Product Review: Apple Watch 3

Ok, I finally have succumbed to the Apple gods or demons, depending on your point of view and purchased an Apple Watch 3 as a Christmas gift to myself. I’ve had a few weeks to play with the thing and learn what I love and hate about the watch. For the last couple of years, I have used Fitbit Surge as my fitness tracker, so the pros and cons will be more or less a compairison with the the Fitbit.

Things I like (in no particular order):

• The ease of pairing the watch to the phone. I really enjoy that many of the things that I can do on my iPhone are the same things that I can do on my Apple Watch  –  controlling my music, texting, keeping track of important meetings, and having another remote for my Apple TV. Although I do not talk on the phone that much (or at all), it’s great for making a quick phone like if you are trying to find a friend in a subway station.
• You can get all of your stats and information about your workouts for the entire day, without having to sync it to your phone.
• Although I have not used this option (and I’m a little afraid to), the watch is supposed to be water resistant.
• It’s great having all of my calendar events right on my wrist.
• It definitely is lighter than the Fitbit Surge, I never feel it . . . which can be a good or bad thing. The watch may fall off of my wrist, and I would not notice.
• There are plenty of exerise options that you can use. For the Fitbit Surge, you could have only 6 physical activities loaded on the watch at a time. If you wanted to change the types of activities, you had to do it through the website.
• The display is better, because the Apple Watch is more responsive and the screen is brighter.
• Oh, it tells you when to breathe, just in case you forget how to. 😉

• Aesthetically, it’s kind of cool. Also, there is a wide array of different watch faces that you can use (and you can even change the display color of the faces)

Things that I do not like or wish were better: *Keep in mind that some of these may be things that I just have not figured out how to do on the phone.

• You cannot set specific goals. A user only can modify the move goal, which tracks how many calories you burn throughout the day. Being able to set specific goals was one of the things that I loved about the Fitbit Surge. For example, I set the following goals: walking 20, 000 steps/day, working out 5 times a week, having at least 45 minutes for a workout. With the Apple watch you have to rely on it’s preset goals for exercising. For example, the exercise goal is preset for 30 minutes, but it is a general tracking option. Just from regular commuting in NYC, I typically meet my “goal” before I get to work just by walking around the city. With the Fitbit, the exercise goals would only be counted if you started a workout on the Fitbit itself.
• Although this is not an issue with the Apple Watch, per se, it broke within 36 hours of purchasing the damn thing. I had to take the watch back to an Apple Store, which was a whole ordeal and get another one.

• During daily wear, the band fits snuggly on my wrist, which is a good thing. When I exercise and get all sweaty, the watch moves up and down my wrist and it does not properly read my heart rate. After a few cardio exercises, the the average heart rate was not calculated but there was not enough data received by the watch. This is quite annoying if you are using the watch as a fitness tracker.
• Since I did not go with the wireless version (thus, it only will work if my iPhone is near), I still utilize most of the apps on my iPhone. This issue is not a big deal for me, because I normally have my iPhone with me at all times . . . unless I drunkenly leave it in a cab.
• For my recent runs, I do not think there is an option to have the phone vibrate after completing a certain number of miles. There has to be a way to do this.
• It does not monitor sleep patterns, unless you download a third-party app on the iPhone.

All in all it is a cool device, but I would not recommend it if you want to use it primarily as fitness watch.