In the future I would probably get more high end Garming so I can have my cycling route on the watch to follow it.
Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
11–20 of 21 posts
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#12I bought an Apple Watch 4 back in February and by May had stopped using it entirely. I wanted to use it as a complete replacement for my cell phone, and I think the main thing that kept me from doing that was 2fa codes. You have to charge most smartwatches fairly often, and most people charge them at night, so sleep tracking is difficult. Plus I've read that some of them don't do sleep tracking very well, and I can c…
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#13For me it's got the best balance between features and simplicity.
Any more features and the battery (life or size) would be worse.
Sleep and step tracking is average, notifications are just right.
I'm hoping a reasonable replacement surfaces before it dies, and am still sad Fitbit destroyed this product, and won't be considering any of their products for that reason.
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#14Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#15Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#16Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#17Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#18I bought an Apple Watch 4 back in February and by May had stopped using it entirely. I wanted to use it as a complete replacement for my cell phone, and I think the main thing that kept me from doing that was 2fa codes. You have to charge most smartwatches fairly often, and most people charge them at night, so sleep tracking is difficult. Plus I've read that some of them don't do sleep tracking very well, and I can c…
How did the 2fa codes stop it from working for you? I didn’t follow that piece.
Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#19Re: Ask HN: What is your experience with smartwatches? Is it worth it?
#20I initially went for it for stuff like notifications and hoping it would make me more productive and help me track my time better. Ultimately, I think the ecosystem has potential but it's in its infancy currently.
Main good points, though:
- Fitness tracking. If you do things like running or swimming you'll benefit from the watches. Most useful functionality is for fitness.
- Elderly people. I think the functionality for falls, although it seemed like a joke to some, can actually be pretty useful for older people and encourage more independence.
I think it has the potential to be useful in more areas:
- Health. I think the heart rate and ECG is genuinely beneficial. Many people have cardiovascular conditions or are on medication and doctors advise them to take regular checks of heart rate, blood pressure, etc. But in my experience with the Series 3, the heart rate functionality was a mess. My HR was around 65, whenever I opened the app on my watch it would start at 120bpm and slowly go down to my actual HR. It would log all the results in the watch app, even the very incorrect readings of 120bpm. I hope they fixed this since.
- Sleep tracking. The Apple Watch doesn't currently have native sleep tracking, though 3rd party apps exist that I've never tried (they may be hit or miss). I'm not sure how accurately a watch can track sleep data anyway. Rumours suggest the Series 6 may have sleep tracking. I think this would be useful - my sleep sucks often and I'd like to have more data on it.
- Notifications. One of the main reasons I got it, but it's not very useful. It doesn't save any time compared to just looking at it on your phone, and you often can't do much about a notification on the watch.
- Reminders. Medication, water, movement. I never used this functionality on the watch, if it has it, but for people in desk jobs, taking medication, etc., I think they're pretty useful.
- Authentication and identity. It already has Apple Pay, and it can unlock your Mac, but I'd like to see it go further. I think it'd be a good way to conveniently replace a wallet.
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Right now, I would only get a watch if you're into fitness, to be honest. I think they have promise, but aren't there yet. Perhaps stuff has changed since the Series 3, but from the updates I've seen I think it's still not there yet.