I see is a list of the day's appointments. Lame. If my sleeve brushes the temperature, I don't see time, I see a weather forecast.

I could "solve" both of the above issues. I could remove applepay from my watch and eliminate the unlock code. I could go to a simpler watch face such that unintended taps would be ignored. But that's not why I purchased the AW. I already own watches that have a simple watchface that always works. I wanted complications layered on top of the time of day so I can see data at a glance without touching my watch. I also want the watch to ignore unintended touchscreen input. Of course I want Apple Pay to be available on my wrist so that means putting up with the AW unlock code which in turn puts a vivid spotlight on Apple's buggy bluetooth implementation.

3) Lack of meaningful fitness stats. I ran a marathon wearing my AW and all I got was 64000 steps. All my pace and other data was lost. The base workout and health apps should be at least as useful as those offered by competitors like Fitbit and Garmin. Sadly they are not. For this reason I went out and bought a Garmin Forerunner 220 I war for running. With my increasing dissatisfaction with AW, I'm considering a higher end Garmin model that displays text messages and I might just sell my AW and consider owning one again someday.

4) Lack of consistent Apple Pay availability. I don't care if the banks botched it. I don't care if the retailers botched it. I just want to use ApplePay so I'm not digging for my wallet. Even at Disney World, I had to use the Disney MagicBand for everything Disney including fastpass, roomkey, meals and purchases despite the fact initial AW testing was done at Disney! So I know the Disney terminals could have worked with AW. When I ran the Disney Marathon in January, I actually had 3 things on my wrist: My Garmin, My Disney MagicBand and my AW. The AW could have been the only thing I needed if Apple's end to end execution was up to snuff. If I have to dig my cards out some of the time, it means I must lug them with me so shelling out for a relatively expensive product to "replace" them doesn't make sense. Yet. And it might not make sense for years to come.

When and if I'll stop wearing and sell my AW is not clear but unless an upcoming software update radically increases Bluetooth reliability, I'm on a trajectory to put this experience in my rear view mirror.

I stopped wearing mine most days, too. It is not worth selling and still wear it every once in a while. Fitbit does it for my Fitness needs and then some. I was disappointed in the AW's fitness aspects but it is still nice hardware that I think could be much better.

 

[r0k]

Your issue with the watch locking has nothing to do with Bluetooth. When I get out of Bluetooth range the watch stays unlocked and continues to be after the phone reconnects. Once the watch is unlocked, it should only relock itself if you take it off. For some reason, yours isn't detecting your wrist. This can happen if you're not wearing it tightly enough.

I know Apple has a rep for being nice but I think I would have gotten to level 2 Apple support and two advance replacements (one for iPhone 6 bluetooth and one for AW bluetooth) without dealing with the question of how loosely the watch was on my wrist. I've worn it tightly enough for the veins in my hand to bulge until FINALLY Apple came out with a woven band that has holes spaced between the hole spacing on the BSB I had been wearing. I've also tried some cheap third party bands but I didn't like them. The milanese loop would probably work better for me but I think I've already shelled out more than enough money trying to make this thing properly work for me. If I wander out of range of the phone, I see the red "no phone" icon but the watch remains unlocked. My complaint is it doesn't unlock when I know it should unlock.

I know I'm wearing it properly and the failure to unlock occurs after I take it off and put it back on but most often happens first thing in the morning when I put my watch on for the day. I take it off and put it back on multiple times a day and it should consistently unlock itself within a few seconds of unlocking my phone. It. does. not. About 70% of the time, the padlock disappears but the other 30% I'm faced with manually entering my unlock pin on my AW or walking around with a "locked" watch for "a really long time" until it decides it can unlock itself. Often if I reset my phone for other reasons, the unlock feature starts working again. During the failure to unlock events, at no time do I see the red "phone connection lost" icon on the watch face. In all cases, on the phone end it shows the watch as being connected even though often the weather won't update on the watch face (the sort of behavior I would expect if the phone was out of range). Sometimes if I go in and try to change the pin setting in the AW app on the phone, it says the watch is not connected and then I wind up resetting my phone to get it communicating again.

I must admit there were times when I was running (distances greater than 9 miles at a time) that the watch would lock itself because sweat on my arms would fool it into thinking I had taken it off but I stopped using it as a running watch many months ago and I don't care if AW loses its marbles during a run so nothing in this series of posts or in my interaction with Apple on this issue is affected by the performance of the watch when my arms are sweaty or I'm running in the rain or snow. I no longer expect AW to perform in those adverse settings. I just want it to unlock when it's warm and dry and 3 feet away from my iPhone as I'm getting dressed in the morning so I can deal with the stream of incoming texts I often get at that time of day without fumbling with my phone.

Another bit of evidence against Apple's bluetooth software stability is that my Garmin often fails to sync my run data to the (cheesy) Garmin Connect app on my iPhone via bluetooth until after I reset my phone. This happens intermittently but at least once every 3 or 4 days. Resetting my phone every 3 or 4 days is complete and total bullpoop and is not something that I expect from a product made by a company anywhere south of Redmond, Washington. Yet another strange issue is that the failure to unlock behavior depends on whether I have my bluetooth earbud on and connected when the watch wakes up. Not having my BT earbud already on and connected seems to greatly increase the odds of a failure to unlock.

 

[CJRhoades]

I know Apple has a rep for being nice but I think I would have gotten to level 2 Apple support and two advance replacements (one for iPhone 6 bluetooth and one for AW bluetooth) without dealing with the question of how loosely the watch was on my wrist. I've worn it tightly enough for the veins in my hand to bulge until FINALLY Apple came out with a woven band that has holes spaced between the hole spacing on the BSB I had been wearing. I've also tried some cheap third party bands but I didn't like them. The milanese loop would probably work better for me but I think I've already shelled out more than enough money trying to make this thing properly work for me. If I wander out of range of the phone, I see the red "no phone" icon but the watch remains unlocked. My complaint is it doesn't unlock when I know it should unlock.

I know I'm wearing it properly and the failure to unlock occurs after I take it off and put it back on but most often happens first thing in the morning when I put my watch on for the day. I take it off and put it back on multiple times a day and it should consistently unlock itself within a few seconds of unlocking my phone. It. does. not. About 70% of the time, the padlock disappears but the other 30% I'm faced with manually entering my unlock pin on my AW or walking around with a "locked" watch for "a really long time" until it decides it can unlock itself. Often if I reset my phone for other reasons, the unlock feature starts working again. During the failure to unlock events, at no time do I see the red "phone connection lost" icon on the watch face. In all cases, on the phone end it shows the watch as being connected even though often the weather won't update on the watch face (the sort of behavior I would expect if the phone was out of range). Sometimes if I go in and try to change the pin setting in the AW app on the phone, it says the watch is not connected and then I wind up resetting my phone to get it communicating again.

I must admit there were times when I was running (distances greater than 9 miles at a time) that the watch would lock itself because sweat on my arms would fool it into thinking I had taken it off but I stopped using it as a running watch many months ago and I don't care if AW loses its marbles during a run so nothing in this series of posts or in my interaction with Apple on this issue is affected by the performance of the watch when my arms are sweaty or I'm running in the rain or snow. I no longer expect AW to perform in those adverse settings. I just want it to unlock when it's warm and dry and 3 feet away from my iPhone as I'm getting dressed in the morning so I can deal with the stream of incoming texts I often get at that time of day without fumbling with my phone.

Another bit of evidence against Apple's bluetooth software stability is that my Garmin often fails to sync my run data to the (cheesy) Garmin Connect app on my iPhone via bluetooth until after I reset my phone. This happens intermittently but at least once every 3 or 4 days. Resetting my phone every 3 or 4 days is complete and total bullpoop and is not something that I expect from a product made by a company anywhere south of Redmond, Washington. Yet another strange issue is that the failure to unlock behavior depends on whether I have my bluetooth earbud on and connected when the watch wakes up. Not having my BT earbud already on and connected seems to greatly increase the odds of a failure to unlock.

Hm, dunno then. I've only had my watch for a few months but I can't say I've ever experienced any of the problems you are. Bluetooth works great, the watch doesn't lock itself, etc. I can't imagine you got two bad ones in a row but it is possible...

 

[r0k]

Hm, dunno then. I've only had my watch for a few months but I can't say I've ever experienced any of the problems you are. Bluetooth works great, the watch doesn't lock itself, etc. I can't imagine you got two bad ones in a row but it is possible...

There is one thing Apple support said that was very concerning to me. They wanted me to set up my iPhone from scratch. Again. I've done this a couple of times now in search of cures to my general bluetooth pain. This all started when my iPhone 6 would randomly change bluetooth sources faster than once a second during phone calls. It would bounce from my phone to my car to my earpiece faster than I could figure out where to go looking for the audio and callers on the other end must have thought I was either in a bad cell or just plain crazy.

After getting my iPhone 6 replaced, I never had this exact issue again though once or twice I had call audio switch to my phone from my earpiece without warning. I've decided to never use the car bluetooth again as 3 active audio sources at one time is more debugging than anyone should have to do and not get paid for it. Bottom line: Apple's (everybody's?) bluetooth implementation is buggy. Very buggy. I have had issues with Android phones I no longer own (Moto Razr M and a Samsung GS4) dropping bluetooth randomly as well. I use a Plantronics M70 earpiece and my searches haven't turned up any issues specific to Plantronics. BTW I should mention that for the first few months I had my AW, I too was completely happy. The reason I did a replacement on my AW is that when I was on with Apple L2 support trying to set up the watch as new (Again), the watch lost bluetooth to my phone DURING INTITIAL SETUP AS A NEW WATCH and at the time the phone wasn't having any other bluetooth symptoms. The inability of the watch to even get through first time setup without losing bluetooth was enough for Apple honor my request to replace it. The new watch is doing better. It will unlock most mornings and if I'm willing to ignore it on the days it doesn't unlock, when I think to look at it later in the day it has finally decided to unlock. The previous watch would not only stay locked all day, it would often fail to even get through passcode re-set-up so I could re-enable "unlock" with iPhone which seemed to automatically uncheck itself from time to time. After replacing both my iPhone 6 and my AW, things are better but still not quite right.

So now I turn my attention to what I said in the first sentence. If bluetooth stability requires that I reset my phone to factory and set it up as new every now and then, even if it's only once or twice a year, that's too high of a price to pay. Bluetooth should "just work". No BS. No excuses. It should be as reliable as a bit of wire. No. More reliable than a bit of wire since there's nothing to get tangled. Sadly that just hasn't been my experience. Very soon I will probably break down and reset my iPhone 6 and set it up as new again, allowing iCloud to repopulate my contacts, calendar, etc. All I know is I'll also be keeping an eye on WatchOS, iOS and OSX update bug fix lists for the word BLUETOOTH!

 

[Uofmtiger]

Never had that locking issue above. Seems strange.

As for it being a "dud" for some people. Yeah, I can't think of a specific tech product out there that would make everyone happy. That is why there are many choices in the market. Tech writers are almost always negative. You can talk about the iPhone and complain about the bezels, the lack of waterproofing, the protruding lens, etc.. so tech writers are often looking for things to complain about. I am glad they do. I can decide if the "possible" short comings (I say "possible" because quite often they are talking about a shortcoming and I don't agree with it....like the lack of straps comment in the Cnet article is an example) have enough weight to make me want to wait for the next version or not buy the product at all.

Techpinions actually did a survey and pretty much said that people getting the watch for evaluation purposes had lower satisfaction than the average consumer. The survey shows an overall 96 percent satisfaction rate..which is higher than the original iPhone and iPad satisfaction numbers. However, "evaluators" give it a 93 satisfaction while all others gave it 98.

One thing to also consider is tech writers are often not tied into iOS, so when they evaluate a product that is outside of their daily use OS, they don't live with it long enough to really understand how it would fit into their lives. They look at it on a surface level and then move on.

Personally, I read several reviews and decided it wasn't for me. Then, I got one for Christmas and I have worn it nearly every day. For my own personal use it is very useful to have a ton of functionality right on my wrist (I have discussed these apps elsewhere, so I won't make this post any longer with a long list). As for slow apps, yes, some of them are slow. However, I just delete those that aren't worth having on the watch...not a big deal. A lot of junky apps on iOS, as well.

 

[Farrellcollie]

I recently picked up a used sport version from ebay. I have worn it daily for about a month now. I like that I get a vibration on my wrist for texts and phone calls and I have had no trouble with the bluetooth part. I am glad I got it but it would not have been worth it for me at its full price. The substantial discount I got from buying used makes it a not outrageous amount for something I wanted to play with and evaluate before the next version comes out that may be (should be) improved. I found it extremely non-intuitive to use (I did read up on how to use it first), and the apps are, for my purposes, lacking. I still carry my fitbit in my pocket because the watch does not measure what the fitbit does as accurately as the fitbit does. I am middle-aged and cannot see the screen on the watch (I have the 42mm version) well enough without my reading glasses for it to be of use to me when doing something where I don't have my glasses with me (walking the dogs, biking etc) - so the notification feature is its most useful thing for my situation because it lets me know to get my glasses on and check my phone. The watch part works pretty much okay - I don't have difficulty with it turning on with a relatively small wrist gesture or just touching it. I am not unhappy with it - but when my friends (people my age and doing about what I do) ask me about it - I tell them this - it is not something I think everyone would find useful or worth fiddling with for the price.

 

[BlueMoon63]

I can't imagine not using the Apple Watch. I'm a big fitness guy and if I didn't have this device I would want another. Problem is, there isn't much out there that doesn't look like a bracelet or is plastic. I love the fitness options and I don't OCD over the choices. The heart rate monitoring is fantastic for me with about 1-3 losses per hour for over a year now. The sleep tracking and silent alarm is the best. My wife is happy as well as I don't wake her at 4am 5-6 times a week.

I go swimming at the Y and use the Apple Watch and sport band. I shower and change to the link or my new classic leathers that are superior quality. It looks good casual and with a suit.

The apps I use are so good that I use them every day and they are very fast. I love knowing my checking balance that is always up to date. You can't do that faster on the phone. I can't imagine being without the iPhone because it has everything I need for personal and work but the Apple Watch is always vigilant reminding me and letting me know what I need to do and it has kept me fit and always tracking my numbers.

It's not for everyone and people have struggled with it, but to me it looks great, works great and does what I need, not want.

Sleep tracking
Silent alarm
Fitness
Constant heart readings and tracking
To do
Calendar
Weather
Alarms and tasks and reminders with Siri

My iPhone can't track my heart rate and fitness the way I need. I hate opening my phone to check weather when the watch is right there.

I never miss an important text or phone call and that is so critical to me. Fitness is the best without buying a dedicated fitness device I need to take off because it is something I want to hide because it is a bracelet or enormous growth on my arm and I am 6'4.

I don't blame anyone for hating it. Some just want a fitness device. Some don't adjust to wearing watches. Some have expectations that can't be met. A lot I see have OCD.

People still obsess over square versus round. Fair point but if Apple apps more watch faces, you will appreciate the ability to have a circular face with room for more complications inside as well as outside. It's hard for some to think outside the box and live in the past comparing this to a regular watch.