I’ve been a FitBit devotee for years now- starting with the little tiny clip on to the Surge that just started to “wilt” enough while I was on vacation that I was considering a new FitBit. However, wearing a half-inch wide black plastic thing on my wrist just isn’t my thing- I’ve done it for a number of years, but really, the FitBits that I find are the most valuable to me are big and ugly. They go in my purse when I am out socially. I know there are the pretty ones that you can dress up, they’re fine, but I want the GPS, the steps, hills all readily available on the watch itself, so the little ones that you can dress up aren’t worth it to me. SO, since I was in the market, I decided to give the Apple Watch a try. Here is my impression after the first week!
It is like a version of my phone on my wrist. And that is fine- quite frankly, the Bluetooth option on the Surge was actually better for giving me a quick glance at incoming callers and texts. It’s not readily apparent how to 1) turn the ringer off, so my watch keeps ringing while I am teaching and 2) turn the text notifications on so that I can see at a glance if my child who is taking an Uber home is OK- I have to go into my watch and pull up messages to look. Now, I am sure this is a setting that I can easily find, but I don’t have time to figure it out. The Surge was automatic, made no noise and just told me who was looking for me. Like I said, I am sure the watch is able to do this, but out of the box, the FitBit wins for my purposes.
The battery life on the Apple Watch is abysmal at best. It needs to be charged every night. So, the best feature on the Surge was the fact that it tracked my sleep and kept details of everything- sleeping hours, restless hours. It was the most valuable information that I received from the Surge. Since I charge the Apple Watch, it is useless as a sleep tracker. Win, again to the FitBit. Which by the way, could go for days without needing a charge.
I am still pretty confused as to the activity tracker on the Apple watch. The circles are a little weird, I’m very confused about the standing tracker since I stand all day long, but it buzzes me at 5:48 in the AM to stand if I’m still sleeping at the time. I’ve been told that I can set it to “Do Not Disturb” based on the settings on my phone, but I have a business- I sleep with my phone- if my phone rings in the middle of the night, I need to hear it! Right now, it shows me as standing for 5 hours or is it once every 5 hours? Not sure, but I was out at 5AM for a run, came home, stood the whole time, went for another run and just got back. I’m also not quite sure how it is tracking exercise minutes, or if it uses GPS, but my step counter seems to be a little off (on the high side) as well as the mileage counter (again on the high side). Since I do like to use my everyday fitness watch to track my running miles for shorter runs (I have my Garmin Fenix for long runs- I should use it for all, but I sometimes forget if I’m getting a run in super early or in the middle of the day) I’m not sure I can depend on the accuracy on the counters installed on the watch. I’m sure I can download another app, but again, this takes investigation time!
The Apple Watch is A LOT prettier! I got the rose gold with the purple strap Sports model and it is super cute! I love the way it looks, plan on keeping it on even at the event I am attending tonight!
Overall, I like my new watch, I am a creature of habit and liked my FitBit tracking, in fact, I miss it a lot and have several years of data! But, I like the way the Apple Watch looks much better! Stay tuned- I will need to make it work a little better for me, otherwise, it is back to the FitBit!
