Apple - Watch Regular Series

I’m not as hardcore as you. Doing fairly intense, compared to the average 71 year old, but I do exercise very rigorously for over an hour everyday. I’m tracking what is happening especially for endurance in improving general health and stamina. I do pool exercise and needed to have a watch that could last 6 to 8 hours per week every week. I went through my Series 6 with 5 replaced watches (I kept AppleCare) every year. So the Ultra Series has better water redistance and battery life. In can appreciate your comment about heart rate. I have seen problems with outlier measurements. There are one or two times, very intermittent. I’ll get a recorded heart rate reading about double the rest of the recorded HR. My anecdotal observation is it tends to happen in the pool. If I see the reading I will tighten the bad a bit and it doesn’t seem to continue. This happened on my old Series 6 and it has happened on my Ultra 3. It probably comes down to the intent of the design combined with the use case. If I go to my doctor every office visit begins with vitals being taken. It’s a snapshot in time. If a reading is about of whack they may repeat it in a few minutes once or twice, another slice of time. All Apple Watch products are really good at monitoring trends over time. You can setup alerts snd there are apps that can do additional analysis using the collected data. I look at trends events there too low and too high. The outliers do not really impact trend data. The other thing about trend data is knowing when your trend data occurs. I had a heart rate that would go below 40 bps in the 15 to 30 minutes before I wake-up in the morning. I got an alert that I was able to tell that to my Primary doc and Cardiologist. They suggested a change that needed to monitor for another couple of weeks. In my use case, the heart rate monitoring capability is 100% effective. It’s so effective I have the entire days HR data displaying in a compilation a full view of yesterday’s data and to date of the current day. Tap the graph and I can drill into the data, even the outline events. I’m not sure if the watch face comes from the heart health app I have or it’s in the Apple Watch stock watch faces. I have been enrolled the multi-year Apple Heart & Movement Study. The study has found that the Apple Watch sensor is accurate to within 5 bpm (beats per minute) for 98% of the time when users are in sedentary (or resting) mode, and reaches 99.7% accuracy with an error margin of 10bpm. The sensor’s heart rate accuracy varies: * 96% for outdoor cycling, * 87% while walking, * 88% while running, and * 91% during high-intensity workouts, with a 5 bpm error margin when recording in the foreground. Starting with the Apple Watch Series 6, accuracy has improved significantly. * Data from 480 participants logging 21,000 hours shows 89% accuracy (within a 5 bpm error margin) in the background, compared to 72% in older models.

The only consumer health tracker on the planet that is reasonably accurate enough to even think about maybe, maybe, maybe, deigning it as something which could monitor abnormal cardiovascular medical conditions, is the Apple Watch. Maybe. Even that's a stretch. Most trackers are very clear about how their features are only validated for otherwise healthy individuals. And the Whoop's EKG, as one example, barely even works for healthy individuals, let alone unhealthy ones.

Bevel (and Athlytic) are mostly pretty pseudoscience. The issue the Apple Watch has is that third party apps do not get access to low level AW sensor data; they only get high level summaries of the data, so they get "average heart rate over the last minute" instead of each intra-beat timing. This, combined with how the AW only takes sensor readings every five minutes, severely & negatively impacts the accuracy of Whoop-like statistics on that platform.

I use it for my workout. Its great, it has also greatly improved over new versions for tracking the meters better. I would never consider switching, most likely will get a new one in a year or 2. I also use it in open sea training.

Any Series 8 owners thinking of upgrading? I have the series 8 with 87% battery health. Before the announcement of the Series 11 I was dead set to upgrade because I wanted the slimmer design, assumed better battery and faster chip. When I workout I use the timer to time my rest periods so I find it lags when using both workout and timer. Also my battery at the end of a day is down to around 20%. But now that the announcement is out the chip and battery appear to be the same as the Series 10 so I don’t think I can justify the upgrade to the Series 11. I am considering an upgrade to the Series 10 or to just wait until next year for the series 12. Anyone else in a similar boat and want to bounce ideas?

I’m leaning towards this too. I just hope that my battery can still last all day for another year as I presume watch os 26 will be more power hungry 😖

I just switched from an Apple Watch (3.5 years) to a 255. I run and was mostly using my aw as a running watch. As a running watch it was fine, but the battery life sucked and my gps/distance was always a bit off from my friends. I’d much rather a slightly better gps than a slightly better hr sensor. Also, big, physical buttons are also great when doing things when you are sweaty. I didn’t even bother getting a touch screen. From my perspective, I couldn’t find a good reason to buy another apple.

From what I’ve seen on Reddit, especially on the running side of things, are people training for a half marathon or full marathon and have like a Series 1-4 and complain that the Apple Watch battery wouldn’t last the whole race. But they’ll go out and buy a brand new Garmin🤔 Like if you search Apple Watch battery in some running subs you’ll see people complaining about it and recommended Garmin. I’m biased because I’ve always had an Apple Watch and I have no plans at this time to replace it, but at the same time I feel people have these old series watches with terrible battery life and think the newer models are the same. The battery life definitely needs improvement though… I’m still on my Series 7 because I’m waiting for some major improvement to the form factor, health feature, and battery life. But after all of that, I can still make it through the entire day. I charge every morning for like 20mins and then it doesn’t need a charge until the next day and I’m a pretty active person.

I found I couldn’t use my AW for sleep because the battery was forever needing to be charged

I use both. I feel my Apple Watch is more accurate with HR, steps, workouts. My ring is for sleep and stress.

yea i wear both aw on the left whoop on the right. they are both good for different things and having the whoop gives me some peace of mind about my apple watch charge like i don’t stress about if it dies cause ik the whoop is running

I have Apple Watch Series 9 right now but previously had a Garmin. Yeah, you can set target heart rate and target pace in the run settings. They can be used for all run types. For example, you can set a target pace or hr (instant value or range) on a distance goal run. Then there is a completely separate pace goal run type that has a special data screen that shows if you’re ahead or behind target pace. Here’s what sucks about pace on Apple Watch: instantaneous pace estimate is a lot worse and more delayed than Garmin. There’s also no pace gauge like Garmin has which I always found a nice screen to use. No, there is NO dynamic run coaching or daily suggested workout like Garmin has. There is a “Workout Buddy” feature that interjects little pep talk blurbs at the start of your run, during various run events like finishing a mile split, and at the end of your run. This feature requires the paired phone to be nearby, at least for my Series 9. Overall a very lame “feature” There are apps on the App Store that try to offer what Garmin has for training and recovery, but I don’t trust them to be as accurate and don’t really find them to offer anything insightful. I tried a trial for all the ones that are frequently recommended on Reddit. Meh. Otherwise, I love having Apple Music on my wrist and no phone needed to be called or texted by wife and kids. I like Garmin and Apple both, and I’m considering buying an Ultra 3 myself in spite of Apple Watch downsides. Just being objective about the downsides of AW compared to Garmin for running.

I love Apple and Garmin products, and I’ve been waiting for the Ultra 3 release to replace my Apple Watch Series 9. Here’s where my AWS9 falls short for me: camping and hiking because of battery, maps and navigation while biking and hiking, and the dynamic running workout suggestions that Garmin has. I can get Fenix 8 Solar for $880 through a discount with my health insurance which makes it comparable to AWU3. Things I like about Fenix 8 Solar: maps, battery, daily suggested workout, Garmin coach, MIP screen doesn’t look like a mini phone on my wrist. Things I like about AWU3: being reachable by my wife and kids while running and cycling, running errands sans phone, love the design, my watch bands will fit, my Apple Music subscription works, etc. I feel like the AWU3 fits my actual day to day better than the Fenix; although, when I do make it out for that couple times a year backpacking trip, Fenix is the clear winner. But on the day to day I mostly am tracking running and weightlifting. And a weekend gravel bike ride. Anybody have both?