Ok, I bought the Apple Watch (series 2) in last september as a way to register activity and workout. So far I've kept most of my goals of going to the gym at least 4-5 days a week, mostly doing elliptical.
The watch does work for me in lots of ways, however the more I use it, the more I find the activity tracker to be way dumber than it should be.
My main complain is inconsistency in workouts.
For example, if I start an outdoor walk workout, and go for a very intense walk (I mean, walking as fast as I can, keeping my heart rate around 145 bpm on average), I have a hard time register half of the time I did walk for the "green exercise ring". I remember once, I was at 28 minutes, and I walked for 10 minutes at a very high pace without being able to even get those 2 minutes to register.
I understand that the usual answer to this is "you weren't walking fast enough" or "your heartrate wasn't high enough", however what really bother me on this, is if I just don't start a workout and simply go for a very casual walk, then the watch will register most of the minutes as Exercise. So I can walk casually for 35-40 minutes and fill my green ring, but walking way faster while doing an "outdoor walk workout" I am lucky if I am able to register 15 minutes of exercise.
Also, another aspect that bother me is that basically if I start an elliptical workout while sitting on my couch, with my heart rate staying at my normal "rest level", it will register every single second as exercise for the green ring. I tried it once, just sitting and starting an elliptical workout, and I could have filled the green without doing anything at all.
Same thing also for the time I forgot to stop the workout after my 30 minutes of elliptical, it then ran for another 60 minutes, so I got 90 minutes of exercise for literally doing groceries, driving my car, and sitting at home. I mean, I understand that elliptical is hard to register for a watch since you can either have your hands on the moving handles of the stationnary ones, however I do feel that if my Watch/Phone is able to know when I'm walking and moving (and even driving a car, as demonstrated by the new "do not disturb while driving" feature of iOS 11), then it should stop registering elliptical exercise minutes.
Basically, if the watch simply register my elliptical workout time when I manually start it and stop it, without even considering my heart rate and my actual physical movement, then why do I need a watch instead of a dumb iPhone app ?
I mean, now I feel the Apple Watch is a bit like Wii Sport at the time : It makes you think you need to do crazy tennis move to play when in reality you could just sit on your couch and shake your wrist at the right moment.
The watch does work for me in lots of ways, however the more I use it, the more I find the activity tracker to be way dumber than it should be.
My main complain is inconsistency in workouts.
For example, if I start an outdoor walk workout, and go for a very intense walk (I mean, walking as fast as I can, keeping my heart rate around 145 bpm on average), I have a hard time register half of the time I did walk for the "green exercise ring". I remember once, I was at 28 minutes, and I walked for 10 minutes at a very high pace without being able to even get those 2 minutes to register.
I understand that the usual answer to this is "you weren't walking fast enough" or "your heartrate wasn't high enough", however what really bother me on this, is if I just don't start a workout and simply go for a very casual walk, then the watch will register most of the minutes as Exercise. So I can walk casually for 35-40 minutes and fill my green ring, but walking way faster while doing an "outdoor walk workout" I am lucky if I am able to register 15 minutes of exercise.
Also, another aspect that bother me is that basically if I start an elliptical workout while sitting on my couch, with my heart rate staying at my normal "rest level", it will register every single second as exercise for the green ring. I tried it once, just sitting and starting an elliptical workout, and I could have filled the green without doing anything at all.
Same thing also for the time I forgot to stop the workout after my 30 minutes of elliptical, it then ran for another 60 minutes, so I got 90 minutes of exercise for literally doing groceries, driving my car, and sitting at home. I mean, I understand that elliptical is hard to register for a watch since you can either have your hands on the moving handles of the stationnary ones, however I do feel that if my Watch/Phone is able to know when I'm walking and moving (and even driving a car, as demonstrated by the new "do not disturb while driving" feature of iOS 11), then it should stop registering elliptical exercise minutes.
Basically, if the watch simply register my elliptical workout time when I manually start it and stop it, without even considering my heart rate and my actual physical movement, then why do I need a watch instead of a dumb iPhone app ?
I mean, now I feel the Apple Watch is a bit like Wii Sport at the time : It makes you think you need to do crazy tennis move to play when in reality you could just sit on your couch and shake your wrist at the right moment.
