Thoughts on Apple Watch

I have had my first Apple Watch back in 2017 and it lasted me full six years. I moved to the Series 7, and it is still resting on my wrest. I tried two Samsung watches, and those were horrible. I am even wondering why to put a screen reader on such watches if it is going to give bad experience to the users. I am not talking about the watches themselves, I am talking about TalkBack.

I have mixed feelings about the watch. I have an original Ultra. I find the performance is quite stuttery and not always responsive and I often get stuck in a plink-dunk cycle where I get stuck in a seemingly empty space.

I mainly use it for the exercise monitoring. I'm not sure if it is enhancing my life or just making me more anxious to be honest. It infuriates me if I go out for a walk for an hour or so only to find it hasn't registered a single exercise point. (I have noticed since the temperature has gone up the exact same walk I do with the dogs is now suddenly ramping up the exercise minutes so I am liking it more at the moment!)

I like the idea of unlocking my phone or Mac with it, but I find it only tends to work when I don't want it to. For example I might just lock my Mac and then my watch vibrates and I have to do it again. But times when it would be handy, it doesn't bother. It almost never works with the phone. So for me this feature is borderline useless although it sounds like it should be helpful.

I like Apple Pay - avoiding inaccessible payment terminals and just tapping with my watch is a god send. Occasionally I might use a timer or alarm which is handy.

I like using it to trigger Siri shortcuts but sometimes if the shortcut takes too long the watch times out and says it failed whereas the same thing on the phone works. But it is pretty neat being able to do it and it makes me feel like I'm in Star Trek.

I use it as a remote control for my phone - being able to magic tap to play and pause is pretty neat. Since the updates I find it a tad fiddly to get to some of the now playing screens, but it's handy to be able to rewind etc from there too.

Being able to get a quick check on the weather is nice.

It's handy being able to send messages using Siri from the watch. I like being able to make simple phone calls in the same way or being able to answer calls with a magic tap when I won't; be able to get to my phone in time.

The battery is fine - it will just about last the day. It usually only charges to 80% and next morning it's about 35% or something. So it's good enough but not amazing. It does charge quickly though.

I use it for a few other things like notifications, checking football scores from Apple Sports etc. I wish it worked with my air fryer as being able to check the time remaining on it would be great.

I really hate the strap I have - I find it so fiddly to put it on. I have to just fumble around until it falls into place. Sometimes it does it straight away and other times I am just left swearing at it. But yes I am too lazy to go find a better one.

I wouldn't say the watch is essential and I feel like it really could do more for me than it does. But I would miss it if I didn't have it even though I can't say with any confidence that it genuinely improves my life a lot.

I have to say I found the setup a bit painful - it took ages and I had a few issues at the start and had to repeat it a few times and got pretty hacked off with it. It does ask way too many questions to start with - I think it took me about an hour each time if I remember right.

I love my Apple watch.
Regarding smart watches for Android, as another user commented that they had a bad experience with those, I can say that if you turn off talkback sounds and vibration, or at the very least the sounds, speech gets a lot more snappy and responsive, and it is more comparable to Voiceover, but still not quite where it should be.
I also have the SE2. I have thought about picking up a version 10, since it does have a few extra sensors, but don't know if it would really be worth it as. far as performance. Would love to hear from folks who have experienced both.

Hi Mr Grieves,

I'm sure you probably already know this, but the battery usually only charging to 80% is very likely the Optimized Charging Mode kicking in. To disable this, on the Watch, go to Settings> Battery> Battery Health and toggle off the 'Optimized Charge Limit' switch.

I've been using Apple Watch since I got the Series 0 in 2015 for my birthday. My upgrades have been Series 0 (2015-2019) > Series 3 (2019-2020) > SE 1 (2020-2024) > Series 9 (2024-now).

I didn't use mine all that often when I could see. Barely exercised at the time, only used it for notifications and checking the time. When I went blind in 2020 and began doing more things like exercising, I began using it more.

I use it to track my exercise, track my sleep, notifications, and Apple Pay primarily. The Series 9 is the first Apple Watch I've had with cellular and, even though that means I'm tied to the more expensive phone retailers, it is so unbelievably handy.

Yes, thanks I did know about that but it's always worth checking. Given that during a weekday my routine is always exactly the same in terms of when I put it onto charge, you would think it would know that it could go beyond 80% like my phone does. I think it is supposed to learn your patterns isn't it? Anyway I keep it on as I presume it will be better for battery health in the long run, but even when it does charge to 100% I can probably get just under 2 days. I suppose that's OK - if you compare it to other things like Fitbit, Garmin and the like then it's not very impressive but then I guess it is probably doing more than them.

I'm not convinced by the sleep tracker. I have sleep focus set on a timer and I always want it to happen before I go to bed because otherwise just as I'm getting to sleep it will make a noise telling me to go to sleep which will wake me up. I get the impression the watch thinks that sleep mode is the same as me getting into bed, and I think it assumes that the entire time I am bed I am asleep. I can have a terrible night of insomnia and my watch tells me what a great night's sleep I've had. I'm not really sure how useful this is unless you are someone who struggles to go to bed routinely. So I just ignore those notifications now.

Not meaning to be too down on the watch but I'm not convinced it gives me enough value to warrant its price. (Yes maybe I should have got the cheap one but then I don't think its battery lasts the day does it?) I don't think it adds much from an accessibility point of view. I can't help but feel that it could do more.

There was a rumour that they were considering adding a camera to the watch. I don't know how convenient it would be to use, but I like the idea of having something with me all the time that could identify objects or read things for me.