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Series 3 altimeter and heart sensor

S

satchmo

macrumors 603
Original poster
Aug 6, 2008
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Canada
I realize it'll be a few weeks/months before we see full blown reviews of this watch. Looking forward especially from Youtube fitness bloggers. That said, a couple of general questions.

Altimeter. I understand this helps with activities such as stair climbing or mountain climbing. I assume this would this help with accuracy for running elevations as well?

Improved Heart rate monitor. Is this a physical change in the Series 3, or simply a Watch OS4 software upgrade that would apply to older Series 2 watches too?
 
satchmo said:
I realize it'll be a few weeks/months before we see full blown reviews of this watch. Looking forward especially from Youtube fitness bloggers. That said, a couple of general questions.

Altimeter. I understand this helps with activities such as stair climbing or mountain climbing. I assume this would this help with accuracy for running elevations as well?
Click to expand...

Exactly, should give elevation info for running, cycling and any other activities that it would relate to.

Improved Heart rate monitor. Is this a physical change in the Series 3, or simply a Watch OS4 software upgrade that would apply to older Series 2 watches too?
Click to expand...

I believe it's mainly a significant software update within OS4.
 
Pretty much all a software update. Nothing changed from the series 2, other than adding LTE and shorter battery life.
 
profets said:
As well as an improved processor and significantly faster wifi with the W2.
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I suppose it might be worth waiting to see some benchmark tests in the coming weeks.

If a Series 2 can be had for much less, I'd probably go for that over a Series 3 (non-LTE).
 
^Agreed - I'm not implying that one should upgrade from the Series 2 to 3, just mentioning what the differences are.

Unless you really want cellular, I think going with the Series 2 (if its still for sale) or staying with it (if you already have one) is best.
 
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Skipping altogether. I will only purchase ones with Sapphire crystal and they all come with an ugly red dot on the side. Aside from that, my phone bugs me enough with work. I don’t need my wrist constantly vibrating to stand and breathe on top of everything else. Huge reason my 1st gen sits neglected.

When it has a better heart rate sensor that can actually see arithmeas over just beats per minute, I’ll re-examine.
 
I was disappointed the sensors were not upgraded, the heart rate sensors are not the best, it’s good but I still get mistakes.
 
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Mabus51 said:
Pretty much all a software update. Nothing changed from the series 2, other than adding LTE and shorter battery life.
Click to expand...

Let's not forget Siri can speak now too. Combined with the altimeter, probably better battery life for gps only version, faster CPU could handle next year's update better speed wise, faster wifi and Bluetooth.....

But perhaps you are just trolling.
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betabeta said:
I was disappointed the sensors were not upgraded, the heart rate sensors are not the best, it’s good but I still get mistakes.
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Considering studies like http://appleinsider.com/articles/17...h-heart-rate-monitor-mediocre-calorie-counter show the Apple Watch is already one of the most accurate hr monitor in a fitness device I'm not sure it would have been cost effective or worth it to put in better sensors. 2% margin of error seems just fine, especially since that study thought 5% would have been.
 
I don't think the software upgrade will include the Barometric altimeter and the siri speaks....if that was the case i would see "zero" series 2 owners jumping to purchase the series 3. But I could be wrong and......
 
Treebark said:
Considering studies like http://appleinsider.com/articles/17...h-heart-rate-monitor-mediocre-calorie-counter show the Apple Watch is already one of the most accurate hr monitor in a fitness device I'm not sure it would have been cost effective or worth it to put in better sensors. 2% margin of error seems just fine, especially since that study thought 5% would have been.
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For clarification, I believe that study just looked at optical HR monitors. An actual chest-strap which reads the electrical signals and transmits to the watch via Bluetooth or ANT+ will remain the most accurate non-medical method. Optical is of course "good enough" for most folks, I just wanted to clarify the above for folks.

And yes, apparently a bluetooth chest strap HRM will work with the Apple Watch. https://www.imore.com/best-external-heart-rate-monitors-iphone-and-apple-watch
 
Do we know for certain that the Physical hardware HR sensor in the series 3 is the exact same HR sensor that is present in the series 2?
 
Since using my AW2 +NRC app + No phone = 0 elevation gained. I can't wait for AW3. It was super annoying it was missing from AW2.
 
profets said:
^Agreed - I'm not implying that one should upgrade from the Series 2 to 3, just mentioning what the differences are.

Unless you really want cellular, I think going with the Series 2 (if its still for sale) or staying with it (if you already have one) is best.
Click to expand...
What I'm wondering is will the LTE be good to have for future OS features. I don't have much use for LTE right now, but if the next OS update had added health/fitness tracking benefits that required LTE, I'd invest in LTE now.
 
JefeBall said:
What I'm wondering is will the LTE be good to have for future OS features. I don't have much use for LTE right now, but if the next OS update had added health/fitness tracking benefits that required LTE, I'd invest in LTE now.
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if you have an heart attack while running without your phone , 911 call will be automatically initiated... in the future...according to me.
 
JefeBall said:
What I'm wondering is will the LTE be good to have for future OS features. I don't have much use for LTE right now, but if the next OS update had added health/fitness tracking benefits that required LTE, I'd invest in LTE now.
Click to expand...

Well, the other advantage is significantly improved wifi speed (not sure the details on it)with the W2. I’m feeling it may help the watch as an independent device even over wifi and less reliance on Bluetooth.
 
profets said:
Well, the other advantage is significantly improved wifi speed (not sure the details on it)with the W2. I’m feeling it may help the watch as an independent device even over wifi and less reliance on Bluetooth.
Click to expand...

Wifi speed? not once have i thought the wifi on the apple watch series 2 was slow..
 
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profets said:
Well, the other advantage is significantly improved wifi speed (not sure the details on it)with the W2. I’m feeling it may help the watch as an independent device even over wifi and less reliance on Bluetooth.
Click to expand...

Some who were at the event, felt the AW3 was snappier when swiping.
We'll have to wait and see if there are perceptible speed difference. It will also depend on if you're coming from a Series 0,1,2 or perhaps a new user entirely.
 
eastamherstbias said:
Since using my AW2 +NRC app + No phone = 0 elevation gained. I can't wait for AW3. It was super annoying it was missing from AW2.
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Benz63amg said:
its really silly that the Series 2 Lacks the extremely important elevation measuring component
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This is really Nike's fault. Yeah, the S2 doesn't have the barometer, so there's no way to do real-time elevation changes, but there's no reason that elevation data can't be added after the run.

Other services will overlay the elevation data based on the GPS map after uploading to the server. Why Nike+ Run Club doesn't do this .... who can say?
 
Benz63amg said:
Wifi speed? not one have i thought the wifi on the apple watch series 2 was slow..
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I know - I'm just trying to think about where they are going with it. Was the Watch previously limited to 2.4ghz? I can't recall exactly.

Anyway, I thought a big part of the story around the cellular version (or the Series 3 in general) could have been the watch running much more independently by using wifi for faster network access than relying on the phone's bluetooth. I know it's already able to do that, even with the phone out of range or even on a different network, but I imagine with time they can improve on this.

satchmo said:
Some who were at the event, felt the AW3 was snappier when swiping.
We'll have to wait and see if there are perceptible speed difference. It will also depend on if you're coming from a Series 0,1,2 or perhaps a new user entirely.
Click to expand...

I kind of missed the bit about the speed improvement for the S3 - 70% sounds significant actually.
 
Benz63amg said:
Wifi speed? not once have i thought the wifi on the apple watch series 2 was slow..
Click to expand...

I have bought AW2 yesterday (discounted) so sorry for my ignorance but does it have wifi at all? I don't see any option for joining wifi on AW2...
 
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