Apple Watch relegated to the junk drawer

[Leithen]

Is this turning into a "you're welcome to my opinion" thread?

It's good to respect other's opinions, however much one might disagree....

[Don]

The navigation feature is quite cool. It was very handy walking around Glasgow ( a city I don't know well ) as it "taps" your wrist each time you need a turn. It's also a good deal more discreet than pulling my iPhone 6 plus phablet out and gurning at it.

[Hoofy]

Munter said:

Otherwise it's either encouraging you into bad and anti-productive behaviour

I like it because I do. There's no real practical justification. I just like it because it exists.

What's so wrong with just accepting the 2nd one?

Ok, I originally bought my non-iwatch (I'm going to call it that because it suits my OCD... and it's quicker to type than "Apple Watch" which I know I've just typed) for novelty reasons because it was cheap (so yeah, "I just like it because it exists" was my reason).

I was also tempted by the idea that I could change the music on my phone while running a fitness class or working with a client (so I didn't have to stop what I'm doing and run to the amp).

As it happens, the free apps don't recognise playlists so one minute the phone would be playing something really upbeat and the next a really mellow tune if you hit "skip". I nearly stuck it on TZ-UK but dabbled with the messaging and call log app, and because of this feature alone, I'm keeping it. As I keep saying, it's really useful when you can't check your phone but want to know as soon as a call or message you're expecting comes in.

And another feature is the timer - you can actually have seconds as part of the timer; none of my Casios do that.

So, it might not be relevant to your work but it's hellishly relevant to mine.

My only concern is whether I'd look like a tt wearing both a smartwatch and an automatic watch (because I just like automatic watches because they exist).

[page3]

It's a watch. It looks good, is well made and tells the time. It's also cheaper than any of my other watches.

[Don]

page3 said:

It's a watch. It looks good, is well made and tells the time. It's also cheaper than any of my other watches.

Didn't get the gold one then?

[covmutley]

I was sat in ameetiing with someone who had one yesterday. I found him 'discreetly' checking it to be less discrete/rude than checking a phone.

Maybe it's just me, but checking your watch suggests you are board and want to be out of there, whereas checking your phone it's clear your checking for important messages, even if they aren't important in reality

[Don]

covmutley said:

I was sat in ameetiing with someone who had one yesterday. I found him 'discreetly' checking it to be less discrete/rude than checking a phone.

Maybe it's just me, but checking your watch suggests you are board and want to be out of there, whereas checking your phone it's clear your checking for important messages, even if they aren't important in reality

discreet, bored.

That out of the way: It isn't just you! There is definitely a body-language issue with all smartwatches. We have learned that looking at your wrist means "bored". Unlearning that is not straightforward. Personally I find checking the phone and checking the watch equally rude. It requires discipline to not do that when in conversation....but it is awfully easy to fall into the trap of checking the watch when inappropriate precisely because it is so easy to do...

[page3]

Don said:

Didn't get the gold one then?

No. Don't like gold.






And I couldn't afford it.

[bad company]

So yesterday in London I used the watch to pay my tube fare, navigate my way around (an excellent feature), buy my lunch and view some received texts. It also told me how far I walked and how many calories I burned, data important to me. Oh and it also told me the time.

I love it.

[Silent1]

Munter said:

Nobody mentioned navigation before.

Even so. Your phone does that and you don't have to look at it. Enter destination, put headphone in, walk, follow directions, check screen occasionally if you need too.

The only actual feature* anybody has mentioned that's any identifiable use so far, is paying for things.

• Wanting it because it's a gadget and you like gadgets is a good reason. But it's not a feature.

Otherwise it's either encouraging you into bad and anti-productive behaviour, or duplicating features on a device you already have on your person.

The iWatch. A more secure and slightly easier way to pay for things especially tube travel. (Not including the faf of then splitting business expenses from personal expenses and deciding to get an oyster card/use contactless for one other other to avoid that)

Or.

The iWatch. I like it because I do. There's no real practical justification. I just like it because it exists.

What's so wrong with just accepting the 2nd one?

I use mine for:

• Navigation when i'm in the tractor so when i'm going down the road it taps me differently for different directions
• Tracking my sleep, so it shows me times i've been awake, restless and lightly sleeping, it's come in useful to track long term trends like 10% of my sleep is disturbed no matter how many hours i'm asleep.
• Hands free calls from it are quite good, the watches seem to be hit and miss with microphone and speaker quality though as for instance i'm able to use mine as a phone with my arm down at my waist but 2 other people i know can only use their's for phone calls when their hand is on a desk or at a similar height.
• Tracking my workouts without having to take my phone meaning i don't have to carry anything in my pockets
• As a heartbeat monitor (the device can also do blood oxygen levels but apple dont want to go through the medical testing process so that's not available to the user)
• As a fancy pedometer that tracks resting calorie usage, exercise minutes, flights of stairs climbed, active calories used and more, i find it quite good as it has goals to achieve each day for silly things like total calories, standing for at least one minute in each hour of 12 hours and minutes of exercise.
• Dictating text message replies which can be handy when your hands are covered in st and using your phone isn't ideal.
• Reading news headlines and then if i want to read more i can hand it off to my phone (or a mac if i had one)
• Weather notifications, i use accuweather and it alerts me to alerts i've set up for heavy rain, lightning, etc.
• A remote control with remote viewfinder for the camera on my iphone, handy for group photos or stop motion.
• Silly things like identifying a song that's playing, getting my grid reference to plot maps in the tractor, playing simple games on it.
• Sending stupid finger cartoons to my OH's watch.

There's loads of things the apple watch can do, but unless you're a bit geeky or interested in it then its' not worth it just like anything else in life.
For instance my OH has an apple watch to, but she does bugger all with it, when asked by people what it's good for she says telling the time, i bought her one after i got mine as she was interested in it but she's not into geeky things, so whilst she does use it for things like reading text messages, notifications and calender invites she doesn't actually use any apps on it, so for her it's useful as a more discrete device for notifying her of things.

Essentially an apple watch just duplicates your phone (it uses the phone for most of its computational work) but it does mean you don't have to get your phone out of your pocket for an alert, it also means you can leave it at your desk/wherever and even once you're out of bluetooth range it will still work, providing you're on the same wifi network. People thinking the watch should be a separate device are misunderstanding the theory behind it, although saying that i do believe the third or fourth generation of smart watches will be a standalone device that could do everything your phone can.

In fact there was a watch phone launched on kickstarter by a canadian company that had the right idea but it was too big and failed in critical areas like porting apps and camera quality.
I've just bought one, i probably wont ever use it but they're so cheap on ebay/amazon (it seems they've doubled in price since i bought mine!) that its worth it just for the hardware that i'll eventually hack into something interesting.

Edited by Silent1 on Tuesday 16th February 20:15

[catso]

My Son's got an Apple watch and loves it.

I personally couldn't be bothered with anything that needed to be taken off and charged every day, I stopped wearing my Omega watch in favour of a self-winding Seiko because the battery in the Omega needs changing every couple of years.

At the end of the day I want a watch that tells the time and date regardless of how it's treated, that I can wear all the time and not worry about water ingress or shock - I have a phone for all the techy stuff.

[Silent1]

catso said:

My Son's got an Apple watch and loves it.

I personally couldn't be bothered with anything that needed to be taken off and charged every day, I stopped wearing my Omega watch in favour of a self-winding Seiko because the battery in the Omega needs changing every couple of years.

At the end of the day I want a watch that tells the time and date regardless of how it's treated, that I can wear all the time and not worry about water ingress or shock - I have a phone for all the techy stuff.

Exactly, thats why a smart watch isn't for you :-)

The one downside i do find with my apple watch is that if i'm doing manual labour all day then the battery only lasts about 18 hours, i suspect if i turned off the function that displays the time on wrist raise it would work longer but then i would have to tap it to make it work.
As i understand though, apple are working on a strap that contains a battery in it as well so that it will be able to hopefully do a week between charges (i know they were testing a self winding strap that used kinetic energy to charge the battery but i don't know how successful it was, i suspect it wouldn't be able to keep it charged but might extend the run time by 20% - 50%

[TimJMS]

I'll be a lot more interested if / when that happens. The watch needs to stay on under all circumstances.

[Hoofy]

My Sony smartwatch takes a week to lose its charge. And if I pop it on the charger when I'm driving, it'll charge up 50% in 20 minutes.

[Don]

WRT battery life - depending on usage the Watch can last just a few hours, OR, for me, go all day with no problems and have loads left when I take it off to kip. I wear mine from waking to sleeping and it might get a boost when i shower after exercise.

Today I've not exercised and it is at 51% at 10:00pm after having been put on at 4:50am.

So battery life just doesn't seem to be an issue given you take it off at night and drop it onto a charger whilst you sleep.

If you want to measure sleep quality then that might be an issue...

[bad company]

Don said:

WRT battery life - depending on usage the Watch can last just a few hours, OR, for me, go all day with no problems and have loads left when I take it off to kip. I wear mine from waking to sleeping and it might get a boost when i shower after exercise.

Today I've not exercised and it is at 51% at 10:00pm after having been put on at 4:50am.

So battery life just doesn't seem to be an issue given you take it off at night and drop it onto a charger whilst you sleep.

If you want to measure sleep quality then that might be an issue...

The battery life is a problem if you use the workout app for a long time. I used it for a couple of all day 15 - 18 mile walks last summer and the watch nearly expired. Now if I'm going for a long walk I don't use that app. The watch will still tell me how far I have walked that day and how much energy used etc.

[Silent1]

bad company said:

Don said:

WRT battery life - depending on usage the Watch can last just a few hours, OR, for me, go all day with no problems and have loads left when I take it off to kip. I wear mine from waking to sleeping and it might get a boost when i shower after exercise.

Today I've not exercised and it is at 51% at 10:00pm after having been put on at 4:50am.

So battery life just doesn't seem to be an issue given you take it off at night and drop it onto a charger whilst you sleep.

If you want to measure sleep quality then that might be an issue...

The battery life is a problem if you use the workout app for a long time. I used it for a couple of all day 15 - 18 mile walks last summer and the watch nearly expired. Now if I'm going for a long walk I don't use that app. The watch will still tell me how far I have walked that day and how much energy used etc.

Did you try turning low power mode on in the workout app? You do it from the watch app on your phone and it disables the heart rate sensor which apparently makes a huge difference.

As for sleep tracking, I use mine for it but importantly once I've started the app I then put my watch into airplane mode, it means that for 12 hours of sleep it uses about 3-4% battery, I then charge it at some point in the day when I know I'll be sat down for 30-60 minutes.

As an aside with regard to charging lots of people don't know that the chargers that come with your phone and watch can't charge them as quickly as they're able to, the standard chargers are 1 amp, if you use an iPad charger which is 2.1 amps (IIRC) it will fast charge.
My 6S Plus phone charges at about 1%-1.5% a minute up to about 90% - 95% and then takes about 10 minutes to do the last 10%.
The watch is the same, that charges about 30% quicker from an iPad charger, I don't know why they don't tell people this because it's a documented feature!

[Don]

@Silent1: Yep, I use an iPad charger with mine. You can zap the thing all the way to 100% from zip in less than an hour, I have been finding. Mine never really gets below 50% on a normal day. I don't use the battery heavy workout app.