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I've been using an Apple Watch since 2018. I bought an Apple Watch 4 at the time, and a while ago, I replaced with with an Apple Watch 8.
After all this time, my view on it isn't necessarily good. This may be the last Apple Watch that I will use, maybe even the last smartwatch.
My main use cases are:
But in my opinion, the watch comes with lots of supposed functionalities and options that are overstated, exaggerated, don't really work and are not useful, but that we all have to pay for anyway because they're included with the rest. Uses presented as sensible in the ads are used to justify a price that is not really appropriate. The way the watch is realistically used in the daily life, at least around me, just clashes with the ads and what is shown. Navigating things on it is awful and I barely do it because of it, and I have small fingers and good vision. Reading or typing messages on it sucks, viewing sent images too. Taking calls solely through it without deferring them to the phone is not really advisable. I don't even feel comfortable or confident navigating the basic apps on it like Messages or the Cycle Tracker.
One of the biggest flaws I perceive is that third parties have seemingly given up on the Apple Watch format, and I cannot even blame them - the format is hard to make use of, and the design of watchOS is not exactly encouraging in opening apps (in my opinion). Many apps do not have an Apple Watch version anymore or never had one, or their versions are unreliable and partially broken (looking at Spotify). It makes using the watch even less fun, and binds it even more to the phone because you need it for the apps who do not have a (working) watch equivalent. You even need the phone for pretty basic edits and changes for the watch settings. Not much can actually be done on the watch to justify leaving the phone at home or using it much less, which was part of the initial marketing points and sometimes still is, and was the hope of many. But me and many others see an alert on the watch and grab the phone instead to properly see it and respond.
The screen might simply be too small to do anything meaningful on it, but realistically shouldn't be bigger. The watchOS is awful in enabling you quickly trying to select things, especially while walking or jogging. I really really hate opening the Activities and having to tap several times because it has a hard time detecting selections the first few seconds, and because Fitness+ Time To Walk/Time To Run is loaded in on the top during that like a menace.
I was kind of excited for some improvements the Apple Watch 8 promised, especially better cycle tracking in form of ovulation estimations. At this point, I have completely given up on that endeavor. There are simply systemwide things about the watch that interfere with the ovulation temperature reading window that can render the entire month unreliable. Most people like to charge their watches at night, so to use it, you have to find a different charging time now - during the day, a timeframe in which you are supposed to wear it to fill your rings, have the benefits of fall detection, heart rate tracking, being able to ping your phone, pay, and all that. This becomes even more difficult when the battery health starts deteriorating and you have to charge more often. But also, updates to the watch are only possible on the charger and are usually scheduled during the night. In my case, I have not found a way to change the specific time of a watch update to not be during the night, so essentially, wanting to update my watch involved leaving it on the charger overnight and ruin my ovulation reading for a few days, if not the month. Sometimes, it would just not read during the night even though I wore it, so it reset the whole thing and needed another 7 days of wearing it for a prediction.
Since having my first Apple Watch, I miss the ability to mark sick days. It would make a lot of sense - tracking to see if there is anything cyclical to it or other patterns, maybe specific parameters to track while sick, and also not having the rings or reminders stuck in your face. You should rest when you are ill, not shamed to keep up with your rings in spite of it. Also, Move/Stand reminders feel pretty ridiculous while you are down sick, especially with Covid. No, I won't get up for a minute right now, and I also won't take a 20 min walk.
I will admit it - I am just not the person to have a full year full of full rings, not even a month. There are physical and mental illness days, awful periods, relaxed days, days spent sitting in front of books or the computer to study intensely, social obligations that take up the entire day where I can't just go "hey, I will just go exercise for 1-2h, bye". So there is no streak to keep up for me that keeps me in check and introduces completely made up stakes, it would be pointless, since I know cannot keep it up - the energy I have is too inconsistent and unreliable, and I occasionally manage to trigger a form of post exertional malaise that can keep me in bed for a while after a good exercise day.
The positive novelty of having these rings to fill wore off pretty quickly for me, and soon it becomes just another day of not having the rings. I don't feel positively motivated when I see a lacking Move ring, especially because despite these little awards, I don't feel rewarded for full rings in a way that is empowering. There is no accomplishment for me - just maybe relief from guilt.
Because there was a time when I would worry about the state of my rings and how much calories I've burnt, something the watch directly enabled and incentivized, and it was just not healthy. The trends especially; I had to turn them off to recover from this mindset. It burnt me out, and it induced a lot of guilt and worry. Worry about health, about ruining stats, about ruining my fitness progress. Sometimes my watch was low on charge or ran out because I forgot to charge it in time, and it interfered with my fitness plans or plans to take a walk. The watch features instilled this idea into me that I need the watch for them and I cannot do them otherwise. Because did this exercise, this walk really happen when the watch wasn't there to track it? Not in my mind or in the watch stats. I would be mad and sad that I went out of my way to do these and then not even have them count. That's such a stupid mindset to have, but I think caring about the status of the rings basically requires this mindset and actively encourages it. So either I ended up not doing them, or doing them much later than planned while I waited for enough charge, or I did them without the watch and now my stats were inaccurate.
Something similar happened when I forgot to turn an exercise on while wearing it. Usually it is good at detecting, but often it isn't, or it is missing the first few minutes. But the ring mechanic basically demands that every minute counts, so I got a little pissed when even just 5 minutes were missing from the tracker.
Needless to say, I think the watch and its features can enable some unhealthy ideas and neuroticism about bodies, exercise, and health. I guess it is especially unfitting for people who are not entirely healthy - aging, disabled, chronically ill mentally or physically, beginners, because it incentivizes a consistency of showing up every day that can make your mindset or your physical reality worse, depending on what you're dealing with.
I've recently went out without the watch for two days, and it felt surprisingly freeing. I have come to dislike standing there before an activity, trying to navigate the little screen to enable yoga, cycling, or the outside walk while walking the dog, and turning it off in time to make sure things are more accurate. With it, I feel like I can't just live my life and move how I want - the watch wishes I look at it often, compare my performance to other times or users, see my stats falling and rising, turn things on and off, and let it dictate when I get up, how I move around and if I have moved around enough today regardless of my actual physical or mental health. It is another thing I have to baby and make sure it is charged when I need it, so another thing to worry about and need a charger and an outlet for. It makes me worry if I have turned the exercise on or not so it counts, and wondering if it is even accurately measuring. It suddenly makes me aware of stats I never even knew existed to be failed at. There is a lot of background noise the watch can potentially cause in me because of what I need to keep track of so the watch can keep track of it, which, put like that, is really showcasing how odd some of it really is.
Ideally, you could wear it and forget about it, but in my view, we are just not entirely there yet and may never be, because that is not necessarily what the manufacturer wants, or what the third party apps who still exist on the watch want. If you basically never look at it and just let it do its thing, almost all of its features become useless immediately. If you never look at its feedback and stats, they might as well not be tracked or exist, which makes the watch feel basically unneeded and useless.
That is a lot of mental hold a little watch has on me, even after recovering from most of these worries. And is it worth it? I think no, not for me.
My use cases can almost be completely covered by a watch that has a lot less features and less gamification and guilt, or even just my phone:
That's just some stuff I recently thought about when assessing if my newer watch was really worth the investment.
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