Ditching the Apple Watch

Lately, I’ve been thinking about selling my Apple Watch and switching to something simpler. Less smart, more minimal. Something that does not distract me with notification’s unless I set it to one of the five focus modes that exist and I have to configure to allow certain app notifications to come through.

A little bit of when and why I got here

Right now, I’ve got the Apple Watch Series 9, which I’ve been using for about a year and a half. Before that, I had the Series 6… lost it during a house move (wonderful).

While they are really polished devices, packed with endless features like ApplePay, ECG, etc. - rarely do I end up using any of them. My primary purpose is to have a bloat free fitness tracker (I do like a screen so I can track my start/end/track my workouts as I am doing them) and maybe sleep tracking. You could get rid of all other inter-device connectivity, notifications, “wellness” features and I probably would not miss them. Not like the Apple Watch does a very good job of all these functions anyway 🤷‍♂ - sleep tracking that barely works even though you have to turn on sleep focus MANUALLY might I say. Anyway, I won’t miss using the tip calculator on my watch (very corny), or the three tries it takes to make a payment using the watch using ApplePay, at which point my phone has come out of my pocket anyway.

I realize it’s become a burden at this point that I am no longer willing to bear. The digital noise it adds, the constant charging it needs, the dead weight it becomes when you forget to bring the charger on a trip. I can do without all of that - without losing much. I would rather wear a simple mechanical analog watch which does one thing well - telling the time while also having a lot more soul and heart. I have tried wearing both a normal watch and an Apple Watch on both wrists - and it’s just plain goofy. WOULD NOT RECOMMEND.

Where I am going

Maybe a smart band instead of a watch is the way to go. Something that still serves the purpose of a fitness tracker without trying to be a whole smart phone replacement on your wrist. I have used the Xiaomi Mi band before, back in it’s Gen 2/3 days but looks like it has come really far, with the Gen 10 being the latest. It’s also way cheaper than the Apple Watch at about $60, so there’s less guilt in scratching up the screen - OR LOSING IT WHILE MOVING. cough cough

Read this somewhere - “The longer you spend in tech, the stronger the urge to buy a farm and never touch a computer again in your life”

Well, maybe I am not quite there yet but I am looking to cut down on these gadgets which dictate and distract a lot of lives.

Maybe the first step is just… changing my watch.