Looking better with Apple Watch

tl;dr: I love my Apple Watch more now since I have learned how incorporate it into my life better.

First Moment

I bought the Apple Watch the first moment possible, waking up at 3am, and ordering it. I waited a few weeks for it… then… I had a nice watch to show off. Apple Watch told the time, I stand up when it tells me to, life was good. My wife thought I was crazy to buy one.

First Activity

I got my wife a FitBit for Christmas (trust me, she didn’t want an Apple Watch.) With wife tracking her activities with her new present, we became more active together. She wanted to meet the goal of 10,000 steps per day. For her, this was quite a challenge since her commute is only 5 minutes. My 30 minute commute gave me about 5,000 steps. Going for 10k steps per day was good, especially when we tour around NYC on our own, we average 10k - 15k steps! Going from 5k steps to 15k steps is quite a leap, which makes me very tired a few days after. I didn’t want to be so worn out after each time we toured around NYC! We started strolling in the evenings more instead of watching TV, just to get upto 10k steps each day.

Second Activity

With the increased activity, I noticed that I was meeting my activities goals more on my watch. The joy of tech made a great comic about it, which was funny at the time since I wasn’t able to meet them either. Now it’s even funnier to see it’s not so hard to meet the goals.

First Realization

This made me realize: Apple Watch is not made to be a ‘luxury time piece’ which usually makes the wearer look better, but the Apple Watch wearer can look better by utilizing its activity features more, while being pretty stylish. With the Apple Watch, I noticed the health app was magically populated with these measurements: heart rate, stand hours, active energy, and resting energy. Those are the ones which I don’t have to do anything.

First Sleep

Since my wife’s fitbit does sleep tracking, I wanted sleep tracking for my Apple Watch! So i got Sleep++ for my Apple Watch, and wear my watch ALL the time! It’s great to see how I sleep since I have done a sleep study before and this is far less annoying.

First Alarm

Now that I wear my Apple Watch to sleep, I also can use the Apple Watch’s alarm feature! I have been waking up earlier than my wife to get some workout and study time in the morning when it’s nice and quiet. The iPhone 3GS alarm we have sometimes woke her up too… Now that I have the Apple Watch on, I can have the alarm just vibrate my wrist instead of making a noise. Win-win!

First Conclusion

When I first got my watch, I would only wear it during the day, take it off at night. Now I wear my Apple Watch all the time, only taking it off when I’m showering or for a quick charge. I utilize the activities feature more and try to be healthier by walking 10,000 steps per day, along with my wife. The Sleep++ app hows me how well I sleep, and makes waking up earlier easier without waking up my wife.

The Apple Watch not only helps my wrist look better, but my whole self!