I think I tend to pick up about 5-10 minutes of exercise randomly throughout the day, just from moving about the house.
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Was the Apple Watch instant love for you, or did it grow on you?
- Thread starter The Cockney Rebel
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It took me several years to actually want one. In our pre-COVID office environment, we watched all the early adopters use their watches as glorified notification appliances... i,e, you get a notification, look at your watch, and then pick up your phone directly...
When the O2 sensor came out, I was fascinated by that and began to pay more attention to the health aspects. In the end, the appeal of using a GPS watch for running outdoors and streaming music to my AirPods sold me once and for all.
The real killer app for me is the health/activity trending over time. I wear my S6 23 hours a day, and the amount of data being logged is incredible. To see that over months at a time is really interesting to me.
When the O2 sensor came out, I was fascinated by that and began to pay more attention to the health aspects. In the end, the appeal of using a GPS watch for running outdoors and streaming music to my AirPods sold me once and for all.
The real killer app for me is the health/activity trending over time. I wear my S6 23 hours a day, and the amount of data being logged is incredible. To see that over months at a time is really interesting to me.
Good catch. I wasn’t aware you couldn’t set for 0 minutes. Just checking my history and I did have two days of under five minutes of exercise after my vasectomy. That’s the only occasion though.
But then if I’m not doing any exercise whatsoever I would expect my streak to end.
I have loved mine from day one but im a watch person. I even used the old school iPod mini with a watch band, thats how ready I was for the eventual Apple Watch. I have had the Apple Watch 0, 3, 4, 5, and now im currently using the 7. Im surprised how much I love the Snoopy watch face, it just puts such a smile on my face every time I look at my watch, its little things like that which make me love the Apple Watch in general.
Had 3 apple watches... loved them from the start. I realised early on though I didn't care for the apps or most features other than clock, notifications/messages, calendar, alarm/stopwatch controls... exercise / competitions was fun initially but other than completing my rings each day I don't really follow it. Email is pretty useless since it's truncated, most apps don't do much (and nowadays alot of apps are no longer available) and the UI to access apps is a bit messy.
I did buy the Tesla watch app (third party) so it acts as a backup remote key for my car but it seems to cause massive battery drain (need to find which setting is causing this) on my s7.
I did buy the Tesla watch app (third party) so it acts as a backup remote key for my car but it seems to cause massive battery drain (need to find which setting is causing this) on my s7.
Yeah, I wish for a 4th option too of “yeah it’s cool, but it ain’t blowing my mind either”. I could probably live fine without it.
It took many many years for Apple Pay to be more widely accepted and bluetooth headphones back in the day weren't good either, features were lacking as well, sleep tracking has only reached maturity with watchOS 9 less than a year ago for example.
So yeah absolutely, the AW wasn't love on first sight, now it's finally at a point where the software has caught up with the excellent hardware/sensors.
Up until just before the pandemic hit I remember not even wearing the AW much since I primarily wanted to use it to pay and half the places I went to didn't have a wireless payment option on their terminal. Somehow this has shifted greatly and now even my dentist accepts it.
So yeah absolutely, the AW wasn't love on first sight, now it's finally at a point where the software has caught up with the excellent hardware/sensors.
Up until just before the pandemic hit I remember not even wearing the AW much since I primarily wanted to use it to pay and half the places I went to didn't have a wireless payment option on their terminal. Somehow this has shifted greatly and now even my dentist accepts it.
I tried buying one, went to the shop twice for this purpose over the years (test on wrist and buy), after getting an iPhone. Was always wishy-washy about it and the last time I went it just dawned on me why I was unable to pull the plug.
I just hate almost everything about it - the square shape (not a fan of Monaco style watches either), the fact that I find it feminine, the interface with the bubbles, the one day battery life, the ugly watch faces.
I had some cool Android Wear watches, the nicest being a Diesel, but they never lasted and the functionality with the iPhone was lacking.
So I switched to Garmin and I'm happy with it, had a few, it's a good experience. The last one is an Epix 2 I bought last year and I find it awesome, it's my permanent electronic device.
My first Apple Watch was the Series 4 and while I liked it when I bought it, it did grew on me as I learned to integrate its feature. My second watch was the Ultra and that certainly was one that I loved instantly. It’s rather silly, but I love it for its additional Action button which makes doing certain workouts (e.g., track intervals!) finally really possible and I absolutely love the battery life.
Oh yeah, LOVE using the Watch to pay! Plus, with the Apple Card, I can immediately see transactions that went through. I suppose that may be true for the other cards on my Watch but I’m sure.
Curious to know how the Apple Watch hasn’t worked out for you. What tasks or needs did you need tended during your urgent situations?
For me, I don’t interact too much with my Watch either, but I do glance at it for upcoming calendar, checking off to-do lists on Omnifocus, and using it to message my husband when I’m at a store and need his input on something. Oh, and of course for recording my workouts. But other than that, I am a very light user with the Watch. Still I like it a lot and I feel like I can rely on it for the basics if I leave my phone behind which I have! However, I feel like I can only rely on the watch because it’s a Ultra (namely battery life). With the other Series, the battery life isn’t so good so if I needed to use it independent for GPS directions, for example, it would quickly drain the battery to a degree that I woudln’t be comfortable with. Not so with the Ultra!
Just don’t care as well. That’s an option. It’s not a game where you’re trying to achieve 100% score everyday. Thankfully the Apple Watch is not configured for berating us when we don’t do close our rings. Its encouragement system is very gentle and non judgemental I find (one of its nicest feature).
Totally agree. That’s the biggest advantage of the Ultra for me. I no longer have to worry about battery life from using all the features.
That was actually one of the big benefits for me. I could glance at my watch and instantly know a notification was not important and not have to pick up my phone.
I don't fall into any of the choices. I neither loved it or hated it. In the beginning I bought AW5 just to jog with. But I've stopped jogging because of my knees. But Later when the AW7 came out I bought one anyway. It's more or less now just a aesthetic thing of having a watch to match my phone for mundane things like notifications and time glancing. In reality it's probably a monumental waste of my money given I don't really use it beyond as a watch. But then I'm not in an income bracket yet to afford luxury watch. So now it's just a motion of practicality to match my other device I use as a clock and mini computer. In other words a lot of words for meh.
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It's a fair use, but the running joke with us was that several of our peers seemed to never NOT pick up their phone after the fact.
Mmm probably growing on me.
Used to use a Fitbit One for step tracking, and got a AW S1 when it first came out unfortunately something about it caused pain on my arm when worn (either arm, and iirc at the time I wasn't the only one) so it was returned.
I ended up with a Fitbit Charge HR for a while, before giving it to my daughter and getting an AmazFit Bip which I've used on and off for the last 3 years.
I recently got the itch to try the Apple Watch again and was curious about maybe building an app for it* , so kept an eye on prices and screen quality in local 2nd hand shop (CEX). (* figured it was best to get some experience using a watch before trying to develop for it)
Had it a 9 days now, worn 7 days, and so far enjoying it. Although it lead me to discover that the Bip had been misreporting my heart rate for ages.
Only thing I'm not enjoying so far is the battery life, so I suspect my next watch will be an Ultra / Ultra 2 - 3.
All that said, I might pick up an Fitbit Inspire 2 or 3 as I really miss wearing a tracker on my trousers. I prefer it for tracking steps compared to my arm, so easy to trigger false steps / standup when sitting.
Used to use a Fitbit One for step tracking, and got a AW S1 when it first came out unfortunately something about it caused pain on my arm when worn (either arm, and iirc at the time I wasn't the only one) so it was returned.
I ended up with a Fitbit Charge HR for a while, before giving it to my daughter and getting an AmazFit Bip which I've used on and off for the last 3 years.
I recently got the itch to try the Apple Watch again and was curious about maybe building an app for it* , so kept an eye on prices and screen quality in local 2nd hand shop (CEX). (* figured it was best to get some experience using a watch before trying to develop for it)
Had it a 9 days now, worn 7 days, and so far enjoying it. Although it lead me to discover that the Bip had been misreporting my heart rate for ages.
Only thing I'm not enjoying so far is the battery life, so I suspect my next watch will be an Ultra / Ultra 2 - 3.
All that said, I might pick up an Fitbit Inspire 2 or 3 as I really miss wearing a tracker on my trousers. I prefer it for tracking steps compared to my arm, so easy to trigger false steps / standup when sitting.
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Do you mean that the Apple watch and Bip give different numbers for your heart rate? If so, how do you know which is right?
I’ve worn an Apple Watch since it launched in 2015. I just moved away from my series 7 because I finally grew tired and exasperated by the flaws in software and the stale, flawed, and passé hardware.
Apple Watch is boring and pedestrian now.
My daily watch is now an Hermès H08 Graphene, and it’s so nice I wish I’d abandoned the Apple Watch sooner.
Apple Watch is boring and pedestrian now.
My daily watch is now an Hermès H08 Graphene, and it’s so nice I wish I’d abandoned the Apple Watch sooner.
Yeah for instance during 100 minutes of fast walking my avg on Bip was ~110, on AW it was ~145. I've since done a couple of other checks (machine in chemist to read HR) & the Google Fit HR via phone camera (just for curiosity). Both matched closely to AW not Bip at the time.
I'd never had reason to really question the figure the Bip had given me, and certainly in the past (early 2021) looking at the figures they are about what I would've expected for the heavy walking (4 hours roughly 20km) I was doing at the time (with the odd spurious result like a 39bpm reading)
I bought one after using the F5. I had all kinds of trouble with it. The GPS tracking was horrible because it didn't lock right away and I'd get the first 1/2 mile of a run being off, by a lot. Battery life was awful coming from a Garmin Fenix 5. The metrics were borderline useless in the app, and the apps I could find sucked. I don't know if WorkOutDoors was around then but if it was I didn't know about it. One day I did a run, was on a pace for a personal best, and it popped up an award. I attempted to press it, and it stopped tracking the activity. Maybe I miss-pressed, who knows, I was in the middle of a run. The other thing was podcast syncing, holy hell, it was terrible, beyond terrible. Even today, with Overcast, it still screws up the sync.
But, I stuck with it, the HR sensor got better, GPS got figured out, the Ultra is enough battery life and I discovered WorkOutDoors along the way. I still bought each version of both, but the Apple Watch Ultra is close to everything I need. The only gripe I really have with the watch is the sensor bulge. It impinges on the nerve and I'm currently wearing the watch on my right wrist.
I might not have wound up here if Garmin hadn't blown things so badly with the F6 and the Marq Athlete. They dropped audio constantly (Garmin never fixed it), HR was bad and the GPS suddenly wasn't much better than Apple. All it had left was battery life. The Fenix 7 / Epix 2 fixed a lot of that but the damage was done for me. Doesn't mean I won't try Garmin stuff again, I'm a sucker for this technology but man those were bad devices.
But, I stuck with it, the HR sensor got better, GPS got figured out, the Ultra is enough battery life and I discovered WorkOutDoors along the way. I still bought each version of both, but the Apple Watch Ultra is close to everything I need. The only gripe I really have with the watch is the sensor bulge. It impinges on the nerve and I'm currently wearing the watch on my right wrist.
I might not have wound up here if Garmin hadn't blown things so badly with the F6 and the Marq Athlete. They dropped audio constantly (Garmin never fixed it), HR was bad and the GPS suddenly wasn't much better than Apple. All it had left was battery life. The Fenix 7 / Epix 2 fixed a lot of that but the damage was done for me. Doesn't mean I won't try Garmin stuff again, I'm a sucker for this technology but man those were bad devices.
You should submit a feature request on Apple support site.