I asked back in May whether you thought the Apple Watch Activity app would lead to a leaner, fitter you. At that point, more than 80% of you said that it either would or already had.
A Wristly survey yesterday suggested that the reality perhaps hadn’t quite lived up to this promise, but still contained some pretty impressive numbers. More than 50% of Watch owners said that they were exercising more and were making better health choices, with around 40% reporting weight loss.
For those of us who were lucky enough to take delivery of our Apple Watches on day one, we’re now three months in. Plenty of time for the novelty to wear off – and to see whether the anticipated benefits really have shown up on the bathroom scale, in our waistlines or in the gym …Â
For my own part, I have to confess the Stand reminders became too annoying, so I switched them off. Too many times, it would prompt me to stand either while I already was, or literally a minute or two after I’d sat down. It just wasn’t sufficiently intelligent.
The Move and Exercise circles, in contrast, have proved motivating. Apple’s human interface chief Alan Dye was absolutely right about it being a natural human desire to want to close those circles once there’s just a small gap remaining. I haven’t quite gone as far as performing jumping jacks before bed, but I have taken the long way round when cycling home, or climbed a few flights of stairs in preference to the escalator, in order to fill in the gaps.
So we’d like to hear your experience – both in terms of your attitude to the Activity circles, and any specific health benefits you’ve seen since your got your Watch (please check all that apply). We invite you to complete both polls, and share your experiences in the comments.
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People are noticing lower cholesterol? In three months? And have tested their levels prior to and recently?….got to love internet polls
Well, the option says “I’m healthier” with lower cholesterol being just one example. I’m sure people can feel that they are healthier without actually having to measure their cholesterol.
Healther isnt a measurable metric….you could buy an Apple Watch have lower cholesterol and develop cancer….Are you healthier?
The option wasnt “feel healthier” it was “I’m healthier” and proceeded to illustrate the measurable metrics to evaluate that conclusion.
That moment when you realize people are reading way too much into the semantics of internet polls.
Yeah I mean why take a poll if you don’t actually care about the responses……
The question was whether or not you are “healthier” and then gave cholesterol as one example, leaving it open with “etc…”
I’m been measuring many of my vitals (blood pressure, glucose, BMI, O2), and have seen improvements across the board. I’ve got a cholesterol test coming up, and I can’t imagine that it hasn’t improved since I’ve drastically changed my diet and work out daily since getting my Apple Watch, but I checked that question due to the other vital improvements.
I would bet 95% of those who selected that option tested absolutely nothing…..and if you assume anything else you are very new to the internet.
“I would bet 95% of those who selected that option tested absolutely nothing”
Why are you reading it at all? The fact of the matter is that of course there is overall bias inherent in the survey to favor the Apple Watch. However, when you look at what respondents selected, there is somewhat meaningful data in each response relative to the others.
Specifically, look at how many more people said they were exercising more or burning more calories versus (below that) how many people are saying they have some sort of measurable benefit.
This survey becomes more meaningful if it gets repeated over time. IOW, if a year from now the same survey is given and a smaller percentage of people say they are exercising/burning more, but of those people more are seeing measurable benefits (or the opposite), that’s pretty meaningful.
And of course, it’s not scientific, but does it really need to be when somewhat stating the obvious?
First of all there is no meaningful data to be collected from a poll on peoples health improvements when those participating took no medical exams from licensed medical staff, but simply check the boxes that make their purchase sound more justifiable. Second even less information can be drawn when there was no control group to assess how the “fell” after three months without it. That said, I am done with this thread and on to the next internet poll that Im sure someone else will cry over my comments on.
Wow, talk about totally missing the point. Good job there. That took real effort.
Now I go more times to the gym and were I previously used the car, I am now walking.
I have the rings visible at all times and it’s helping me lose weight, it’s like a video game really, where you do silly stuff just to get silly stuff and you don’t know why, but this is different, because it’s actual beneficial to you, so you keep playing this game that’s always on…
You choose to abide by the recommendations and goals, but that being said. I have found it highly motivating. I park my car at the end of a parking lot, hopefully in the shade. I am giving my dog two daily walks and longer. Running is the most efficient way of getting the move calories so I am running every day. When commuting, I am getting off at an earlier bus stop to get an extra half mile of walking in.
I already was a marathon runner but the extra move calories are important. The standing reminders are rare but still good and usually mean you do need to stand.
I’ve lost about 4-6 pounds and I can fit in any of my pants from before. For running marathons or half marathons those unwanted pounds make a difference when carrying them for long distance. So I feel lighter on my feet and faster.
Haven’t tested cholesterol but would be curious to see the result.
I find it motivating, yet as you have mentioned, it sometimes tells you to stand and you are already standing. The green exercise ring is also innacurate. I did 35 minutes of non stop running (with the workout app) and it credits me with 30 minutes. What resting calories?
I’m motivated to standup and workout more often due to my watches reminders and the Activity app. As a result, I have a generally healthier mindset throughout the day and I find myself making healthier decisions in general. (e.g. I’m less likely to grab a donut out of the conference room when I’ve making healthy decisions all day) I’ve lost about 10 pounds since I got my watch 2 months ago… It’s not a HUGE amount, but it’s definitely progress and I know I’m living a healthier lifestyle.
I find the stand reminders to be annoying and myself starting to ignore them…but that is not the Watch’s fault…its mine. If I find adequate movement during the work day to be disruptive, thats my own problem. I am the one that needs to cope with moving more during the day, and being less sedentary, despite having lots of work to do.
That said, the 3 rings and total activity goal I find to be very rewarding and encouraging when I get outside on the weekends and get a lot of yard work done.
Annoyed with the Exercise ring. Can spend >40 minutes walking, raise my pulse to 120 from a resting rate of 60 and register 15 minutes of exercise. I have walked outdoors with Apple Watch and iPhone to ensure that it is properly calibrated. Very de-motivating!
For walking the dog, I always start an Outdoor Walk with an Open Goal (No Time, No Distance). This usually accurately accounts for the exercise time. For running, I also use Outdoor Run but other more complete apps such as CycleMeter are also able to write to Health Data which watch uses.
I have found that the watch needs this assistance because determining that you are exercising based on heart rate alone is problematic.
It’s actually kind of annoying – When I do pushups, it is directly in my way. I have to loosen the strap, push it up on my arm, and tighten the strap. Also, the estimations don’t seem that accurate; which is hopefully solved with WatchOS 2.0.
Wouldn’t any watch that you wear so low on your wrist get in the way?
Or you can do your pushups on your knuckles.
What estimations are you using for pushups?
By “accuracy” are you talking about calorie burn? Pushups don’t burn that many calories. 10 minutes of vigorous pushups, for a 150lbs average person will burn only 96 calories; or 100 pushups roughly equal 100 calories. Although these numbers can fluctuate greatly based on the shape the person is in (as well as weight obviously).
I went in on the Apple Watch with the primary reason of tracking my fitness. 3 months later I can say for certain that it has been a huge benefit. Those rings are always there reminding me of my daily progress and they have made exercise into a game pretty much. That said, I know that my exercise regiment tends to derail towards the end of the year (during the holidays) and winter here in Canada makes quickly burning some calories outside that much harder. So I feel that weighing in on the real health test will have to wait a full year. I can’t say that the Watch has had much influence on my diet so far.
My main indoor exercise is on an elliptical trainer and the watch seems to do a pretty decent job of tracking my heart rate and calories. I also track my weight training, suspension training and stuff like that using the Other option in the Workout app. I have to say that the heart rate monitoring during that type of workout is pretty shoddy. Most of the time it’s tracking my heart rate at around 60bpm which seems to be about half of what it should be. In the end I’m not sure if this error registers my calorie burn as much less than what it actually is… I have no idea how Apple is calculating it in the code. If it does directly negatively influence the Active Calorie burn then it’s a little disappointing that it’s not doing the one thing I bought it for. At the same time, since my main goal was to use the Watch to become more fit, I’d rather that the Watch errors on tracking fewer calories burned.
It’s a strange situation where something that appears to be working incorrectly could actually have a positive benefit since it’ll push me to do little more work to fill up the ring before the day is out.
The only thing I see missing right now is a little more comparative info on my workouts within the Activity app on the Phone. I wish I could see all of my runs or workouts together and see how I’m making progress, stuff like that. The Nike Running App does this nicely.
My big gripe (and I’m on the beta, so that could be a reason) is the lack of consistency in how they work with various upgrades.
There’s only been one update (besides the beta). People complained about the change of heart rate measurement timings, so the 2.0 beta reversed it to the 1.0 original behavior.
I have filled my Activity rings for 41 days in a row. My Move goal is 600 calories.
So, I have an interesting perspective on this. I wore a Fitbit Charge for the months leading up to the Apple Watch. I loved it and it inspired me to lose a lot of weight (I guess it was the competition and the statistics that I needed to motivate me, since I’m a technology lover and number-brained person).
I traded the Fitbit for the Apple Watch and have been using the activity app since. I track my workouts on it, which I like, but I don’t find myself launching the app to view my steps, movement, etc. quite as much as the fitbit. Somehow, i don’t feel as motivated by it as I did when I wore my fitbit. And I loved the goal setting and calorie tracking aspects of the Fitbit too. I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve actually went to check my steps on the apple watch, whereas I checked 5 or 6 times a day with the Fitbit. So the only real activity feature I enjoy on the Apple Watch is the workout feature.
Fast forward to two days ago. I had been hemming and hawing for awhile about whether or not the Apple Watch fitness features were “good enough”. And I had sort of come to the conclusion they weren’t. I got an email from BestBuy about their Cyber Monday deals and saw they had the Jawbone UP24 for $29.99. I bought one of those, happy that it wouldn’t look like another watch on my wrist since it more resembles a bracelet than my previous Fitbit Charge did. And I’ve had it for 24 hours now and am back to the same old motivation I had when I had my Fitbit. It monitors sleep, it monitors my activity, it helps me set goals and shows me the statistics I need to see to stay motivated. Combined with the Apple Watch, I now feel like I have everything I want from fitness trackers.
I think the way of the future here for companies like Jawbone and Fitbit is to continue selling their devices, but also starting a subscription-based service that integrates with existing smart watches. My Apple Watch does everything– and more– that my Fitbit did, but the presentation is what is lacking. If I could pay $9.99 a month to not have the Jawbone device on my arm and have the data my Apple Watch collects interpreted through the Fitbit interface, I’d be sold and happy with just the one device. But until then…. I am going to wear both.
listen people…you can’t determine HEALTHIER until you get lab results…by blood drawn. Apple watch is a gimmick to the max. it looks cool..feels cool…is it cool? maybe…but most likely not. Don’t be drawn by this crap.
I don’t have an Apple Watch, but (especially if you’re not too much into sports and you wouldn’t use the Workout app) the Activity app seems like one of the killer features, right along with Apple Pay, Clock and the ability to handle notifications.
The watch has definitely made me more active at the gym and more conscious of my workouts. My only issue with the watch is the heart rate. Every time I finish a workout, my average heart rate is listed somewhere in the 80s, which is completely false. My resting heart rate is somewhere between 70-80. That definitely messes around with the calories burned and exercise ring.
irrelevant given its inaccuracy. It once told me I made may standing goal after sitting for 7 hours on an airplane.
I’ve also noticed that often I will just be sitting at my desk at work for half a day but somehow have reached half my walking goal for the day.
I love the idea of the watch and I’m sure these things will improve in versions to come but right now it’s just a toy with some features that somewhat (even if inaccurate) what you might have done in a day.