How do you use your Apple Watch? I use my Apple Watch heavily, but only for a few purposes:
Silent notifications. That’s the big one. If I’m not already using my Mac or my phone, the Watch tells me when I have an incoming text message or phone call, and I can decide based on information on the Watch screen whether to answer immediately or dismiss it for later. The Apple Watch is also my silent alarm clock to wake me up in the morning.
Workout tracker. I start it when I start walking the dog, turn around at the 1.6 mile mark, and when I hit 3.2 miles I know I’m done.
Telling time and setting timers, of course, but I don’t need a smartwatch for that.
Notifications of upcoming appointments.
I use a brilliant app called Footpath to map turn-by-turn walking directions when I want to walk an unfamiliar route.
I don’t have a lot of interest in fitness trackers or health trackers, other than the simple workout tracker users I just described.
How do you use your Apple Watch (or other smartwatch)? Give me ideas
Due app reminds me to take various medications 3 times a day. Not only does this remind me to take the medication but it also allows me to record that I have taken it or delay if I need to.
Ring app tells me when there is somebody approaching my front door.
Heart rate notifications told me that I had AFib on two occasions and I finished up in hospital on both occasions.
The two times that I had COVID, the first indication was a high heart rate notification before any other symptoms.
Extensive use of timers multiple times per day for seemingly trivial things such as: remind me to take food out of freezer or put dinner in the oven. I am easily distracted and this has been a great help.
Daytime: Apple Watch 11, 46 mm aluminium, space black.
Night-time Apple Watch 4, 44 mm stainless steel, gold.
Untouched Apple Watch 8, 45 mm stainless steel silver. Received as a replacement for Apple Watch 6 when battery was to be replaced. Was planning to use at night time but the series 4 still has over 50% charge when I get up in the morning.
Retired: Apple Watch 0 stainless steel and Apple Watch 0 aluminium.
I keep my phone in silent mode and get haptic alerts on my watch for phone calls and messages. I also used to get notifications for emails, but there were too many of them. I haven’t heard my phone ring in over 5 years.
I receive immediate notifications whenever a deposit or withdrawal is made from one of my bank accounts.
If I’m bored in a meeting, I might check to see how my stock portfolio is going. It has been quite a roller coaster ride this last five weeks, or perhaps I should say last 12 months.
Rain Parrot alerts me if rain is expected in the next 45 minutes and how heavy it will be along with expected duration.
I live in Southern California where we don’t get a lot of rain. And I have found apps that claim to predict rain by the minute or the hour to be unreliable.
I am in Australia which has a reputation of being very dry. However Gemini tells me that in my location it rains on about 130 to 140 days per year and we receive roughly 965 mm or 37.8 inches per year.
I find Rain Parrot to be very accurate both at home and as I travel around.
I am currently very torn between my Apple Watch and my Garmin, with the latter being obviously beneficial for my endurance sports and the former being more enjoyable to use, but also that use being of … dubious value for me when I always have my phone on me.
One of the things I am hopeful for in the world of AI is that the Apple Watch could be useful as an always-there prompt-taker.
Some problems:
I use it to pay for things a lot. It is much better than fiddling with money or card. Still amazes people, but I have a Belk card that just won’t sync to the watch.
I would like to have haptic notifications but alarms still come from my phone. Don’t know why.
My year old watch easily lasts all day and night. I put it on the charger when I get up and it is 100% in an hour. I used to have terrible sleep problems. They have been solved but still sometimes want to see. It’s duplicative because my mattress sends me an email every morning.
Use it at the gym for heart rate. Sometimes change my pace or incline on the treadmill if it gets too high or wait a few moments for another rep until it comes down.
Some messages: eg my grandson texted me a picture of his tv watching our Easter service (I am on the team that broadcasts it). Easter I was in the choir and another choir member saw it and was amazed.
My car tells me if it is unlocked. I don’t care if it is in the garage (when I usually get the notification) I am glad the few times when I haven’t locked it with treasures inside.
This is the thing I see as a massive benefit. I can have my phone with me, without it being visible. that large screen can be tucked away in my pocket (My carrier doesn’t support the Apple Watch as a cellular device) while I attend a meeting, a family meal, or go for a run, and I can ignore it (while it’s there for me if I need it) while I focus on the matter at hand comfortable in the knowledge that any any critical alerts will come to my watch. Anything else can wait.
I have started using the watch for Apple Pay at PoS terminals too. This has me wondering though, have I seriously reduced my security?
iPhone FaceID and alphanumeric passcode is pretty secure if lost or stolen. Apple Watch with a six digit PIN is considerably less secure. I think it will even accept 4 digits.
It’s pretty secure. First, with Face ID watch unlock, you should never have to enter your watch passcode in public. This is how most passcodes are compromised.
Second, you can set the watch to erase after 10 attempts. An accidental erasure on the watch is less of a pain/personal risk to you than if it happens on your phone, which could leave you stranded.
I was a Polar watch and HRM guy for my running, since around 2005. On my original watch, I actually had a dongle that I had to use to upload my data from my watch to my PC where I’d analyze it like crazy in Pro Trainer 5.0. I loved those days. I’d while away hours look at heart rate charts, zones, and the like. Anyway, I did some tests a few years back and there was almost no difference between the results I was getting from my AW Ultra and my Polar set-up, so I went all in on AW.
That’s not a suggestion that you could or should do the same. Just me reminiscing and sharing my own way of navigating this issue. I would love for polar to fully embrace AW and bring it’s fantastic planning and analysis tools. But for me using AW + Athlytic has gotten me what I need.
I’m so glad you posted this. I love my watch and use it a lot. But I’m forever searching youtube and the web for ideas of how to use my watch even more. It’s on me all the time, and I do all the obvious things (time, timers (lots and lots of timers), rings, workouts, paying for things any place that accepts Apple Pay, etc.). But then I’d love to get in the habit of doing more things on it, so I can carry my phone a little bit less. Or at least be equally powerful even without my phone. It’s so unobtrusive to take some action on my watch.
This is great to hear! In terms of strictly recording runs I have found the Apple Watch to be more than adequate – in fact, I do find the data from the HR sensor and the sleep detection and all measurement-related things to be more accurate on the Apple Watch than the Garmin.
Where Garmin gets me is with their compound metrics, where they’re looking at everything and combining data points to do race time prediction, lactate threshold prediction, “Endurance Score”, recovery time, training readiness, etc. I am sure of it (most of it?) is of questionable actual value, but hey, score chasing is fun…
