The Experience of Using an Apple Watch and Alternatives: A Personal Perspective

As I progressed through the week, it became increasingly clear that my decision to abandon my Apple watch was not as well thought out as I had initially believed. Without the device's core features, such as hand-free phone calls, heart rate monitoring, home control, wallet, and Apple pay, I found myself relying more heavily on my iPhone for these same functions. My usage of the iPhone increased significantly, which is something I had been trying to cut down on.

One aspect that I thought would be acceptable was notifications from the Me Band, a fitness tracker alternative that I had tried out. The device does provide a range of notifications, including alarms, phone calls, text messages, and social media updates. However, these notifications were not as rich or informative as those received on my Apple watch. Whenever I got a notification, it would prompt me to dig deeper into the details, often resulting in me checking my iPhone for more information instead.

This lack of richness in notifications was particularly noticeable when it came to paying for things. Without the Apple watch's convenient mobile payments system, which allowed me to tap my wrist on the way to Starbucks and pay for my coffee without having to go through the drive-through, I found myself having to manually unplug my iPhone from CarPlay and navigate to the payment screen. Even tasks that I didn't think would be affected, such as unlocking my computer with Apple watch integration, became slightly more inconvenient.

One area where the Me Band did excel was in its sleep tracking capabilities. The device synced seamlessly with the Health app on my iPhone, providing detailed insights into my sleep patterns and helping me analyze how much rest I was actually getting. This feature was a valuable addition to the Me Band, which made it stand out from other fitness trackers that I had tried.

Despite these positive experiences with the Me Band, I couldn't help but feel that it lacked the overall feature set of the Apple watch. The device's smaller size and lower weight were definite advantages, but its battery life was also a limitation – I often found myself needing to recharge it more frequently than I would my iPhone or Apple watch.

After abandoning my Apple watch for several days, I began to feel a pang of nostalgia for the device. I missed the seamless integration with other Apple products and services, as well as the convenience of having all these features in one wearable device. In particular, I found myself wishing that the Apple watch had more robust sleep tracking capabilities – its current implementation fell short of what I needed.

My experience with the Me Band and other alternatives has reinforced my appreciation for the Apple watch. While it may not be perfect, it offers a level of feature set and integration that is hard to match. Whether or not someone should choose an Apple watch over alternative options depends on individual needs and preferences. For me, however, I can confidently say that I love my Apple watch – and I'm eager to get back to using it as soon as possible.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enbefore buying a brand-new Apple watch for the fourth time I wanted to test myself and see if I would truly miss it so I gave up my Apple watch for an entire week and traded it in for a cheap fitness tracker welcome everyone it is Andrew here for an Apple Insider I've been using the Apple watch since it debuted and wearing it nearly every day I never really gave myself a chance to go without it so before going in on a new Apple watch once more I traded it in for the me band - I picked this fitness tracker up for less than $30 and they weren't an entire week instead of my Apple watch I tried to replicate a lot of the main features that I use on my Apple watch including monitoring my heart rate tracking my activities in getting notifications within me man - I was able to do all of that pretty pretty easily the me Man 2 is fairly minimalistic it's just a tiny little fitness tracker I can still wear a watch at the same time there's a little capacitive button right below the screen on the front that allows you to cycle through a bunch of customizable metrics doing the distance that you travel the time or your heart rate it uses similar optical heartrate technology right there on the back and comparing it to my Apple watch and my polar heart rate monitor it seems pretty solid it also has a really long battery life and I don't have to worry about charging it every single day the puck can be removed from the band not only for charging but to swap the band out with other design options if this is going to be kind of a daily wearable the me fit app goes along with it and it works really well pulls in all the information that you'd expect including your distance the activities workouts heartrate information all those it pulled right here into the app and of course it even syncs with apples health app so if you're using that for any other event analysis that's still totally doable starting out the week using the me band - I was totally on board I could definitely see myself using this rather than using my Apple watch it definitely seemed like something I would be able to do but as the week progressed that definitely did not seem to be the case without my Apple watch I ended up using my iPhone more to replace a lot of the core features then I used for my Apple watch using Siri hands-free phone calls watching out for my heart rate stuff the home kick control wallet and Apple pay quick access to weather and a lot more I had to use my iPhone and my home pod for an even checking out iOS 12 screen time analytics actually showed that I had an increase in use on my iPhone and I'm trying to cut down on my iPhone usage this is kind of trending the wrong way one of the things that I thought I would be okay with was notifications using the me band - there's a lot of different notifications you can get including alarms phone calls text messages for Facebook Instagram and Twitter all these kinds of things and those notifications did come through and it was very helpful but didn't give you any information about them they weren't rich notifications like you see on the Apple watch and whenever I get a notification it maybe pull out my phone and kind of dig in deeper and then I just end up using my phone for other things at the same time whereas on my Apple watch I'd get a notification see what it was can I deal with it without having to pull out my phone at all with such a personal device it's really hard for me to kind of recommend one way or the other which way either person should go the me band is pretty awesome it's less than thirty dollars has all the fitness tracking things that I really need has a really long battery life and I can really replicate a lot of the features of the Apple watch with the me band but it's not really that simple just cuz I get a notification doesn't mean it's the same type of notification I could get on the Apple watch that's much richer and has more information paying for things was more difficult because instead of going through the Starbucks drive-through in just hitting them my Apple watch through the window I had to unplug my iPhone from carplay and kind of route it out instead even things I didn't think about became a little bit more of an annoyance like unlocking my computer without having my Apple watch attached I did like the sleep tracking capabilities the me man would sync back to the health app show all my sleep data can analyze a kind of an other sleep apps just to kind of keep track of how much I'm actually getting rest that I desperately need and you can kind of do that on the Apple watch I've tried a bunch of different apps I've tried the actual sleep score max Hardware system I've tried the sleep score app I've tried auto tracker I've tried pillow pillow is probably my latest one that I've been trying but the Apple watch's doesn't have quite enough battery get through usually I can get through a day in through the night of tracking my sleep but it's still just a little bit big a little bit heavy I did like having a smaller less invasive fitness tracker being able to monitor my sleep on my wrist that's something I still wish the Apple watch would find a better way to implement after abandoning my Apple watch for a few days I really started to miss it just so many things were not as full featured on other fitness trackers I've tried to fit bits I've tried the me band we've tried a bunch of different ones and nothing has been as well-rounded as the Apple watch there's so many features to it it's not just about the fitness and health capabilities which are still there and extremely useful one of the best examples I can give is when we take our dogs out for a run normally I take my cellular Apple watch pair with my ear pods play and stream some Apple music on the go I lock my door with my August and get any notifications phone calls text or security stuff from my home while I'm on the go but without then I was left a little bit in the dark and didn't have as much peace of mind didn't know what was going on at home I couldn't be reached if someone needed to call or text me and I couldn't even listen to music without either taking my iPhone with me which didn't work well running around in gym shorts and I clearly couldn't attach any headphones to this there are plenty of people out there who hate the Apple watch and anymore who also love it and I definitely fall into the latter I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the things I've missed in the past week while I don't know with certainty than we did jump on the series for I can say that I love my Apple watch if you enjoyed this video like it and hit that subscribe button also check out a price guide which makes it extremely easy to find the best deals and Apple products updated daily be sure to follow us on social media and we'll see you in the next videobefore buying a brand-new Apple watch for the fourth time I wanted to test myself and see if I would truly miss it so I gave up my Apple watch for an entire week and traded it in for a cheap fitness tracker welcome everyone it is Andrew here for an Apple Insider I've been using the Apple watch since it debuted and wearing it nearly every day I never really gave myself a chance to go without it so before going in on a new Apple watch once more I traded it in for the me band - I picked this fitness tracker up for less than $30 and they weren't an entire week instead of my Apple watch I tried to replicate a lot of the main features that I use on my Apple watch including monitoring my heart rate tracking my activities in getting notifications within me man - I was able to do all of that pretty pretty easily the me Man 2 is fairly minimalistic it's just a tiny little fitness tracker I can still wear a watch at the same time there's a little capacitive button right below the screen on the front that allows you to cycle through a bunch of customizable metrics doing the distance that you travel the time or your heart rate it uses similar optical heartrate technology right there on the back and comparing it to my Apple watch and my polar heart rate monitor it seems pretty solid it also has a really long battery life and I don't have to worry about charging it every single day the puck can be removed from the band not only for charging but to swap the band out with other design options if this is going to be kind of a daily wearable the me fit app goes along with it and it works really well pulls in all the information that you'd expect including your distance the activities workouts heartrate information all those it pulled right here into the app and of course it even syncs with apples health app so if you're using that for any other event analysis that's still totally doable starting out the week using the me band - I was totally on board I could definitely see myself using this rather than using my Apple watch it definitely seemed like something I would be able to do but as the week progressed that definitely did not seem to be the case without my Apple watch I ended up using my iPhone more to replace a lot of the core features then I used for my Apple watch using Siri hands-free phone calls watching out for my heart rate stuff the home kick control wallet and Apple pay quick access to weather and a lot more I had to use my iPhone and my home pod for an even checking out iOS 12 screen time analytics actually showed that I had an increase in use on my iPhone and I'm trying to cut down on my iPhone usage this is kind of trending the wrong way one of the things that I thought I would be okay with was notifications using the me band - there's a lot of different notifications you can get including alarms phone calls text messages for Facebook Instagram and Twitter all these kinds of things and those notifications did come through and it was very helpful but didn't give you any information about them they weren't rich notifications like you see on the Apple watch and whenever I get a notification it maybe pull out my phone and kind of dig in deeper and then I just end up using my phone for other things at the same time whereas on my Apple watch I'd get a notification see what it was can I deal with it without having to pull out my phone at all with such a personal device it's really hard for me to kind of recommend one way or the other which way either person should go the me band is pretty awesome it's less than thirty dollars has all the fitness tracking things that I really need has a really long battery life and I can really replicate a lot of the features of the Apple watch with the me band but it's not really that simple just cuz I get a notification doesn't mean it's the same type of notification I could get on the Apple watch that's much richer and has more information paying for things was more difficult because instead of going through the Starbucks drive-through in just hitting them my Apple watch through the window I had to unplug my iPhone from carplay and kind of route it out instead even things I didn't think about became a little bit more of an annoyance like unlocking my computer without having my Apple watch attached I did like the sleep tracking capabilities the me man would sync back to the health app show all my sleep data can analyze a kind of an other sleep apps just to kind of keep track of how much I'm actually getting rest that I desperately need and you can kind of do that on the Apple watch I've tried a bunch of different apps I've tried the actual sleep score max Hardware system I've tried the sleep score app I've tried auto tracker I've tried pillow pillow is probably my latest one that I've been trying but the Apple watch's doesn't have quite enough battery get through usually I can get through a day in through the night of tracking my sleep but it's still just a little bit big a little bit heavy I did like having a smaller less invasive fitness tracker being able to monitor my sleep on my wrist that's something I still wish the Apple watch would find a better way to implement after abandoning my Apple watch for a few days I really started to miss it just so many things were not as full featured on other fitness trackers I've tried to fit bits I've tried the me band we've tried a bunch of different ones and nothing has been as well-rounded as the Apple watch there's so many features to it it's not just about the fitness and health capabilities which are still there and extremely useful one of the best examples I can give is when we take our dogs out for a run normally I take my cellular Apple watch pair with my ear pods play and stream some Apple music on the go I lock my door with my August and get any notifications phone calls text or security stuff from my home while I'm on the go but without then I was left a little bit in the dark and didn't have as much peace of mind didn't know what was going on at home I couldn't be reached if someone needed to call or text me and I couldn't even listen to music without either taking my iPhone with me which didn't work well running around in gym shorts and I clearly couldn't attach any headphones to this there are plenty of people out there who hate the Apple watch and anymore who also love it and I definitely fall into the latter I feel like I've barely scratched the surface of the things I've missed in the past week while I don't know with certainty than we did jump on the series for I can say that I love my Apple watch if you enjoyed this video like it and hit that subscribe button also check out a price guide which makes it extremely easy to find the best deals and Apple products updated daily be sure to follow us on social media and we'll see you in the next video\n"