My beloved has been offering to get me a smart watch for years. I wasn’t that interested in chasing metrics. I was happy with using my phone to count steps and Strava for cycling.
That changed for me as my fiftieth birthday approached last October.
I was thinking a lot about the cardiac monitoring smart watches can do. I know what a benefit that can be. I was thinking a lot about Hal Johnson sharing his story of how his smart watch prompted him to go to the hospital.
So I agreed to get an Apple Watch. After 3 months of wearing it here is my assessment.
Heart stuff good
The monitoring of my heart rate is very helpful. I get lots of data on my resting heart rate, what is going on during workouts and how quickly I recover from workouts.
I was surprised that my resting heart rate, as I go about my day, is 64 bpm. I was delighted that my sleeping heart rate regularly drops into the 40s.
I appreciate that 3 minutes after stopping an activity my heart rate drops 40 bpm. Nice!
Mildly annoyed by rings
I’m not getting the ring thing. I either nail a metric or hilariously undershoot and the watch prompts are silly. It tells me to stand when I’m falling asleep! Yes. I’ve messed with all of the settings but it still occasionally does it.
I stand up a lot so dialing in the blue ring to 14 seems reasonable. I’m trying to get 8 hours of sleep after all.
The active energy red ring set itself to 1,000 calories. That felt a bit ambitious as the data from my phone had me averaging 450 cal.
The watch captures more movement as “active” so that alone saw a near doubling of counted movement. I’m trying to find the sweet spot of a goal that requires mindful movement without making it unattainable. I’ve been stepping it down and have now settled on 700 cal.
I’m ambivalent about these measures. They are front and centre and I can’t pick what the rings represent.
I’d rather steps than active energy. I’d rather sleep than a stand goal. I don’t care about what the rings measure so I don’t find them motivating.
Important insights
I’m loving having respiratory information as well as heart rate and sleep data.
I’m not as consistent as I thought for walking, workouts or sleeping.
This information is helping me make different choices.
I’m also appreciating that my watch shares my activities on Strava, where many fit friends hang out.
So, yes, I’m late to the smart watch game. Yes, I’m happy with it. I would like more control over what data is centered.