WatchOS 8

[User.45]

So first time you (or she) have owned an Apple Watch?

Correct. I never liked the design, or the need to charge daily. But right now I could charge it at work consistently so it's fine.

I was really interested in the pulse/ox function but after seeing how long it took to go into and run I figured I'll just stick with my $20 finger sensor and keep my Series 4.

Yeah. TBH the only reason we use pulseox is convenience. If you need to make decisions, you get arterial blood gases (or venous if you're desperate). It's a great example of why you need diversity on equipment calibration and testing: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/18048893/

 

[DT]

Correct. I never liked the design, or the need to charge daily. But right now I could charge it at work consistently so it's fine.

Cool. We were owners from day 1, i.e., both had "series 0" as pre-orders

I love the device, I haven't worn a traditional watch since owning one. In those early days, it was a little slow, a good bit less functional, but by the S4, it had gotten quick, super useful, for working out, it's just fantastic. We even use the heart rate monitor as a peripheral (so to speak), for non-Apple workout systems (like the Peloton App).

If you decide to get some other bands, the aftermarket options are excellent, and usually much cheaper than Apple (and some brands are easily as good, if not better).

 

[Pumbaa]

Cool. We were owners from day 1, i.e., both had "series 0" as pre-orders

I love the device, I haven't worn a traditional watch since owning one.

I know a guy who is really into fancy traditional watches and owns quite a few expensive pieces. He is annoyed for sure that the watch he is actually using nowadays is an Apple Watch and not one of the fancy expensive ones.

 

[Joe]

I know a guy who is really into fancy traditional watches and owns quite a few expensive pieces. He is annoyed for sure that the watch he is actually using nowadays is an Apple Watch and not one of the fancy expensive ones.

I switch back and forth between my traditional watches and Apple Watch. Usually on days I know I’m not going to the gym I’ll wear my traditional watch.

 

[User.45]

Cool. We were owners from day 1, i.e., both had "series 0" as pre-orders

I love the device, I haven't worn a traditional watch since owning one. In those early days, it was a little slow, a good bit less functional, but by the S4, it had gotten quick, super useful, for working out, it's just fantastic. We even use the heart rate monitor as a peripheral (so to speak), for non-Apple workout systems (like the Peloton App).

If you decide to get some other bands, the aftermarket options are excellent, and usually much cheaper than Apple (and some brands are easily as good, if not better).

I was on for Pebble since gen #1 and to date I still consider that the best smart watch around.
I think it took a good 5 years for apple to get AW to decently compensate for it's battery life limitations.
Being able to integrate with my calendar to see my daily agenda and To-Do list on my wrist may be a game changer.

 

[fischersd]

Individual ringtones. Annoying as all hell to have them set on my phone and yet the watch sitting 1 foot away is still chiming away with that awful default ring.

btw - still sporting the AW3 - this was supposed to be a major upgrade year (everything is 4+ years old) - old: iPhoneX, AW3, AirPodsv1, AppleTV instead of HTPC (Ala Mac mini circa 2012).
Only upgraded the iPhone to the 13 mini and the AirPods to the AirPods Pro (the AirPods 3 were painful - literally - go figure!)

Holding off on the Watch as it's a minor upgrade over last year's (and Apple is still selling the AW3) - continue to beta test on all of my devices - AW3 is still functional, so I'll give it another year. Apple f'd up large AGAIN on the Mini - still no HDMI 2.1 port - so still no 120Hz refresh for my TV (though likely eARC support).
I'll give it another refresh to see if they finally get their act together - keep using the newest AppleTV 4k until then. (using a 2018 15" MacBook Pro for my home PC - much prefer my wireless trackpad / keyboard on the coffee table)

 

[User.45]

Individual ringtones. Annoying as all hell to have them set on my phone and yet the watch sitting 1 foot away is still chiming away with that awful default ring.

btw - still sporting the AW3 - this was supposed to be a major upgrade year (everything is 4+ years old) - old: iPhoneX, AW3, AirPodsv1, AppleTV instead of HTPC (Ala Mac mini circa 2012).
Only upgraded the iPhone to the 13 mini and the AirPods to the AirPods Pro (the AirPods 3 were painful - literally - go figure!)

Holding off on the Watch as it's a minor upgrade over last year's (and Apple is still selling the AW3) - continue to beta test on all of my devices - AW3 is still functional, so I'll give it another year. Apple f'd up large AGAIN on the Mini - still no HDMI 2.1 port - so still no 120Hz refresh for my TV (though likely eARC support).
I'll give it another refresh to see if they finally get their act together - keep using the newest AppleTV 4k until then. (using a 2018 15" MacBook Pro for my home PC - much prefer my wireless trackpad / keyboard on the coffee table)

For AW, they can always improve battery life significantly, but I think that's all. Doubt they'd be able to reliably get BP or glucose monitoring on it so I doubt it's worth the wait for the next watch, unless you're fixing for a physical redesign.

 

[User.45]

<erroneous entry>

 

[Pumbaa]

Individual ringtones. Annoying as all hell to have them set on my phone and yet the watch sitting 1 foot away is still chiming away with that awful default ring.

btw - still sporting the AW3 - this was supposed to be a major upgrade year (everything is 4+ years old) - old: iPhoneX, AW3, AirPodsv1, AppleTV instead of HTPC (Ala Mac mini circa 2012).
Only upgraded the iPhone to the 13 mini and the AirPods to the AirPods Pro (the AirPods 3 were painful - literally - go figure!)

Holding off on the Watch as it's a minor upgrade over last year's (and Apple is still selling the AW3) - continue to beta test on all of my devices - AW3 is still functional, so I'll give it another year. Apple f'd up large AGAIN on the Mini - still no HDMI 2.1 port - so still no 120Hz refresh for my TV (though likely eARC support).
I'll give it another refresh to see if they finally get their act together - keep using the newest AppleTV 4k until then. (using a 2018 15" MacBook Pro for my home PC - much prefer my wireless trackpad / keyboard on the coffee table)

Go Team Series 3!

<erroneous entry>

<erroneous quote>

 

[DT]

I've never had a battery issue with our Watches, or our iPhones for that matter.

I live a hassle free tech existence

 

[Eric]

So first time you (or she) have owned an Apple Watch?

Correct. I never liked the design, or the need to charge daily. But right now I could charge it at work consistently so it's fine.

What a treat that must be, it's come a long way since the first gen, which I jumped from to my 4th gen, the difference was day and night. Congrats, for better or worse this is an excellent device IMO, it's cut down how often I look at my phone by half I would say.

 

[DT]

it's cut down how often I look at my phone by half I would say.

Yeah, things I used to use my phone for, that now I find are much better/faster/more convenient via the Watch:

Time (duh ... )
Date
Sunset/Sunrise
Tides
Calendar / "reminders"
Timers
Quick messaging (like a "grab another sweet cream", where it doesn't even need a reply)

... and especially payments, I almost never use my iPhone for Apple Pay!

This is all, of course, excluding the workout/health data type stuff, it was more to your point about replacing phone chores

 

[Eric]

Yeah, things I used to use my phone for, that now I find are much better/faster/more convenient via the Watch:

Time (duh ... )
Date
Sunset/Sunrise
Tides
Calendar / "reminders"
Timers
Quick messaging (like a "grab another sweet cream", where it doesn't even need a reply)

... and especially payments, I almost never use my iPhone for Apple Pay!

This is all, of course, excluding the workout/health data type stuff, it was more to your point about replacing phone chores

Payments are excellent, everything is non-touch (as with the iPhone but it's way more convenient) but for me the biggest benefit is notifications. I know exactly by the tap what type it is, not even having to look most of the time unless I know it's something I'm expecting, or it's easy enough to look at and know whether it's worth picking up the iPhone for.

 

[ericwn]

I switch back and forth between my traditional watches and Apple Watch. Usually on days I know I’m not going to the gym I’ll wear my traditional watch.

Same here. There is something about a traditional watch face, even on many affordable watches, that I enjoy too much to miss out on completely. Using a solar powered Seiko for these occasions and otherwise an Apple Watch SE (but would love to own one with an always on display soon…).

 

[User.45]

I've never had a battery issue with our Watches, or our iPhones for that matter.

I live a hassle free tech existence

I can tell you, most iPhones are incompatible with a resident call. Especially these days when a pager is replaced by a cell phone app for most services. My old One-Plus 3 could do 2 days on a charge and even if I had to attend codes and make mission-critical sometimes hour-long calls, I hardly had any worries about battery. My iPhone SE2 lasts about 1.5d even though I hate touching it and iPhone chargers are the most unreliable POS chargers ever known to humankind.

What a treat that must be, it's come a long way since the first gen, which I jumped from to my 4th gen, the difference was day and night. Congrats, for better or worse this is an excellent device IMO, it's cut down how often I look at my phone by half I would say.

Thanks! For me the hope is to reduce my reliance on notification center on the Macbook. The only reason I can tolerate the iPhone is that i can access most of its functions on my computer. But notification center hasn't been efficient enough to display mission-critical data for me.

Do you guys remember Khashoogshi's murder? The Turkish government knew about the details because his AW was hacked...
So that's another layer of security concerns, though I'm definitely not important enough to be targeted by zero-day exploits.

 

[fischersd]

Payments are excellent, everything is non-touch (as with the iPhone but it's way more convenient) but for me the biggest benefit is notifications. I know exactly by the tap what type it is, not even having to look most of the time unless I know it's something I'm expecting, or it's easy enough to look at and know whether it's worth picking up the iPhone for.

Looking forward to the day I have a lock on the door that supports the secure tags as well as bluetooth so I can have keyless entry for everyone that needs it.

A few of my other regular uses for the watch:
- "Hey Siri, add onions to my grocery list" - while staring into the fridge
- have a timer on my watch face - SO handy!
- reminders app - for my grocery list - don't even have to get my phone out.

Also had one since S0 (I was stalking our local UPS guy, waiting for that to arrive - of course, UPS's tracking system was haywire that day, saying that my watch was northbound, several hours away - my local driver couldn't explain wtf it was having issues with *shrug* )

One more year with the AW3 - can't complain upgrading next year - 5 years with a smart watch is a pretty insane lifespan.

 

[DT]

Payments are excellent, everything is non-touch (as with the iPhone but it's way more convenient) but for me the biggest benefit is notifications. I know exactly by the tap what type it is, not even having to look most of the time unless I know it's something I'm expecting, or it's easy enough to look at and know whether it's worth picking up the iPhone for.

I have one place I have to sometimes go "touchy" again, it's like every Nth transaction and it requests my PIN. Hahaha, they have this sign on the terminal, "Touch Free Payments", and then I have to tap in my PIN.

With my finger.

You know, by touching the pad.

 

[User.45]

Wife and I got our watches. I have to say, this version #7 looks way better than any other Apple watch I've sen before. The increased "screen real estate" shows. For some reason I was under the impression (extrapolated from Pebble) that there will be infinite watch face options, and myriads of apps, so I'm still surprised that the selection is actually quite limited. Not that beyond a number it's meaningful.

I bought this watch for medical reasons, as I found out to have borderline hypertension and decided to work a little harder on the lifestyle intervention (every 10 pounds lost is about 10 mm Hg of systolic BP drop or so). Now this watch is hands down the most sophisticated tracker of all, but I still think the hardware part is mostly gimmick and not at all superior to most out there. But there's a lot of magic here on the softare end.

The ECG: I think, unless you have or are at risk of arrhythmias, this is not a very useful feature. Watching my boring sinus rhythm gets old quickly, and well, after a minute of it I ask the question, what did I expect? Capture supraventricular tachycardia? Catch ectopic beats? Nah. Boring unless you have lone atrial fibrillation.

The PulseOx: it consistently reads 97%. I mean sure, it's within the normal range, but honestly without any risk factor or anything, my sats are most likely around 99% in reality. These reads aren't trustworthy at all.

Heart rate: this I think is better than anything I've used before.

But at the end of the day it's the analyses that set this tracker apart. Like heart rate recovery, or HR variability. Some of these measures really caught my attention.

What is an eyesore is the lack of sleep cycle tracking. This watch is extremely comfortable and I can sleep in it without an issue. My previous smart watches I developed a habit of taking them off in my sleep because they were uncomfortable. This makes AW the perfect sleep cycle tracker. With a HR monitor, pulseox, etc, I think they should be able to detect REM sleep without a problem. Maybe they want to validate the large-scale data using a cohort that gets a sleep study, but again. This seems a lot less fancy than some of the other stuff the watch can already do.
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Battery life is almost as annoying as I expected but can be overcome indeed. I found most watch faces useless, because some part of the screen is covered all the time, to with the same effort to fully uncover the watch, I can switch apps. I found a watch face that consumes little, shows my activity and battery seems to be lasting ~20H without effort. This includes me listening to music through the watch, which I found really cool.

I find the way notifications delivered really annoying. So I think I won't use the watch for those. Eg. I want the text of iMessages appear the moment I get them. otherwise I can just read my texts on my watch or MBA.

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Overall I think the AW is an overkill with some annoyances, but Apple did get the major things right:
1. Never ever had a watch that is this comfortable
2. Tracking is very sophisticated thanks to the software mainly
3. Still not a medical device, so those who are waiting out the next gen for BP or glucose, just forget about it and buy a validated target device for those.

 

[Runs For Fun]

What is an eyesore is the lack of sleep cycle tracking.

If you want a ton of sleep data check out AutoSleep.

 

[User.45]

This handwashing counter is such a gimmick. I've been laughing about it for the past 2 days since I realized that I have to rub my arms by moving my elbows in the most theatrical way possible for it to count. This would only work if I was scrubbing in but, well, for that you take your watch off.