Why I ditched my Apple Watch

Almost two years ago, I landed in Costa Rica. After arriving at my Airbnb in the evening, I took off my Apple Watch and put it on a charger while I was preparing to take a shower and go to sleep. The next day, after I woke up, instead of putting the watch first thing in the morning, like I used to do for the past 2+ years, I left it on the charger. For more than a week. And then I powered it off. And barely wore it again since then.

My relationship with (smart) watches

I can’t call myself a watch enthusiast, but the oldest photo of me that I could find is from 2009, and I wear a watch on this photo. It’s a Casio that I don’t remember the model number of. I’ve replaced it over the years with different models of Seiko, which I love and appreciate as pieces of Japanese craftsmanship. I owned one Timex, and a few G-Shocks. Nothing fancy, and nothing without a quartz in it. But a watch was on my wrist since high school.

And while yes, a watch can tell you the time (and sometimes the date), this is not the reason I wore watches. I always saw them as pieces of self-expression. Going on a hike? Slap on a G-Shock. Fancy date night? Put on a nice dress watch. Or change the strap.

I always resisted smartwatches because they felt soulless to me. I couldn’t find a round smartwatch that didn’t look like a toy, and Apple’s square design was big no-no for me.

But then, COVID came.

I, like everyone else, was locked in my home and barely had any movement. And when the lockdowns eased, I decided to get a smartwatch, as everyone around me was getting one. I got the Samsung Galaxy Watch because I was using a Samsung phone, but later switched to Apple ecosystem with iPhone and Apple Watch. And after more than 2 years of wearing the watch all day, every day, except for nights, I took it off except for occasional uses, and a few months ago I sold it and went back to a traditional watch.

I write this post as a reminder to my future self.

But, why?

Before I tell you why I ditched my smartwatch, let me tell you why I got one in the first place. Except for the fact that everyone was getting one, and I got hooked on the fitness tracking, there weren’t many reasons as to why I got one in the first place. I still think they look like a toy. I still dislike the square form factor. And I’ve learned that smartwatches are not as useful as they are advertised to be.

Sure, it was nice to glance at my watch and make sure I won’t miss yet another pointless meeting in 7 minutes. Or it was comfortable to approve my request to connect to a company VPN, from a company laptop, while being on a company Wi-Fi network. Gee, I hate the corporate world. And I feel like the smartwatch is built for this corporate environment where everything is overcomplicated, and your life is a chaotic mess filled with pointless meetings.

And so, little by little, every advantage that I saw in smartwatches, turned into things I hate about them.

The tracking

Without a doubt, one of the biggest advantages of smartwatches is the fitness tracking. When I was debating what smartwatch to get, I was debating mainly between a Garmin that is more fitness oriented, and a Galaxy Watch which is more day-to-day and some fitness. Today’s smartwatches are filled with sensors to measure your heart rate, steps, calories burned, etc. They collect a bunch of health related data about you, and present it to you via a nice application. Some devices even take it further, and provide you with “energy score” or “body battery levels” — the purpose of which is to let you know how well rested you are. But there are 2 problems with tracking health data.

Firstly, it’s unreliable. None of the devices on the market today are certified as medical grade equipment. I would randomly close my activity ring on the Apple Watch while sitting in front of a computer. Or the other time, when I took the watch with me while summiting Acatenango Volcano in Guatemala, and try to measure my SpO2 (blood oxygen levels), I got results that varied from 88% to 97% in a span of two different measurements followed one another. Mind you, anything below 95% stars to get dangerous.

Secondly, and I think this is the Achilles hill of fitness tracking, is that most of the time it’s counterproductive. After getting the watch, I wanted to gather as much information about my health as I could. There were two applications where I couldn’t use the watch.

The first one, is during boxing sessions. It’s uncomfortable to put gloves on top of wraps on top of a watch. So I got myself a chest strap. The second is sleep tracking. The watch needs to be charged at least once every 24 hours, so it means I either sacrifice missing the daily standup notification, or I miss tracking my sleep. In addition to that, sleeping with the watch is uncomfortable. So at some point, I was thinking to get an Oura ring. A ring that is designed to track sleep. It’s relatively discreet, and I wear my wedding ring anyway, so I could just replace it with the Oura ring.

The way Oura ring works, is that it gives you a score every morning based on how well you’ve slept the night before. And what happens to many people I’ve read or watched online, is that they would wake up rested, but then would look up at their score to find out that it’s bad, and the app would recommend them to rest or do light workout this day. So this will lead to more anxiety and self-induced bad mood, in addition to potentially skipping the gym.

And this is the biggest problem with these fitness trackers. They give you a bunch of data and then try to do pattern matching. But this data is pointless, and often times causes you to be more upset with yourself. I remember I was invited to a panel where I shared tips on how to get hired in tech, and I was wearing my Apple Watch. I, like many other people, get stressed when talking in front of a big group of people. And I remember that for the first time in my entire time of owning the Apple Watch, I got a notification of an unusually high heart rate. It was about 160-170 bpm. I knew I was stressed, but I tried to focus my attention on the questions and the answers. You know what this notification did to me? Made me more stressed.

You are always connected

When I first got the Apple Watch, I thought it’s kind of cool to take a look at the watch and decide if a notification is worth my time or not. But as I lived more with it, it became annoying. First, it started with the fitness challenges. My friend would complete a workout, and I got a notification for that, so I could boost his ego. After some time, I turned it off.

But with every new app that I’ve installed on my phone, came a hidden watch companion app, so I would get random buzzing on my wrist throughout the day. It became a constant fight of man against machine, where I tried to outsmart my watch from bombarding me with more and more notifications. In addition to that, some built-in features like smart unlock — became annoying.

The way smart unlock works, is that if it detects that I take my phone while my watch is on my wrist, it will unlock the phone without the need for FaceID. The same would work for a MacBook — when I open the lid, the watch would unlock it. And so, every time I would take out my phone to check the time, or see who is calling me, my watch would vibrate and unlock the phone. It’s a nice feature I guess, but I don’t think it’s really that necessary as FaceID is very reliable.

I’ve read of people who developed a syndrome they call “phantom vibration”. They got so conditioned for the vibrations of their watch, that they now imagine it vibrating at random times.

Lastly, talking with people who wear smartwatches — became annoying. I barely speak with people in real life, as I moved to a new country. And so I appreciate every opportunity to talk to people in real life, and I try to dedicate 100% of my attention to the person I’m spending time with. And I’ve noticed that people who wear smartwatches get often interrupted by a notification which makes them lose focus and concentrate on the watch in order to focus their mental energy on one question: Should I pull out my phone and react to this notification?

Which leads me to the last problem.

It’s neither a tool nor a fashion statement

You see, my phone is a tool. I can reply to an email; refund a customer; make a call; schedule an event. Yes, it allows me to waste my time by engaging in doom scrolling, but it’s still a tool.

A regular watch, at least for me, is more of a fashion statement. Yes, it tells the time and sometimes the date, but unless a random person on the street asks me “what time is it?” — I’d rather pull out my phone to check for time and at the same time pay for my groceries or make a phone call. A watch is something you would pair with an outfit; a phone is not. A nice watch could be a conversation starter; a phone is not.

However, smartwatches are neither a tool not a fashion statement. Even if you change the straps, it won’t make people notice you or appreciate your watch any more than a pink phone case would. With an Apple Watch you will look like any other person who has Apple Watch. And everything you can do on a smartwatch, you can do better on a phone. Here are a few examples.

Navigation. In a car, I would prefer a screen that is positioned at a road level rather than having to take my eyes of the road to look at my watch. While biking, I found out that Google Maps has very unreliable turn-by-turn navigation, so I spend time messing with getting Google Maps work on my watch rather than paying attention on the road, and usually resort to occasional stops where I pull out my phone, and memorize the next segment of the route.

Google/Apple Wallet. I rarely leave my house without my phone. I believed I developed a fear that I share with other peers of my generation (and the generations after mine) — feeling naked without my phone on me. But let’s assume that the phone is in my backpack or whatever, so it becomes easier to pay with the watch, but in reality it is not. You see, while I’m right-handed, I wear my watches on my left hand, as I believe the majority of people do (it is common to wear watches on your non-dominant hand). And I found out that most payment terminals were designed for right-handed operation. In the Netherlands, for example, the most common payment terminal I use, is at the gates of a train stations. The terminal is always located on the right side. And this means that paying with a watch on a left hand involves cross body hand rotation at a weird 180 degrees motion in order to place the face of the watch at the terminal.

Music controls. I have controls on the AirPods for that, and I don’t really care what’s the name of the song, so I don’t need a screen.

There is nothing you can do better on a watch than on a phone. Nothing at all.

Conclusion

I don’t say you need to ditch your smartwatch. I just feel like it’s a product that doesn’t bring anything new to the market. Sure, there are fitness oriented smartwatches mainly from Garmin. And in-fact, I used to own a Garmin as replacement for my G-Shock for when I go hiking. It’s way tougher than Apple Watch, so it won’t break as easy, and it has actual fitness related features and a longer battery than the Apple Watch. As for now, I have decided to downgrade to one watch to do it all.

But other than this, I was very happy to take off my Apple Watch after quitting my job. I feel like this is a product that was created for the chaotic, and unhealthy industry that we live in. An industry of constant time-wasting activities in a form of pointless meetings, as well as demand to be online 24/7 and reply to any notification in an instant.