Apple Watch momentum is building | Hacker News Reader

Apple Watch momentum is building

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210 pointsthreatofrain274 comments

I really want to like Apple Watch. Apple end-to-end encrypts your health data, so I trust their stewardship more than most other companies (including Garmin, who recently fell victim to a ransomware attack). And IMO Apple does a superior job supporting their previous-generation devices: They'll replace an old Watch battery for a low, fixed fee, and to my knowledge they generally make new watchOS features available to older devices.

But I've worn my Garmin Fenix 5 Plus for the last couple years, and there's no way any existing version of the Apple Watch could replace it for me:

- It has a transflective LCD display that, while not as pretty as Apple Watch's, is brilliantly visible in the brightest of daylight.

- The battery lasts more than a week when not using GPS.

- It communicates with all my bicycle accessories over ANT+, so I don't need to take my bike computer with me to record a short ride.

- It has a button-operated user interface, so it's still perfectly usable when I'm sweaty and in the middle of an activity.

- It has a nearly indestructible sapphire crystal.

I was eagerly following Apple Watch Series 6's release. But given that they still haven't fixed their battery life, it's very likely my next watch will be a newer Garmin.

> I was eagerly following Apple Watch Series 6's release. But given that they still haven't fixed their battery life, it's very likely my next watch will be a newer Garmin.

The problem here is that, short of a revolutionary tech upgrade, Apple can't "fix" the AW battery life.

They could maybe increase the official battery life from 24 to 36 hours. Then people would forget to charge in the morning/evening and run out of battery midday -> Angry customers.

The same will happen for every value short of "one week", which is most definitely not possible with the current form factor and hardware design.

They could have made an incremental move in that direction, though. And incremental moves could build up to something more over multiple generations of the Apple Watch.

I expected they'd be coming out with a more efficient SoC for the new Watch, and they did in the S6. But they chose to use the extra efficiency to divert more power to a brighter display instead of provide more battery life.

> The problem here is that, short of a revolutionary tech upgrade, Apple can't "fix" the AW battery life.

I don't buy this at all. AW has worst on class battery life - with a huge margin - compared to other smartwatches including the horribly optimized android wear watches.

Its still good enough to last all day under any usecase though. What I found with my pebble watch is it would always go flat on me in the middle of the day because I didn't have a real charging schedule. With my AW I just stick it on the charger when I go to sleep and it will never go flat on me.

But then it doesn’t track your sleep...

I never found the sleep tracking to be useful. I get enough sleep and the watch doesn't tell me anything particularly interesting. I did it a few times and can see my heart rate overnight but it isn't something that changes day to day.

My Apple Watch (see my response above) has lasted well over a day including sleep tracking, on a single charge. It would go to 2 days if I let it. It’ll be able to track your sleep, just turn the always on screen and several notifications off.

I have everything on on my series 6 LTE. After 23 hours on my wrist it usually at 50%. It is new though. But the screen is always on. It seems they have improved battery life on series 6 comparing with my old series 4.

I should have added this is an Apple Watch 6, as well.

It’s definitely reached a point where I’m not worried, so far. Tomorrow I’m going for a run, so that should be interesting.

This is exactly the issue with "all day vs a week". Schedule.

If you charge the device every night, that's routine. You go to sleep, pop your phone and watch in a charger. Done.

A week-long battery has 1-3 days to remind the user to charge.

2-4 days isn't something you can build a routine on, it's not really a full work week even.

That’s not the GP’s point. The point is that there are two usable battery duration points: needs charge once a day, and doesn’t need charge for a long time (GP says one week, I believe it would be longer). If there are Android Wear watches that have batteries that last a week or more with comparable usage, then maybe you have a point; otherwise, it doesn’t make a difference.

In my opinion it would be quite useful to reliably be able to skip one day, when you forget or are on a short trip for example. It would also give more margin for heavier uses, such as tracking a long hike.

You just wrote that 1-day (barely) battery life is okay for Apple Watch since Android Wear can't do whole week. What kind of argument is that?

BTW, I use neither of those two.

Alright, I’ve been running an Apple Watch test and I have some numbers to report. I just bought it and I was worried about battery life.

At 1am, Thursday night, I took the battery off the charger, at 100%

I have slept 2x in it, but I wasn’t asking the phone to record my sleep on the second night and so it didn’t. That seems to matter to Apple’s sleep-tracking software.

It is currently 2:50pm on Saturday, and my battery charge is at 38%

Seep tracking, night 1, took about 10% of the battery life. Might have been 8. I don’t remember.

I have nearly every notification turned off. The standing notification is still on. I have heart rate tracking, blood oxygen tracking, most health tracking I can get turned on.

I’ve run at least one, maybe two ECG’s in this battery life.

I have the always on display turned off because I don’t need my display on all the time and I think the feature is mostly a gimmick.

I’ve been playing with my watch a bit because I find it fun and it’s new. I’ve used it to read email, to log me in to LastPass, to check SMS 2FA, to purchase drinks and other items and so on.

I did take it off for about 3 hours last night, but did not charge it.

I have not taken the watch for a cardio exercise yet. I have the wifi and gps-only version.

Long story short, I could absolutely see this watch lasting 2 days with my usage patterns, absolutely no problem. Charging it 30 minutes when I’m in the shower to push it back to a healthy battery life is absolutely not going to be a problem.

When you used it in Exercise mode, it uses considerable energy. Multiple leds are illuminated on the back to measure your heart rate, plus real time GPS. Many in this thread have usage patterns that require long exercises.

Yesterday I went on an 80 minute walk and run with exercise mode and today I did a 22 minute indoor exercise.

During the 80 minute event I barely noticed the increase in power draw, again with all the visuals turned off, but I had all the extra tracking. I imagine on a day-long hike, the numbers may completely change and it may substantially draw power; but, that wasn’t the case for the long walk.

The 22 minute indoor exercise seemed to draw proportionally more power. It might have been the type? Indoor I chose the one that implies strength training, so maybe it has to pay closer attention than the 80 minute walk/run?

This is a bit like comparing a 90s pocket organizer to a modern smartphone. You’re not wrong, but you’re missing an awful lot.

I may be, and some of the smart watch features do appeal to me. (And if a standalone Signal app were available for the Apple Watch with LTE, that might push me over the edge to switching.)

But for now, Apple lags far behind Garmin in terms of fitness tracking for outdoor activities. That's more important to me, and it's more important to people like marathon runners who are more serious athletes than me. But we're also probably a minority of the market; I don't doubt Apple knows what they're doing here.

A modern smartphone can do anything that a 90s pocket organizer could do and more. But Apple Watch still hasn't caught up to Garmin in many important respects.

Wait, what activity / health tracking does the Fenix have over the AW? EKG is a big plus of the AW in that regard. Battery life isnt great, but do you exercise for more than 24h at a time? Genuinely asking, trying to decide for myself

Missing ANT+ was mentioned above. I was recently looking at the Apple Watch and rowing machines. Ignoring that a wrist-based heart monitor isn't great for things like boxing or rowing, you can't really get the heart rate monitor to connect to gym equipment. Instead of ANT+ or Bluetooth LE Apple did release GymKit in 2017--but very few things support it. The "rowing" exercise doesn't measure things rowers find useful (it's basically a generic cardio workout). When using a separate heart rate monitor and syncing your workout with Apple Health you can get double measurements heart rate (the AW constant heart rate and the strap during the workout).

The fitness industry has a pretty well-developed ecosystem (I grabbed a random 5 year old heart rate chest strap and it paired immediately to the rowing machine). Garmin has seemed to have embraced that for at least a decade. It can definitely use improvement, but Apple has its own thing and it'll give you grief if they didn't have your use-case in mind.

To be fair, others like Fitbit has similar issues. With them you can't even grab detailed heart-rate data.

> Battery life isnt great, but do you exercise for more than 24h at a time?

Not the grandparent poster, but Apple Watch battery life is bad enough that going on medium-length hikes (and tracking it as a workout) requires you to pull out a powerbank and then awkwardly slide the charging pad in between your skin and the watch. Ugh.

(I'm still torn on whether I actually like my Watch; I'd definitely prefer a Lightning port to the custom charging pad that's not even reversible.)

I'm curious what generation watch you have. Certainly, using the newer generations on a reasonable hike has never come close to depleting my battery.

It might be possible your battery has degraded considerably?

It's the 5th-gen watch, it has never lasted two days (including sleep with the display turned off) even when I don't use it for navigation or workout tracking. It also charges much more slowly than the 3rd-gen that I had before.

Is it cellular? I hear that can kill battery when not near a phone or wifi--especially when hiking where cell service is spare phones tend to use a lot of power trying to get a signal.

The Apple Watch Series 6 is rated for 7 hours of battery usage while recording an activity with GPS. That's right at the edge of some hikes I've done, and it would leave a multi-day hike out of the question.

Compare to Garmin: The Fenix 6 is rated for 36 hours of GPS activity recording per charge, or 72 hours in a battery-saving GPS mode.

That's strange. I've never had that problem. The battery on my 3 usually lasts for a couple of days.

If you're an endurance athlete the Apple Watch will not compare to the Garmins, Suuntos, etc., of the world.

I am a Garmin user and a friend is a PM for Apple and I've had this argument too much to rehash it here :). But it really comes down to depth for the fitness use case (Garmin) versus good-but-not-as-great fitness tracking as part of a more general use case (Apple).

Apple Watch's EKG app only works if your heart rate is between 50 and 120bpm. see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208955.

Recent theVerge.com article says the Apple Watch is sending too many people to doctors for further investigation (only ~10% had actual cardiac problems). see https://www.theverge.com/2020/10/1/21496813/apple-watch-hear...

Also the main new feature of the Apple Watch 6, blood oxygen monitoring, was reported as unreliable in theVerge.com review: https://www.theverge.com/21496141/apple-watch-series-6-revie...

and a Washington Post article put down the Apple Watch and the FitBit Sense's blood oxygen monitors:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/09/23/apple-w...

Apple Watch also has sapphire crystal among other material configurations; the configuration flexibility offers financial flexibility to consumers. There's also a difference between health tracking and fitness tracking, and in this regard I'm not sure Garmin will even intend to race with Apple.

> so I trust their stewardship more than most other companies (including Garmin, who recently fell victim to a ransomware attack)

I'm not sure I follow. AFAIK Garmin refused to pay, preemptively shuttered every single area of their operation possibly connected, even those not directly tied to the attack, to assess the fallout, and took the time to restore whatever was affected from backups. It looks like they did the right thing, and thinking anyone is impervious to a ransomware attack (which has nothing to do with privacy) is ludicrous.

Meanwhile I could use my Garmin watch in complete autarky while their service was down. And this service is entirely opt-in, off by default, and I could just pull the .fit files via standard USB mass storage to process myself or upload to, a third party, like Strava. Interestingly enough, you don’t even need a smartphone even if you want to use Garmin’s cloud.

Amusingly with 12-15 days of battery on average I did not even need to even recharge my ForeRunner 735XT during the whole downtime.

I’m not getting any wearable that doesn’t cross that baseline.

Regarding the ransomware attack, my point is that Garmin's security design was weak enough to allow it to happen. We were all, apparently, simply lucky that the variant of ransomware used didn't happen to exfiltrate all our health data.

Garmin is notorious for their software issues, and Apple is probably much better than Garmin at securing their production environments. But more importantly, because Apple end-to-end encrypts users' health data, nobody would be able to access any of it even if they were successfully attacked.

I agree it's nice that Garmin wearables can mostly keep working independently even if Garmin Connect is down.

> Apple is probably much better than Garmin at securing their production environments

Oops

https://samcurry.net/hacking-apple/

I hate to say it, but having an Apple Watch is a little bit like it was having a cell phone for the first time. It unloads a lot of mental tasks, and quickly feels essential.

With the cell phone, I didn’t have to remember peoples phone numbers anymore, and I could call or be called from anywhere. Eventually texting became a thing, but at first it was just that freedom to make much looser plans and adjust them on the fly, which was really difficult before cell phones.

With the watch, it feels the same, but about health. Knowing how much I walked around each day, how well I slept, what my heart rate was, etc. makes it a lot easier to understand what’s going on with my body and be more proactive about it.

It’s also becoming a replacement for the cell phone. I usually still keep my phone with me because I want the camera, but I increasingly don’t take my phone with me when I want peace and quiet. I know that if a family member urgently needed to reach me they could get through to my watch. Meanwhile the watch does not distract me from what’s going on in real life around me.

I suspect that if they do pull off the glasses, this is going to be the trifecta. Eventually the glasses can capture a visual record of whatever you saw, the AirPods potentially can capture whatever you heard, and the watch is capturing what’s going on with your body. It’s sort of a kindler, gentler Cybernetic future than I think earlier eras anticipated.

For a moment there I thought you were about to say 'now I can see the time just by looking!'

That's the typical "Apple User" for you and the typical Apple product announcement.

> With the watch, it feels the same, but about health. Knowing how much I walked around each day, how well I slept, what my heart rate was, etc. makes it a lot easier to understand what’s going on with my body and be more proactive about it.

I'm interested in a device that can measure respiratory rate, but so far Apple only offers a breathing app that does nothing more than just tell the user how to breathe, i.e. without any feedback based on actual respiration.

https://support.apple.com/guide/watch/breathe-apd371dfe3d7/w...

https://9to5mac.com/2020/01/06/apple-watch-breathe-misconcep...

This is extremely difficult because you need something around your lungs/diaphragm or mouth/nose to accurately measure your breathing rate. Even with precise readings of your pulse, blood pressure, etc... you can’t even remotely calculate your breathing rate.

AirPods could do it. AirPods could accurately take your temperature as well.

I'm hoping this will happen. I don't wear my AirPods continually, unlike my watch; but I do wear them daily, and pretty consistently while exercising.

Apple has a related patent from back in 2009. Physical size seems problematic for AirPods when you could use that space for more battery, but I could see this showing up in Power Beats Pro in the not too distant future.

https://www.patentlyapple.com/patently-apple/2009/04/apple-r...

> The sensor can also be other than (or in addition to) an activity sensor, such as a psychological or biometric sensors which could measure temperature, heartbeat, etc. of a user of the monitoring system. Since sensors can be positioned proximate to the head or ear of the user, useful psychological or biometric data can be acquired. The sensor can also be other than (or in addition to) an activity sensor, such as a global positioning system (GPS) receiver or a proximity sensor.

There's enough room to tinker with the dimensions that adding a temperature probe seems feasible. Like the stem of the Pros is actually shorter, which was clever because it means people know you have the fancy new ones. This couldn't add more than a few cubic millimeters.

Breath tracking is pure software, offloaded to the phone, opt-in to auto activate when in exercise mode.

I think we'll see both in the next few iterations, the fitness push is huge and the temperature monitoring would be timely. We'll see.

Even if it's physically possible in the standard AirPods, they might still put it in Power Beats for branding reasons, since those are the more fitness-focused headphones.

Then a year or two down the line, it could make its way down to regular AirPods if the size/cost isn't an issue.

Not true. Respiration can be extracted from heart beat by beat interval data. Happens all the time in heart rate monitors.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5390977/

Very cool. I had no idea things had gotten that accurate. My grandpa was a cardio-thoracic surgeon so I always had a bit of hobbyist’s interest. Most of my reading materials were obviously a bit dated.

No worries. Wrist measurements are noisy and difficult, but there is a great deal of info to be extracted from heart rate data. Lots of teams, including Apple, are working to figure it out. The better the extraction of heart rate from the data, the more that can be done done with it. For example, there are groups using heart rate variability (HRV) characteristics to predict neonatal sepsis, a leading cause of death in infants.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31295130/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11134441/

That work is not with a watch of course, but it is extending the understanding of the relationships of HRV to other physiological issues. Good stuff.

But you can't reliably get beat by beat interval data from a wrist PPG under normal living conditions. Also, to get breathing rate from beat intervals only really works when the parasympathetic nervous system is dominating, and isn't very observable in older people.

Some Garmin watches offer a "breaths per minute" metric.

https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=2yEgS0Pax53UDqUH7q4WC6

It doesn't work without a chest strap.

I have a Garmin 245 that reports respiration without a chest strap. It tracks throughout the day. You can view on a line chart, or view awake/asleep averages. No idea how it measures, or if it’s accurate.

I've been testing this with and without the chest strap and it's not at all correct. I deliberately slow my breathing to 1-2 breaths per minute and it goes from saying 13 to 12. The metric is there, I don't trust it at all.

My VivoActive 4 tracks this without any external accessories. I've never really looked at the data and can't tell you how accurate it is though.

I have spent some time testing it, it is useless. Maybe it's accurate if you're not doing controlled breathing. I haven't had someone else watch me and compare. (I am also a trained vocalist and do a fair amount of yoga, it might be that it's only accurate for people with minimal breath training, or people with more exercise-focused breath training.)

Out of curiosity, what are you trying to track wrt respiratory rate? Like what behaviors would you be modifying based on respiratory rate?

I have trouble to keep breathing normally while I work. At the end of the day, my breath is usually shallow.

The whoop strap tracks breaths per min as well

I was excited for a minute thinking this was a strap for the Apple Watch that also tracks respiratory data.

All I need is the spotify watch app streaming test to roll out to everyone, then I really wont need my phone much. (and better texting)

You had me up until that last paragraph. Thankfully battery tech for that doesn’t seem to be here yet.

>Eventually the glasses can capture a visual record of whatever you saw, the AirPods potentially can capture what you heard

I expect the glasses might have built in audio capture, potentially even playback, themselves and if executed properly will be at least as successful as you predict. I think the current use and popularity of live-streaming and social video apps points to what an impact the ability to live stream to record a complete capture of your first-person experience will have. It’s also going to have immense utility from a practical standpoint, being able to functionally capture any experience for later reference or processing. The utility of live streaming through first person devices is already proven out with remote assistance tech.

not concerned about EMF/RF exposure?

on its own, a device does little. but with all the electronics we’re surrounded by (phone, watch, airpods, laptop, etc), it may have a cumulative effect.

Not at all. We have been carrying phones in our pockets and next to our heads for decades now. If something really was wrong we would know about it.

There is going a lot on with us. Cancer rates in young adults are increasing and many more health problems.

I do t want to say its because of smartphones! Something is happening and nobody is quite sure whats the reason. To say nothing is wrong with it because we dont know of any side effect is absolutely wrong.

You got any sources to back these claims up?

https://www.aacr.org/blog/2020/06/26/aacr-virtual-annual-mee...

> Knowing how much I walked around each day, how well I slept, what my heart rate was, etc.

Doesn't your body already have built in sensors to provide this information?

It does, but we’re increasingly so busy, distracted, and “up in our heads” all day that the time and energy required for that kind of mindfulness becomes unaffordable to many people “having to function” day-to-day. The way we structure modern society and work life is antithetical to both mental and physical health (“sitting is the new smoking”).

They say “what gets measured gets managed”, and if your internal biological sensors don’t get used enough because your attention is busy processing other, seemingly more urgent, instructions all day, the watch can help take on some of those tasks and theow in an interrupt to “take a break, go move” every once in a while.

So you would think, but with apple watch I’ve realized that some days I feel like I’ve walked a lot, it’s actually much less than i had thought.

meh, I had exactly the same with the withings, which is a normal watch but with captors, and it's a gimmick. I have an Apple watch now, and I don't use it all the time (it's truly a hassle to recharge it all the time), but it manages to integrate really well with everything and always surprises me in how useful it is. Today I was at the doctor with Kaiser and they texted me when they were ready to take me with the floor and room number I had to go to, I quickly saw the notification on my watch and went there. Being able to take calls when I just can't reach my phone is amazing also. When I watch a movie or listen to music I can quickly decrease/increase the sound. I can use it as a remote for keynote. I'm still discovering things every week. If only they could make it so that it would last longer than 1 day.

Some other favorite uses in no particular order: TOTP codes (Authy, Duo, 1Password), habit tracking and reminders (Streaks), QR codes that scan as my contact info or to easily join my WiFi network (Visual Codes), record voice memos that sync to my other devices when I want to just make a quick note, check things off my to-do list (Things, Reminders), run shortcuts for Hue lighting scenes.

New capabilities for shortcuts recently too, you can make a shortcut to toggle some watch settings (like always-on display) and run it from a complication on a watch face. And you can change watch faces automatically by time of day using automations on your phone, if you want something like a watch face with weather forecast and next calendar event for when you’re getting ready in the morning, then something else for when you’re out of the house.

I’m already not a big phone person (2016 SE) and my favorite thing after the health features is all the times I don’t have to pull my phone out to do something.

You can use authy as well? Does it sync w your phone?

Streaks is an app? (Edit: 5$, hope it’s worth it :D)

Yes, Authy syncs with phone.

I like Streaks, though I’m sure there’s a lot of apps in a similar space. Especially handy for things that can check themselves off from HealthKit data like whether I’ve stepped on my scale today or kept to my target sleeping hours.

The Garmin Fenix, lasts over 2 days at a minimum, and with the no-pulse-ox configuration can last as long as 3 weeks. I find with about 10 hours of exercise I charge it at most once a week. The tradeoff is that to get GPS tracking you need to put it into activity mode. But even with GPS off there are a ton of useful metrics - heart rate, step counts, calories, sleep tracking.

I have disabled all the smartwatch notification features though, I don't want the distraction, I just want to measure/map my exercise.

Garmin fitness watches have always been far better than smart watches with battery life. But they're only fitness watches with some smartphone integration. You're not going to get the features the Apple Watch has on the Garmin with over 2-3+ days of battery life right now.

That might be true of some of the lower-end models but I don't think it's true of the Fenix 6. And the most powerful Fenix can do turn-by-turn navigation for 2-3 days with color offline maps. I don't think the Apple Watch is more featureful - they make different feature tradeoffs. Big ones are cost and weight.

Curious as to why you say the watch is a hassle to charge all the time. I guess if you sleep with it that’s a valid concern. I don’t and so I have to take it off anyway - so it’s not a big deal to just place it on the charger next to my bed and grab it first thing in the morning. The magnetic ‘clickiness’ of the desktop dock is nice and very smooth to drop on and take off.

I’m used to not charging my watch at all, so that’s quite a change you can imagine.

Siri can work a lot better:

- You can’t even activate do not disturb using Siri.

- “theatre mode” take you to web search results.

- doing some of these actions simply crashes it.

Thank you for this... I still can’t convince myself to get one.

The health aspect I wonder if it really actually makes things easier to improve yourself... or is it just tracking new things for you that keep you accountable to yourself?

I guess they both work... maybe I’m old fashioned but my wife loves it and I can’t figure out why it’s so great to know how many steps (roughly) you walked every day...

Apple’s return policies are pretty generous, there’s no harm in getting one and trying it out for a couple weeks.

A while back I went to the hospital because of a potentially nasty infection. The doctor was pretty surprised and excited when I opened up the Health app with temperature logs (from a smart thermometer), but they were even more intrigued by the consistently elevated heart rate (from my watch) that had started a few days before the fever. I believe it helped guide the treatment, but I can’t be entirely sure.

For more general health/fitness, the rings can be motivating in a bit of a gamification way. The easier availability of stats from workouts also points out things for me to improve on, or to make changes during the activity. For example, it’s easier for me to see if my pace is slipping while I’m hiking and pick it up, or notice if I’m pushing harder than I should and slow it down so I have the energy for the end (the watch can also be really helpful with navigating as well).

I think health features like this will become pretty commonplace in the future and more doctors/nurses will utilize it. In Formula 1 racing they've been integrating sensors and transmitters for vital stats into the drivers' gloves. This allows the medical team to see what's going on as they're driving out to the crash. I believe they keep the gloves on if possible during patient transport so they can continue monitoring.

I imagine being able to provide a doctor with historical data on your vitals can be extremely beneficial. Taking your vitals while you're sitting in a clinic doesn't give the full picture. What does your heart rate mean at that time if they don't know what's normal for you? What if your temp is not high enough to be considered a fever, but it's elevated 3+ degrees higher than typical for you? Of course the accuracy of the sensor could be called into question, but if it's precise enough you can still use it to analyze trends and anomalies.

> I wonder if it really actually makes things easier to improve yourself

Yes, significantly, at least for me. I tried repeatedly to use a calorie counting app where you enter every food you ate. It had all kinds of conveniences for scanning barcodes, and saving meals you regularly ate, and had every chain restaurant's data. It was such a pain in the ass to use. Manually entering everything, even with the ability to scan barcodes, was too tedious. And it was always inaccurate. How many grams of potatoes did I have when I cooked dinner tonight? I have no idea!

With the watch, I just click a button to say I'm going for a walk or a run, and it tracks my heart rate and knows my weight and height and does a fairly accurate calculation of my calories burned.

It also was a lot more fun than entering calories into an app. I would get little badges for making progress and rewards for reaching a goal. It wasn't much, but it was a reminder that I was moving forward. I ended up "closing my rings" every day for 2 years straight (minus one week where I had the flu). That's the most exercise I've ever done and the most consistently I've ever done it.

If you just need health aspects get a hybrid smarwatch (I recommend Withings or Fossil hybrid HR) - it has pedometer, HR monitor, ECG and VO2 max sensor, sleep tracking - but most importantly it lasts about 20 days on a charge, is super lite and actually looks like a nice watch - really low key.

There are others too, but I don't recommend Garmin Vivo move - I got the 500€ gold one for my wife and it has constant issues, the battery barely goes 4 days, etc.

I currently use a Samsung galaxy watch I got as a gift and the full smarwatch experience has a few advantages :

- find my phone - I constantly mute my phone and this lets me ring it up even when it's muted so I can find where k put it - also helped me once I left my phone in a wordrobe in the mall - no reason why hybrids don't have this but they don't

- reject calls/turn off alarms without touching your phone - again no reason why hybrids don't have this but they don't

- music controls/smart home controls

- talking through the watch - was actually useful more than once - imagine cooking and not having to grab your phone to answer your wife or stuff like that

My wife also has Apple watch 3.

Overall a smarwatch is a chore to charge and you can't get good sleep tracking because you often charge over night - hybrid watches last 2+ weeks in practice but sacrifice some features

>> I walked around each day, how well I slept, what my heart rate was, etc. makes it a lot easier to understand what’s going on with my body and be more proactive about it.

It would be great if it was accurate. How accurate is this data?

Doesn't need to be accurate, just consistent in its inaccuracies over time. It's about changing behavior, not diagnosis.

I have an Apple Watch and iPhone and use all the health tracking stuff. I’m a little bit suspicious of the accuracy of sleep tracking, but so far I haven’t had any experiences to suggest that it’s not reasonably accurate.

And there’s no reason to believe that heart rate and step counting isn’t extremely accurate—seems fairly trivial to measure.

Being consistent is almost as good — essentially as good in fact.

I have a glucose meter that’s quite wrong, but the shape of its curve isn’t bad (the error isn’t linear, but is consistent— around 100 it measures about 82; at 150 it measures 130) but now I’m used to it it tells me what I need to know. And the strips are cheap.

I don’t need the watch to tell me if my heart rate is too high but it’s useful if it tells me my heart rate was about the same the whole run.

how long have you had it?

I used smart watches (not apple watch) for a week and can't get over recharging them every night and went straight back to my solar G-Shock.

Step counting is what my phone does too and I really don't need too much accuracy for that. Glancing at notifications would be nice in a busy work environment between meetings but at home, it makes not much sense to me. The rest (hand washing reminder, breathing reminder, etc.) are all gimmicks IMO.

So I am yet to see the utility of smart watches in their current form. Smart glasses on the other hand have way more potential

Apple Watch also has Apple Pay, call, text, directions, music, podcasts, etc.

More and more I’m leaving my phone at home and opting to go solo watch. This has done wonders in breaking my habit of always reaching for my phone to fill in every empty space in the day.

You don't need a watch for health data. It can be dedicated to health, like my Whoop strap that costs me $30/month. The Apple Watch isn't serious enough about health for my use cases.

I have a 3. I got it in January and I'm still on the fence about it. It's okay, but not awesome, and sometimes darn irritating. I guess there's some merit as a cellphone replacement but I find the screen too small for that and Siri is just so-so.

I haven’t ever been too keen on smartwatches and never really tried anything beyond a Fitbit. I recently ordered a Series 6 and I’m absolutely loving it.

I can positively say this device on my wrist is the best thing I’ve done for my health. The multitude of sensors are great, sure, but the real magic is how the watch motivates you. Closing rings is like crack. It makes me want to leave the bed and go for a quick run or cycle at 11PM.

Having a cellular connection is fantastic and on occasion even lets me leave my phone behind. Coupled with their usually reliable software, I can 100% see why Apple’s approaching 100M Apple Watch users.

I've never owned a smartwatch, but I can't think of another device that completely distracts users and breaks focus away from in-person conversations quite like these do. Maybe I just notice it more than folks that just use phones, but every time I'm talking to someone who checks their watch while we're talking reinforces my decision not to purchase one.

Sometimes I feel like I've teleported from another decade or something when complaining about the lack of digital etiquette in our society, but there's just no way I can justify buying another notification factory.

Just wait until smart glasses finally take off! At least people can ignore their smart watches, it'll be hard to ignore a flashing icon in your field of view.

That's very true.

Philosophically, it's kinda hard to envision material gains in quality-of-life without major consequences with these kinds of technologies. They largely exist to take us out of our physical, in-person interactions because there's something more important to look at/respond to/whatever on the screen. Stuff like the Apple Watch and smart glasses definitely give me Black Mirror vibes a whole lot quicker than mobile technology ever did, but then again, Black Mirror came out after mobile had already largely taken off.

A whole new subset of body language indicators - eye movement watching - will be part of dealing with AR users.

Maybe I'm a bit autistic but I already watch people's eyes quite a lot

The only useful thing I ever learnt from my art teacher was when he taught us how to pretend to make eye contact with people.

I’ve found just the opposite.

By tuning my Apple Watch notifications, I now only get the most important interruptions on it, and I can almost always tell what it is by the haptics.

So my phone can buzz and beep all it wants, I can ignore it. My watch can buzz and depending on what’s going on around me, I can sneak a peek or disregard it.

Furthermore, the watch is incapable of subsuming my attention like the phone. On a phone I have all of my usual distractions. My watch is too small to take me away from the people I’m with (as if that’s anything to worry about this year, sadly).

The watch has liberated me from distractions when I’m among people. If the people you’re interacting with are being distracted, that’s their failing, not the watch’s.

Yeah, this was my experience as well. My phone was pretty distracting, but I was really able to cut down on the notifications I got on the watch and they were only the important ones, so now I'm more engaged than I was previously.

In-person conversations suffer a marginal decrease in attention. Remote communication improves by several orders of magnitude.

Hmm. I'm a little older, it was engrained in me that looking at your watch when you're talking to someone is a clear and pretty rude signal that they're boring you, wasting your time, and that in general you'd like the conversation to be done.

Like if I so much as glanced at my watch while talking to someone, I'd immediately say sorry and explain why I have to keep track of time.

Having a smart watch has changed this in one way, which is if someone starts blowing up my notifications I'll say "sorry let me fix that" and turn it to silent.

I don't have a good fix for conveying this etiquette to people who never got the message, but I'm with you: that's rude, people need to stop doing it.

No need to blame the device though. I'm with everyone else who says that the notifications are way less distracting than they would be on a phone.

looking at your watch when you're talking to someone is a clear and pretty rude signal that they're boring you

Yes, some people take that very seriously :-O

https://youtu.be/8Aq5BUiruPg?t=2112

> The multitude of sensors are great, sure, but the real magic is how the watch motivates you. Closing rings is like crack.

I second that. I have had my Series 4 for 514 days. I currently have a 514 day Move streak and 72 perfect weeks (All Activity).

My one major complaint would be exercise minutes during outdoor walks. I will sometimes do, say, a 40 minute walk and only get 32 minutes of exercise credit. It will be giving me one minute per minute of walking for say 25 minutes, then go 8 minutes with no credit, then give me one for one for the remaining 7 minutes of the walk.

I'm frequently checking heart rate and pace during all this, and the 8 minutes of no credit portion matches the rest of the walk on both of those. Checking the map of the walk afterwards, where it color codes sections where your pace was above or below average shows no slowdowns during where it drops minutes. Checking the detailed heart rate data afterwards in case there were slowdowns that I just didn't notice during the walk shows that there were none.

I wish they would add an "explain exercise minutes" option that would look at a workout and tell you why you didn't get credit for some minutes.

Yeah this literally just happened to me this morning hence the usually reliable comment on the software. Took a bit of Googling to figure out what the Watch considers as exercise: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/8287317

I have been really happy with the Garmin Fenix. It has an "exercise load" feature which I've found a lot more useful than "exercise minutes" (which Garmin also collects.) Exercise load uses some sort of a dynamic scale that weights time based on how long you spend in the heavier heart rate zones. Walking on level ground pretty much never counts for "exercise load" since my HR stays under 130, but hills/running/biking can get up to 140+ where I get exercise load points.

A slightly clunky thing with the Fenix is that you have to explicitly tell it you're doing an activity to get some metrics - but the heart rate/step count/calorie data is always being gathered. And the Fenix has at a minimum twice the battery life of an Apple Watch, and keeping it in no-GPS mode lets it extend to weeks of battery life while still gathering most of the key metrics.

> I second that. I have had my Series 4 for 514 days. I currently have a 514 day Move streak and 72 perfect weeks (All Activity).

I used to second that, until I got to 689 days and then the heart rate sensor stopped working on my watch.

I now have a longest move streak that is pretty hard to reach again, no way to reset it, and my motivation largely got destroyed after 2 weeks of no rings closed at all, due to Apple refusing to provide me with a proactive replacement for what was clearly a hardware defect. After nearly 2 perfect years.

A couple of months later, Covid happened, and I now have a pretty poor end result, as the rings no longer matter having lost the ability to continue streak tracking (the only way to see your streak is if you're setting a new record).

I think the lesson here is beware on relying too much on this crack for motivation. If you're not developing the appropriate discipline alongside it, and just relying on the crack, you may find you fail like I did when the crack disappears.

Streaks are such a useless all or nothing system that fail in ways like you describe. A better method would be a 4 week average or some other system that prioritizes consistency without letting tiny mess ups ruin everything.

I'd like to see them cut down the streak timeframe to a week, e.g. 'you've had 84 perfect weeks'.

This would allow a few slip ups, vacations, etc, and when looking back on your activity you wouldn't feel guilty or annoyed that you had missed that one day a year and a half ago, you'd just see the '84 perfect weeks' record and be content.

I love this idea so much

That's the reason I never liked the streak system to motivate me. I used to use it on Duolingo, and found it a rising source of stress when I got it going, and a strong demotivator when I lost one. In the end I wasn't using the app to learn but to not lose the streak.

It might work for others but I prefer to ignore streaks, and avoid apps that put them in your face.

I've noticed a very consistent pattern over the years: any time someone mentions some device, or dietary choice, or habit, etc, that has had a large positive impact in their behavior, it's almost always a recent change. A few months, maybe half a year or a little more. It's been a pattern in my life too.

I do hope it's a lifelong positive change for you but I've just gotta discount any glowing reports that come from a recent change like this heavily.

It seems some people react positively for a long time to external motivation like apps or games. Others get excited but drop the habit after a while.

Personally I lose interest pretty quickly but it really seems it's good for some people.

I remain grumpy that Google and Apple's petty little spat means that a cellular Watch won't work on Fi.

Mixed feelings on this. Only because it paints the Apple Watch as the brainchild of this new-age health platform

Watch still is an exclusive way to drive consumers to iPhone. Today, it's more capable than ever, but smartwatches weren't exclusive to Apple - Pebble, Android Wear, Fitbit and Garmin (which I had) did them. And better in some aspects.

4 years later, I'm still not blown away at the sensor technology on Apple Watch. (disc. I have one) Sleep tracking wasn't added till the latest release!!?? It's def. a fashion statement. Like blue iMessage bubbles, Apple Watch is a sign of luxury and exclusivity, and it looks solid.

Apple owns an ecosystem, and at the center is the user. A computer on the wrist makes sense, it's always on, always there, and it's still a connected experience for when you can't have your phone. But I can't say Apple created a whole new industry - it only works because they own an ecosystem. Not because they have a fantastic wearable watch.

Agreed, as a Pebble and now Garmin owner the article seemed to gloss over the latter despite it having a fairly rich feature set.

>4 years later, I'm still not blown away at the sensor technology on Apple Watch. (disc. I have one) Sleep tracking wasn't added till the latest release!!??

I didn't buy an Apple Watch because of a) the cost and b) not wanting to charge a watch every day. My Amazfit Bip is 2.5 years old, and has

* Heart rate detection up to every minute (automatically speeds up to real time during workout)

* Bluetooth Smart sensor functionality, so I can use it to report heart rate to compliant apps like iSmoothRun

* Sleep tracking

* 25 days of battery life (real world, not specification)

* GPS (although I never use it, preferring GPS on my phone through iSmoothRun)

* Notifications display

* More than 20,000 user-contributed watch faces

* $60 price when I bought it; the successor Bip S is about the same price today

It doesn't have Apple Watch's arrythmia or blood oxygen detection, and there is a UI bug that the company never fixed after it appeared last year, but otherwise Bip has done exactly what it promised and more.

it is useful sometimes, but a fashion statement most of the time. I feel like it is doing integration really well, but it is quickly going to get stuck with the sad segregation of ecosystems we have now. Battery life sucks, I've never used the sleep tracking and I doubt anyone can use it if you're supposed to charge the watch during the night.

I will get one as soon as an iPhone is not required. I know they now have a "family" option, but it is still quite limited. I would love to be able to use my iPad Pro (with active data sim) for this. There is no technical reason for me not being able to do this. I am never going to switch to an iPhone, so it's on them. If they want to expand their market, this is an easy one for them.

> I am never going to switch to an iPhone

Out of curiosity, why?

I like being able to open a shell on my phone. (Yes, I know there are some limited options to do this on an iPhone that don't involve jail breaking. They all involve emulation and have limits to their usefulness.) I like running an FTP server on my phone. When combined with wireless tethering, it's the only way to get data directly from a phone onto a government laptop. There are plenty of hackerish/security apps I use that are simply unavailable on the iPhone. Sharing data between apps is now at least possible on an iPhone, but it's still very cumbersome. I understand the need for security, but it comes at a cost to performance or usability.

This is not an ideological issue. Everyone else in my family has iPhones, and I use my iPad all the time. It's just a personal choice that is driven by my use cases for a phone.

I've always had Android so am well used to it. They seem cheaper, more open, more colorful, faster to type. My wife's iphone drives me nuts. I dont understand why they're so popular.

I just switched from android after using it for the last 10 years. Largely I find them to be the same, the few things that really bother me is the lack of a back button and the lack of having photos sorted in the gallery. Its stupid how my camera photos get mixed in with memes saved off the internet.

But the main reason by far I picked an iphone this time is Apple is not an advertising company and therefore doesn't have to disrespect my privacy. Its always comforting to open a page on an apple app and see a very plain text explanation of exactly what data the app stores, how it is always kept locally and if shared, apple only requests the bare minimum rights to provide the feature you are using.

And then you look at a Google ToS that says "We can and will do whatever we want"

Yeah, agreed about the not-an-ad-company thing. Another selling point for Apple is their phones are supported for like 5 years of full OS updates, which is much longer than any Android phone.

I also just switched away from Android this summer, which I've been using since the very first days of smartphones. I had an iPhone 4S mixed in there for ~6mo when I broke my android and a friend let me have their old iPhone.

Now I'm on the new iPhone SE, entirely because I lost trust in Google. I had been worried about Google for a while, but it all kicked off when a new job last year gave me a MacBook, and I realized that Apple things weren't actually as bad as I thought they were. The laptop was a little more expensive than a comparable linux laptop, but I liked a lot of things about it too.

Ended up cutting out Google entirely, and couldn't be happier. Definitely makes me excited to talk about how I took back my privacy, even though it's still a bit weird paying the "actual cost" of web services rather than getting them for "free".

There's something sticky about mobile operating systems.

When I get on a Windows or Linux machine (assuming the latter isn't too... special), there are always a few things which trip me up. But a keyboard is a keyboard, same with mice and trackpads or whatever; I can get around, remind myself to hit control instead of command, use a few less shortcuts, get stuff done.

But when I use an Android device I'm just... lost. Nothing works the way I expect, I don't like it and I don't want to learn. I can't even type on the damn things.

None of that is Android's fault, it's because in the first case, the muscle memory is the input device, in the second case, the muscle memory is the operating system.

Fascinating, I simply switched a few times for fun. I'm currently better with an iPhone, but I can find my way around in both.

For me, in this order:

Long Term support. Once I buy a phone (second hand, 1 year old) I don’t have to think about getting another one for at least 3 years since Apple will support it for at least that period.

Cost - I normally get last years model second hand for £400-600. Generally I end up approx £100-£200/year when averaged over the remaining support period with a £100-£200 resale value at the end, beating all decent androids in price too.

Consistently - My phone is a tool. I need it to get out of my way. I can’t be dealing with learning a new text message apps quirks every 2 weeks (Allo, Hangouts etc).

Privacy - Apple, at least at the moment every move Apple makes seems to be in the opposite direction than most of its competitors. The illusion of some androids being cheaper is shattered when you consider that you are being sold too.

I still have an iPhone because I'm a prisoner of their ecosystem, but I wish I could get that new surface duo. I read a lot with my phone and that phone seems like the future to me.

I remember when the first Apple watch came out, many of my co-workers bought one (company discount). We'd be halfway through a meeting and suddenly they'd all stand up in unison because their watch told them to.

Gotta get meet that stand quota!

When I got the watch it was on a weekend and I figured the stand ring was useless because how do you manage to not stand once in an hour. Then monday hit and it was telling me to stand up every hour and it always feels like it was just 10 minutes ago since the last reminder.

Good.

You were all starting to suffer lower back compression, and no doubt the CO2 levels in that room were off the charts.

Better would be to make a rule that all meetings must conclude when people's watches start telling them "knock it off, you're an animal not a machine, stand up now or spend your last couple decades in pain".

...that isn't how stand notifications work.

Yes it is. If you haven't stood for 1 minute in the last hour then at 50 minutes into the hour you get a notification telling you that. I, too, work in an office of iOS users, and this frequently happens in our meetings. Everyone's watch goes off at the same time at the end of the hour.

I had that on an airplane last year, it was hilarious and inconvenient and all I could think was ‘they gotta stagger this notification a little.’

This is actually taking longer than I thought it would.

5 years ago I wrote a blog post essentially saying everyone will wear a smart watch for health and safety reasons:

https://h4labs.wordpress.com/2015/07/28/in-the-future-everyo...

It’s disappointing that Google hasn’t done a better job of competing. The industry needs 2 strong competitors.

Competition by Apple and Google in these areas will imo always be a bit asymmetrical as long as Apple makes its money off of selling luxury products and services while Google instead makes its money off of advertisers or data.

I mean... at what point does something become a luxury product? What does it mean to be a luxury product? I see homeless people with iPhones, people put Apple watches on payment plans.

I agree with your point about Google and ads, but I feel like this meme of Apple being a luxury product is slowly just not making sense to me.

Yeah, I don't really buy the "luxury product" label either, but I suppose everything is relative. All the major brands of smartphones have offerings at similar price points to the iPhone lineup. And in the United States, iPhones have around 50% of the smartphone market share.

The same largely applies to Apple's other product lines too, which the exception that they simply don't attempt to compete in the bottom-dollar markets for laptops or desktop PCs. So I would definitely say that Apple doesn't make junk for the race-to-the-bottom market, but I'm hesitant to call them a luxury brand.

Thanks. I certainly think it’s a luxury product in certain markets, but not in the US. I’ve had others say it’s a status symbol or luxury product and I’m always thinking... a Ferrari is a luxury product. Moet and Chandon is a luxury product... but an iPhone that 50% of Americans have?

Not 50% of Americans, 50% of smart watch share.

Artificial scarcity.

It's the only reason why its perceived value is so high in the US, and later gets carried to other foreign markets (like China). Apple is this single entity that creates these products that run this unique OS alone, while Android manufacturers are a dime a dozen - too visible. If I don't get the latest Samsung, I don't mind because I'll just go ahead and buy the latest OnePlus or Huawei or something. But I have nowhere to go if Apple stores run out of the iPhone, and if I'm really bought into the whole design oo-la-lah shtick, I'll just camp outside the Apple store (aside: I have seen fewer campers with each passing year).

Ferrari is a luxury product because every engine made is a machining masterpiece largely created by hand. Most and Chandon is a luxury product because it takes a good year and tons of time to perfect that taste. Apple fans may have had something to boast about with the design quality during the Steve Jobs years, but right now, there's little to boast about their mass-produced devices made by underpaid workers in a Chinese/Vietnamese/Indian factory, so they generate artificial oomph over things like the fonts or the app store or whatever. As a Tesla owner, I've seen the same kind of behavior from other Tesla owners, although I find Tesla to be a relatively flawed product compared to other cars such as a Porsche or an Audi.

Honestly, I suspect that if Jobs were alive right now, he wouldn't be really happy with today's Apple. Out of the nearly a decade since he's passed, the only thing that was really revolutionary on Apple's part were the Airbuds. And with Jony gone, I suspect there's going to be less of that too.

I would say products where the product price is high, the social status of using the product is high, and the profit margin of the product is high. You could add some other details, but I generally think of those things when I use that term. With that said, it's true the term is a bit overused for a company like Apple. But regardless of the labeling, I think customers of Apple fitness devices will, on average, be happier than customers of Google fitness devices for the aforementioned reason.

To me what makes the AW a luxury product is its something that absolutely no one needs (Except maybe old people). For almost all people buying it, its just a nice to have thing that makes things you could do before a little easier/better.

For me I really enjoy using it for walking directions in the city. Yes I could use my phone but this lets me walk more naturally without looking like a phone zombie.

Garmin seems to be doing just fine. And I don’t have to charge it every day.

How many users?

At least 1 that we know of

A completely unresearched wild-assed guess: and order of magnitude fewer. But they're nuts, and they are loyal repeat customers and evangelists for the platform.

After getting 2 hand me downs from a friend who upgraded, my partner sprung for a new one. Killer features for her: battery life of a week instead of a day and good backcountry navigation.

Garmin connect does exercise challenges too, so there's a social aspect as well.

So is that guess 1 million or 10 million? the article is about how there are about to be 100 million Apple Watch users.

I would definitely like longer battery life on my Apple watch.

Barring that it’d be convenient if the chargers were like lightning and usb-c: available in every gas station, drug store, and dollar store.

Probably somewhere in between? So maybe an order of magnitude and a half fewer? But yeah, the charger thing is real. Her new Garmin uses this weird housed pogo pin connector for charging. The last one used a cradle that hugged the back of the watch; no idea what the electrical connection is.

I can only assume there's a good reason for the non-standard connector, and that it probably involves waterproofing?

I have no horse in this race, to be clear.

The Garmin Fenix is waterproof. I swim with it, I find it really great. I can even operate the watch in the water since it's not a touchscreen. And it would be worth the price just for having an ultra-compact GPS navigation unit for hiking. (It can run turn-by-turn navigation for 2-3 days, in the default low-power mode it can last 3 weeks with heart rate + step tracking + other basic metrics.)

8% of global market share, 37.5% YoY growth:

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20200506006138/en/Str...

I like my Garmin, they are making good hardware. But the software is a let-down.

Does Samsung count? https://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/wearables/smartwatches/

How is their smartwatch software and SDK?

The software is pretty good actually. Have a Galaxy Active2, two day battery life, good health sensors, and I find the interface incredible easy to use (after one or two day of adaptation). The fact that it is round is a plus for me too (it looks like a watch if you turn Always on screen, though I use it off in mine).

I don't know about the SDK though, but it does seem to have some apps (not that I use many of them).

What's their market share like?

I have had a Samsung smartwatch for 5 years now and have been very satisfied. I'm not a big user of health functions, but sleep tracking, being able to see messages quickly without having to reach for my phone, and having an alarm on my wrist that is guaranteed to wake me up are the 3 biggest benefits. I also prefer a round watch face, it give a more classic feel. I feel a rectangular watch face shouts "I'm a smartwatch user!" a bit too much.

Meanwhile a round watch face shouts "I'm a round smartwatch user!".

For me at least, a round watch face blends better, and it's harder to tell whether it is a smartwatch or not out of the corner of your eye without specifically checking the face of the watch. For square watches, I can pretty much tell it's a smartwatch, starting from the Pebble days.

I think Amazon has shown that no competitors are needed.

If any are, it's just one. Apple/Microsoft and Apple/Google.

The Apple watch is only an option to iphone users. Since the majority of phone users do not have an iphone it means that the majority of people can not use an Apple watch.

Don't they own FitBit?

Sadly apple watch is the only real product that's making any attempts are iterating to more cases. But the tie in to iphones is sad.

Everyone else is still regurgitating the same garbage with their watches.

The only killer feature that's still missing for me would be alarm clock tracking sleep phases and waking me up when it's most appropriate. I'll buy Apple Watch instantly. I've used iPhone apps but they're rather limited, but I really liked what they did even with that limitation.

Sleep Cycle [0] does this with "Intelligent" wake mode, and has a standalone app for the Apple Watch.

I'll also be shocked if this isn't a native feature of Apple's Sleep app within a year.

[0] https://9to5mac.com/2020/05/12/sleep-cycle-apple-watch-app/

The industry needs 2 strong competitors.

I think it needs more than two.

I've worn a watch all my life, but going from a battery that lasts a year to one that lasts a few days is a giant leap of inconvenience for me. Also, watch platforms seem to me even tinier walled gardens than those of mobile phones. If I could see myself using anything, it would be more akin to the Pine Time[0] than the Apple Watch. I realize the Pine is still in it's infancy.

[0]: https://www.pine64.org/pinetime/

I'm somewhat excited for the Pine Time. On one hand battery life is good and you get multiple interesting software platforms, on the other hand none is quite ready yet (sure, time will probably deal with that), and the hardware is just a bit meh.

With an e-paper screen (see Amazfit Bip or Pebble Time), more buttons and a more precise haptic feedback device the thing could be amazing.

I might still buy it for the freedom aspect, but especially the first 2 are frustrating. I don't want to have to swipe around on the display of my watch.

I stopped wearing watches 30 years ago and I won't do it again for a smart watch unless my doctor tells me so and there are really no alternatives. So, no Apple, no Samsung, no anything. It's a product category dead on arrival for me.

I can consider smart glasses because I'm wearing them anyway. But they must be light and survive sport activities, including sweat (cycling in summer with a helmet.) Finally, given the widespread concerns with privacy, tracking, advertising etc (yesterday's discussion about smart TVs) the less smart they are the better.

What's your reason for not wearing a watch? I have found it to be quite pleasant.

I understand I'm an outlier, by far.

I had a watch since I was a kid. Then I started having a clock on the computer at university, plenty of clocks at home and everywhere I went. I started to put my clock in my pocket and left it at home forever after a few years. I took it with me only when I went hiking. Knowing time is important for safety.

I've been feeling uncomfortable wearing anything around my wrist since I got used to have it free.

I've been using various smart watches (currently on galaxy active) and I love them but I still feel that it's only slightly more than a meme.

The core functionality is just gamification like step counts, "hey get up reminders" and some rather pointless blood metrics.

What is great imho is the customizable watches and bands. The bands are like 1$ each and the are like a thousand of brilliant watch faces.

I think smart watches are much better for fashion than function.

No matter what you do, a smart watch will always look worse than a regular watch without seriously crippling the watches features. If you want something that looks nice then get a normal watch. The core feature of a smart watch is fitness tracking. I love using mine for going on a run and seeing my heart rate as well as switching music. And then if I stop at a cafe I can use it to pay. All without bringing any phone or wallet with me.

don't forget:

- convenient timers on a complication: use this a few times a day

- an alarm which can wake me up without jarring my brain, this being the only alarm I've ever used where that's the case: five times a week

- 2048

- ability to set reminders by speaking to it

- heart rate tracker which actually works. I let my heart rate get below 130 between weight sets, and like to check my peak after a set as well. Also, it likes to alert me when I'm having one of my infrequent panic attacks. You'd think I'd notice anyway, but, not always

- unlocks my computer when I'm wearing it. This is a tiny affordance but really a nice one

- pay for groceries without bringing my phone or wallet out. Do I have to? No. Do I like to? Yeah, I'll cop to that. It's nice

- take the occasional call when my phone is in another room or I don't want to dig it out. Works long enough to say "hey I'll call you back", which is usually about all I want to say

- remind me what the date is, because I'm terrible at that. Granted that my automatic watches would do that too

- when I'm feeling nostalgic, load up a watch face that shows me pictures of times when I was happy, and people I love

- pause and play music/podcasts/whatever

I'm sure I'm missing a few, but I'll also say this: it's way less fashionable than my automatics. It's actually kinda dorky when you get right down to it.

But it's so much more functional that I just don't care, I've made my peace with it.

Someday, I'll get to leave the house again and do fancy things, and I have a couple timepieces for those occasions. But in the meantime, and the rest of the time, it's a smartwatch for me.

A cute one: when using CarPlay for driving directions, AW taps your wrist when it’s time to make a turn. And the tap pattern is distinct for left and right.

Oh yeah that's more than cute, I would have definitely included it if I had remembered, it's great and it works with Maps on the iPhone as well.

I had been using Google Maps just out of habit, and switched because of this. I'm distractible and it helps a lot.

> an alarm which can wake me up without jarring my brain

Which watch do you use? Sadly it seems Apple are the only ones not messing this up, as the other watches I tried alarms on, while effective in waking me up quietly, made me feel like my hand was going to fall of for the whole day.

Apple Watch Series 4.

The haptics in general are one of the best things about it. The only other smartwatch I've had to compare it to is the Withings Steel, which is just a very different beast.

It’s so interesting how many single uses of the watch make it hard to go back to life beforehand. In other words, even if I did nothing else with the watch, I’d still miss it if it was gone.

For instance, Apple Pay on a watch seems magical (and even better with COVID): you double-click, move your wrist closer and you’ve paid, after a pleasing confirmation “bzzz” on your wrist. As amazing as paying with your phone was, that just seems clunky once you use the watch.

Now Apple just needs to make watch faces easily customizable. The rush to customize phone screens in iOS 14 should show them, people want to personalize their stuff!! Having the same OK-ish face gallery for years is easily the main downside of the Apple Watch.

I actually felt much better once I took of my watch, it's been lying in a drawer for almost two years now, and I don't miss it at all.

The constant notifications made life really stressful (I know you can turn them off), I even had a few people ask me if I had to go somewhere, because every time I had a notification, I had the urge to just look what it was.

The health tracking was really great, although I didn't had the cellular version, so I always had my phone with me anyway, which made the watch kind of useless. I'm sure it might be different if you have the cellular version and you can go for a run just with your watch.

Apple Pay always felt kind of awkward, mostly because of the placement of the terminals, so I always had to turn my wrist very awkwardly. Plus I always had my phone with me anyway, which does the same thing.

That's my experience with the Series 3, it's possible I might have a different experience now, but I really have no desire to buy a new one.

The watch is kind of meh for me, and I have the cellular version.

Sometimes the notifications are handy. But if I want to respond to a text, the watch is useless unless I just want one of the canned responses like “Ok”.

It is handy for working out.

As an actual watch, I have one of the older ones without an always-on screen. So when I worked in an office, I actually went back to an old-fashioned watch because it’s hard to discreetly turn on the Apple Watch screen. So I would just wear the Apple Watch when working out. Now that I work from home I wear the Apple Watch all day but I don’t get a ton of utility out of it. I do check the outside temperature occasionally but for that I could just open my front door.

Overall, if I knew this thing would be only as marginally useful as it is I’m not sure I’d buy one. The always-on face would make it more useful but I’m not eager to go spend even more money on this category.

It's interesting to see Google to some extent, just sort of, bow out of modern computing. Watches, tablets, and VR are all more recent "frontiers" where Google just seems to be shrugging it's shoulders. I wonder if it's fatigue, some genius strategy too sophisticated for me to appreciate, creeping internal dysfunction or something else?

I used to think tablets were a "done" technology and would have no takers in a world of 6" smartphones. But I used the iPad Pro recently with the magic keyboard. While it would never replace my primary machine, I can see it easily become a big part of my productivity workflow. The tablet form factor has a lot to offer still.

I've been surprised since the introduction of the Apple Pencil how much the iPad has become ubiquitous in the art world. I had greatly under estimated it when it first came out due to the first gen pencil and the lack of good productivity models at the time (ie most apps were very modal and limited to single tasks at a time etc) and the OS didn't really have split screen yet.

Tons of Artists whom I follow have straight up stopped creating as much on their computers with a Wacom (Intuos or Cintiq) and are creating on the iPad.

Has Google ever done anything well besides search? I know they have had a ton of other products thrown at the wall funded by their firehose of cash from search. Have they ever made money doing anything else?

Maps, GMail, YouTube and Docs are all top of their class IMHO.

Similarly Chromecast is superb.

They've had lots of secondary products that were Greta but are now since dead. The issue isn't execution, they can execute well. The issue is longevity, and they deprecate often.

If anything, their products are great but their product story is not

I don't understand why you need to have a watch to tell you how you feel.

It's measuring the response from when it told you how to feel.

I don't get how you can use it for sleep tracking when the battery lasts 18 hours. Fitbit is good for 4 days

I guess you charge it when you're awake but at home. Which, for many of us, is now all the time.

You can wear it for 22.5 hours/day and charge for 90mins

My series 4 is a year and a half old and battery lasts for two days.

I charge mine when I'm showering and when I'm eating dinner and that's more than enough.

I have a charger on my bathroom counter by my sonicare charger. Charge it while showering/brushing teeth/etc...

If I take my series 6 of the charger at 07:00 and wear it all day and all night, when I wake up at 07:00 again its at 50% charge. I can then charge it while having a shower. This seems to work fine for me. I take my watch off anyway while having a shower so putting it down on the charger is no issue.

Good info thx.

I use Daylio to track mood and activities since I'm too lazy these days for a proper journal. It alerts me to make an entry at 9:30.

When I'm done, I charge my watch.

Charge while showering ;P

Lots of praise for the Apple Watch here. Here's my take as a first-time Apple Watch Series 6 user who really tried to make it work, but just couldn't. I returned the watch today as the 14-day return window came to a close.

For a smart watch, it's remarkably dumb. To me it felt like you have to tell it everything you do, when you plan to go to sleep, when you start exercising, etc. You can enable the "automatic workout detection feature", but it's automatic in name only. Instead, it will literally pop-up a dialog for you to pick an activity from a list as you're working out. Same thing when you stop, another manual confirmation required. The heartrate function isn't continuous at all, something I was unware of. It samples at a 10 minute internal, except if your arm is moving (what). The sleep tracking has zero details. All of these are things that a $150 Fitbit nailed 5 years ago (I haven't worn one of those either for years): automatic workouts, continuous heart rate, automatic rem stage tracking etc. The audio handling is bizarre, press play in Spotify or Overcast and my iPhone 50 feet away starts playing, despite having Airpods in and paired. Why would you ever want to do that? Audio routing and making the watch have a silent vibrate-only with no alarm on the iPhone is two things I never did figure out in the two weeks I had the watch.

But worst of all, as someone else said, it's a massive notification factory. I mean, constant, continuous, incessant pinging, buzzing, vibrating, unread red dots etc. Out of the box, it probably pinged me 25 times an hour, a lot of it emails sure, Slack, but also remembering to breath and stand and wash my hands and everything in-between, all of the latter ones I ended up disabling within the first week as too annoying. Yes, you can (must) configure notifications in detail (depending on how many apps you use, literally hundreds of toggles), but what a terrible experience.

Ultimately I decided that I want something that makes my life simpler, not another gadget that I have to babysit (and charge every day), with anxiety inducing notifications. That's without going into the bugs... in the 14 days I had to unlink and re-pair the watch twice as it permanently lost the connection to my iPhone 11 Pro despite power cycling both devices multiple times. From reading Reddit this seems to have been a persistent issue over the years with the watch and nothing unusual. Except when you do, you have to literally start from scratch in creating your watch faces, configuring your zillion notifications, etc. After returning the device, I just felt relieved.

Just reading this stresses me out. I have a habit of checking my phone every half hour or so for notification, but that's it, almost everything is turned off (vibration and sound) exceptions being my wife and kids. Half hour checks (or hourly) is enough for just about anyone. The human race got by without smartwatches for a million years or so, we don't really need them and they just sound like an interruption strapped to your wrist.

Surprised nobody is discussing the part about how smart speakers were a big dumb flop. I felt insane watching all my friends and family members getting these, asking them why? They never had answers. It was kind of scary honestly, a true illustration of consumerism. They’re cheap and they’re there so we bought them. Oh they harvest our data to sell us more stuff which we can’t explain our rationale for purchasing? Oops!

I kind of want an apple watch. The fitness tracking has gotten good enough that I would use it over my Garmin for tracking runs and cycling, and I can enjoy the extra features it has over the Garmin.

But...it's a nonstarter because it requires you own an iPhone. Even for cellular models. I have no desire to buy an iPhone.

I wonder how many sales they are missing to non-iPhone owners, or if they really just don't care. I don't personally think the Apple watch is good enough to be a system seller...but it is yet another entry into their entirely locked up, vertically integrated ecosystem. More than any other company, the lock-in with Apple is real.

And IMO it's a shame they limit the potential of their products so much.

Is there a way to own one without an iPhone yet?

Just for other family members without iPhones.

There's a new feature called Family Sharing that allows your kids and parents to have an Apple Watch without requiring that they have an iPhone.

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2020/09/apple-extends-the-app...

You can see any Apple device as a trojan horse for people to get into the Apple ecosystem, so probably never. It is extremely annoying to be honest, I have a few google Home and I can't play Apple music on them. It's ridiculous.

They've already got their hooks in, I have Apple laptops, I just prefer Android phones.

For me the Watch has become my dumb phone with benefits.

My watch faces only really have complications for messages and calls (some have weather and workouts too) and as I have the cellular model I often leave my phone at home and am effectively distraction free.

Unlike a dumb phone I still have podcasts, audiobooks and Spotify with me (I still have a copy of Apollo which does streaming but Spotify shut it down years ago). So I don’t need another device when walking the dog.

Plus I can pay for stuff (no need to carry a wallet) measure activity (again walking the dog) and get notified of work emergencies (so if something fails I can message the client and head home immediately - most notifications are off though).

Personally, I don't see the appeal of the Apple Watch, I stil have the initial one, but back I only used few times, maybe due the lack of push notifications on my phone. Also you have to charge it daily (think better these days), while a watch would keep ticking, they even had a longer power reserve, the watch I am going to pick up soon has 31 day power reserve.

I just enjoy a nice watch, admire its engineering, the ticking sound, the smooth sweeping.

Loving it. I currently I have a small collection of watches of 18 watches. About to receive my two grail watches.

it must be nice to drink apple kool-aid. I have a garmin fenix. I have the so called apple health features. crazy features like hike tracking, offline maps. and you know what my battery lasts a month on average.

I tried one on at an expo before a half-marathon years ago. I also borrowed one from my trainer to see how I liked it (it is expensive and he was actually planning to sell it to get the latest iteration). The battery life and utility for offline use are fantastic. But, it was also really damn heavy. Noticeably heavy (maybe the latest incarnations aren't so heavy?). As someone who always wears a watch, but usually ones with few complications and relatively small (compared to many men's watches) it was uncomfortable.

That was my biggest take away and the main reason (besides the fact I don't do any long backpacking trips anymore so the offline mapping and really long battery life were less critical) I selected the Apple Watch. A watch, to me, shouldn't make you notice it's presence whenever you move your arm. Plus they're even more expensive than the Apple Watch.

My Forerunner 245 is lighter than an Apple Watch. A Forerunner 945 has all the Fenix 6 features but is lighter. A Fenix 6s is also light too.

watches have been a fashion accessory only for years now. The high priced swiss etc watch market is purely a status symbol fashion thing for sure. Smart watches are an accessory as there's very little reason to not be with your phone or check your phone for the basics (time, notifications). All the perks you all like about the Watch are frivolous/luxury concerns. Even the health tracking. Having all the extra data and notifications (bleh, no more notifications!) are a luxury. Tap to pay, handy, sure, but man, is that a luxury. And all you parents out there loving the watch because you're juggling kids and don't know where your phone is half the time....... handy luxury, and maybe really you only need the one device (tied to the iphone still? bah)

The pandemic has also changed everything. Other than perhaps wanting the health tracking in covid times which could save a life sure, no one should be moving around as much or in the same way as pre-covid to need a watch.

It's just another watch fashion accessory that keeps you tied to your phone for convenience, but not necessary = luxury. You're paying a luxury fee for convenience that the Apple ecosystem has made you accustomed to from a glorified media company that happens to have some hardware made for you to access their media offerings. Just like the iPad made a market for tablets where there wasn't really one and for years despite competitors entering the market was really only for the Apple iPad and nothing else.

meh/apple hate in this post, whatever, just a different viewpoint not expressed enough in this thread.

I'll take an interest once they offer the cellular version in my country (Ireland—where their EU hq is based, of all places). Until then, meh.

>(Ireland—where their EU hq is based, of all places)

You still have to cross the border to get to an Apple Store!

What border? /s (sarcasm decreasing day upon day)

It's bizarre that they have one in Belfast but not Dublin. I've never understood the logic.

A really interesting read, and I agree with a lot of the points made - except this one:

> Apple created an entirely new industry – something that isn’t found much in the traditional Apple playbook.

I would have thought this is exactly what Apple's blockbuster successes are known for. The original Mac, iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch - all industry-defining products.

I’ve had one sine series 0. Have the 6 now. I love all of the details and small tools I can pack into complications. I have multiple faces with various functions I routinely use. I am rarely without it.

I would have never spent more than $100 on a traditional watch, and any watch I had before I could never get consistent about wearing.

Since I am not too active, I find the the Pebble Time does exactly what I want - time, messages, alarms, timers and lasts three to four days. I am grateful to Rebel to making it still work on Android 10. If Android stops supporting it, I'll mournfully have to replace it. Until then, I have a backup ready.

Love my Watch S4 - I can stay connected without the distraction of all the phone’s apps.

I would like the watch to become the main device, with the “pocketable big screen” relegated to an optional map, camera and web browser satellite-type device rather than vice versa.

What are your thoughts on the SE?

How important is always on display? Does not having it mean you have a distracting flashing from your screen when you move your arm, or is it always on just a marketing checkbox?

Do people use Apple Watch as a replacement for their iPhone? I am trying to reduce my phone usage. Not needing to carry my phone with me is an attractive idea to me.

I am not a fan of the aboveavalon articles but this one has some good insight. Specifically the smart speaker->watch point.

I’d love to wear an Apple Watch but just can’t stand to have anything on my hands. Don’t even wear my wedding ring.

That is exactly my issue. I would love the health tracking features, but I can’t stand wearing watches or rings

Have you tried just dealing with it for a week? I find watches to be very annoying at first but after a while I don't even notice them.

Is there any accurate solution for blood pressure monitoring with the apple watch?

After 5 years, I still have to peck at buttons on my watch to pause/unpause workouts or switch songs when I bet you some slap gestures could do the trick

why don't you talk to your watch? That's what I do. I don't find the voice interface that useful on the phone (and completely disabled it on my iPad and Mac -- ugh). But on the watch it makes a lot of sense.

What if I don't want to talk while running? Or under water?

I guess I just don't tweak things much while doing stuff. I only know of one gesture of the kind you mention: cover the watch face with your palm to silence an alarm or incoming call.

That is my favorite feature on the apple watch

For me Apple Watch is missing the key features

- Always on display

- I would like to charge the watch only once a month

Nice to have list:

- GPS tracking possibility

- Mobile notifications

Currently Amazfit Bip fills the checkboxes for all the requirements so I continue using that :)

I don’t care about the display, they should make a version without it. I would love to be able to have just the sensors and Health integration, but I don’t wear watches and the Apple Watch is to expensive and intrusive if you just want the health tracking.

The Apple Watch has had an always-on display for 2 generations now.

But who likes the design? In my view, Apple tried to cater to the desires of both men and women simultaneously, and ended up with a sex-less watch that looks like it was designed by a committee.

Why do you need a watch that is designed for a particular sex?

For many, a watch is a fashion accessory. Thus, a watch that fits their style is important. If their fashion style identifies strongly with a particular sex, then a watch that clashes with that style would be less appealing.

> Why do you need a watch that is designed for a particular sex?

If you'd ask that question in a Rolex board-meeting, they'd show you the door ...

Yeah, but Rolex primarily caters to men who are insecure in their masculinity, so they're a special case >:-)

Or maybe Rolex caters to people who have money and like watches?

Two things can be true at once

From what I have seen in the watch scene, a rolex is the equivalent of driving an enormous 4wd, its compensating for insecurity or to show off more than appreciation for watches.

Someone who actually likes watches is more likely to go with something premium from Seiko or Tag Heuer

Why would somebody who likes watches go for something as mind numbingly boring as a Rolex? I truly don't get the appeal.

I'd have accepted that description for Casio G-Shock.

Rolex is for people with more money than taste, and who want you to know it.

I think tens of millions of buyers don't quite mind the design so I'd day they have a strong market...

There is, of course, a difference between "don't quite mind the design" and "like the design".

There are other smart watches on the market and they don't seem to have a fraction of the users as the AW. Android Wear tries to look more like a normal watch but it ends up not looking as nice as a normal watch and not working well as a smart watch due to the round screen.

When you can choose the watch face and change out the band, it's not so much designed by committee as providing options. The watch itself is just a roundish square of metal and glass. Not a bad design for those who are buying it!

It's gotten a lot better since the Series 4 rounded corners, and the bands are excellent. Reception seems mixed with the watch faces that mimic traditional ones.

It's the most popular watch on the planet now, so... lots of people?

On the contrary, I think it’s a feminine design. I would wager that more watches are sold to women too. Anecdotally it appears to be true.

And when we look at the epidemic of rock-bottom testosterone levels in men, this makes sense.

Really interesting sidebar topic tbh. Haven’t thought of it until now.

"Traditional" watch designs differentiate mens and womens watches mostly by size, and there are already two different sizes of Apple Watch.

upvoting because this thread needs a convo on the design. I thought it was weird, but now I have one and I started to like it. I think Apple did right here in choosing one design and sticking to it through generations. My guess is that they will never deprecate this design, so that it becomes an accepted watch design, but instead will introduce a new competing design for the 10y birthday of the Apple watch.

It's a glass brick on my wrist.

...I don't hate it. I'm glad it's not a glass brick on my wrist wearing lipstick, and what else could it be, really?

To my eye, round smartwatches that are all screen look fake, but my Mom has one and loves it. I had a Withings Steel and it looks way better, but it just doesn't do much, and the dealbreaker for me was that the heart rate monitor was seriously inaccurate, probably a compromise for the battery, which lasts weeks.

Do you see antitrust action rising with regards to the health data implications that smartwatches like the Apple Watch bring? In the EU already, we're seeing heavy probes on Fitbit:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-fitbit-m-a-alphabet-eu/he...

I don’t get it. Monopoly doesn’t mean just a market that one product is clearly superior to the competitors. Monopoly is a market which has either natural or artificial barriers which preclude competition.

What’s the natural or artificial barrier to entry in the fitness wearable market? It seems highly competitive to me.

Of course I personally don't agree with it, but this is the official stance on the EU side: https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/IP_20_...

The natural/artificial barrier is the data silo created by the fitness tracking. Monopoly isn't necessarily the right word, but it is rather frustrating that all these smartwatches by default beam all of your biometrics into a non-hippa-compliant datastore, and that these datastores don't interoperate.

It's really tricky because right now Garmin, Fitbit, Apple, and the others are all basically financing their data portals through device sales. Which makes sense because I wouldn't have paid a subscription for it before I bought the watch, but now that I have the watch (Garmin) it is an invaluable service. But it seems wrong that the watch manufacturer owns the data - I would like a data storage company with strong privacy guarantees and strong analytics. But I'm not sure I trust any of these companies, it seems like they're all trying to figure out how to monetize my data by selling analytics to third-parties. (Even Apple.)

The user data is valuable, it could even create some degree of individual user lock-in. Lock-in becomes barrier to entry as the market becomes saturated. I’m not sure how many people feel that strongly about keeping long-term historical fitness data.

If the data creates powerful network effects in a way that results in a winner-take-all effect then in theory a monopoly could emerge even before market saturation. Is there a strong case for that?

App developers will want to create apps for devices that are popular, so that is an effect. Eventually enough apps could potentially create a barrier to entry, if “volume of apps” is the buying criteria.

But often the volume of apps is pretty irrelevant. Show a user a compelling experience with 10 mind-blowing apps and you can still compete against an App Store filled largely with trash.

In the end it’s a couple hundred dollar device you put on your wrist. There may be extremely compelling products that have large market share, but I’m just not seeing how that can become a monopoly.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24638879

Nah, the watch is nothing but a gimmick. My bet is most people who try it won't buy a second one and will even stop using the first one. Taking off and on every day to charge is a huuuuge hassle , its much worse than a phone that naturally lends itself to being charged (because it rests on a desk anyway usually). But most of all the utility is not there, it wanes fast and the whole "breathe" thing is just ridiculous. The mi band is like $30 and lasts for a whole month on a single charge. Garmin watches seem to be popular with sports enthusiasts. "Normal" people dont have a use for a daily-charger phone. It's mostly a fashion item for all i know, one that needs extra effort.

No one wears a watch 24/7. At the minimum they will take it off to shower since most bands tend to hold water for ages. A shower time on the charger is enough to charge the watch. The Mi band is amazing for the price but its a totally different product.

i never - ever took off my watch when i wore one. Same with the mi band for a short time that i used it. But ultimately i don't see the value of watches in general.

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