My brother somehow lost the ability to do basic financial math and made an impulse purchase recently: the new Apple Watch 6.
I offset that bad decision by purchasing his previous impulse purchase, the “old” Apple Watch 3. He got the Apple Watch 3 because the Christmas Microsoft Watch failed on its promises, somehow. I bid him a round number, which I see now is 25% shy of what is being asked on eBay for used Apple 3s.
I wouldn’t be interested in an Apple Watch, usually. I rely on my Fitbit to track my sleep and occasionally my “exercise.” (You know, I like to get credit when I am gardening or raking anyway.) But the recent Blogography review of the Apple Watch 6 intrigued me, and then the chance to buy my brother’s used Apple 3 Watch arose.
I have had it a week or so, and I must say that after a rough adjustment period I have now bent it to my will. (It was telling me to stand every hour. You don’t interrupt a programmer mid-code, first of all, especially for something like standing, and then you don’t do it with the same alarm that indicates incoming text messages or calendar alerts. Me: “Oh my God! Did I forget a meeting?” Watch: “Don’t forget to stand!”)
I haven’t used it to answer phone calls, though I researched how to do that this morning. Frankly, these are the functions I have used:
Tapping the Mickey Mouse watch face to have Mickey talk to me. I generally know the time, but I am just enchanted by watching Mickey’s shoes tap out the seconds. And then once in the morning, Mickey will say, “Good morning, pal!” after the time. I respond, because I know someday Mickey’s will be the only voice I hear, so I want to keep on his good side. He also says “Good evening!” once a day, but the real draw is when he giggles. It seems random, so it’s a big score when I get a giggle. I kind of want the Roomba and Alexa programmers to add a random giggle, too.
Tracking my sleep. The FitBit just told me how long I slept; this Autosleep app on the watch breaks it down by light sleep, deep sleep, and how close I evidently come to death once a night because my heart rate plummets to 51 beats per minute. Evidently I sleep so hard it offsets the two times a night I get up to pee.
Tracking my heart. Remember when I got the EKG on my front porch so I could switch medications? Evidently, something on the result caused a minor difference of opinion between the drug company doctor in Germany and a US cardiologist. Minor. It didn’t sound like anything I should be concerned about. No doubt when I hear more about it at my physical it will explain those rare moments when my heart skips a beat.
Compass. I love knowing what direction I am facing. Before, when “the meteor shower will be visible in the Northeast sky” I had to do lots of IPad machinations to find Northeast so I could once again not see the meteor shower. Now it will take very little time to not see the meteor shower.
I like it so far, and I haven’t even tried to play music on it yet or make phone calls through wireless. Sometimes I like my brother’s hand-me downs.