Guest post: The Apple Watch You Didn’t Think You Needed
Guest post from Benjamin “Mr Miyagi” Lee
Benjamin Lee, a local writer, blogger and ad-man sometimes more affectionately known as “Mr Miyagi”, loves technology, and has written a review of the new Apple Watch Series 6. What follows is his scintillating take on Apple’s latest smart watch.
The Apple Watch Series 6, featuring an all new blood oxygen sensor.
The Apple Watch You Didn’t Think You Needed
I’ll have to be honest. I’m an Apple fanboy through and through, so please know that you’re going to be reading through the lens of “which Apple product to buy”, and not a comparison of Apple’s products, and iterations by other brands. Not worth my time, nor yours, in my Apple opinion.
OK, with that out of the way - we’re gonna be talking about whether you should be buying an Apple Watch for yourself (the answer being yes if you don’t already have one on your wrist) or for your loved ones (ditto).
You might have heard of the partnership between HPB and Apple Watch with the Lumihealth app that pays you money for keeping fit. But that’s not the reason you should even be considering an Apple Watch.
Granted, it’s not one of those epic life-changing purchases, but rather, you’re buying a slow burn type of life-change: incremental in nature, step-by-step in pace, step-counting, deep-breathing, ring-closing, day in, and with day out, a restful and reparative night’s sleep.
Yes, you’re on the right track if you’re getting that it’s the whole Apple health ecosystem I’m on here. You don’t have to be an elite athlete to have this team of clinicians and coaches with you - you can be any ordinary Joe or Jill and have them on your wrist and in your pocket.
My use case: Daily wear, and I charge it for an hour before bedtime and wear it to sleep so it tells me whether I’ve rested well (via a third-party app called Pillow, which has more deets than Apple’s basic sleep tracker)
I like that it tracks my heart rate (I’ve always had a high resting heart rate), and I can get an ECG reading when I need it. It’s kinda reassuring when you’re a middle aged man on medication for hypertension.
There are also the daily nudges to get fit, because working from home can be a bane to fitness - so the watch reminds me to get up from my chair and stand - and at the very least, even if I don’t get around to actually exercising (which I really should), I’m hitting my stand goals - at least a couple of minutes every hour for twelve hours.
The Activity app is really the key to the wearer’s mental availability - and really a genius UI design that now looks so obviously intuitive.
These rings to rule them all.
Then there’s the touchy-feely bit - I’m not embarrassed to tell you that I sometimes feel overwhelmed by stuff during the day - and I’ve taken to using the watch’s Breathe app - something like an entry-level meditation regime - and I’d like to think it works. I mean, the stuff that overwhelms me is still there - but my heart rate’s gone down after doing a one-minute breathing exercise so I guess that’s a good thing.
If these things don’t quite make the sell, I need to tell you that the Apple Watch and its assortment of accessories are really very pretty. If you’d just take a look at the watch bands available, you’d see why one single brand can disrupt destroy the entire dress watch industry. Even the digital UI facsimile of a watch geek’s complications (I love a watch face with lots of complications) is available for you to swap around and customize.
I’ve a friend who shall remain unnamed, and who actually wanted an Apple Watch just for the beautiful Hermès bands. I wouldn’t have been able to talk some prudence into him, but I lent him an older Apple Watch and all the features other than cosmetic have since grown on him. He hasn’t spoken of the Hermès bands lately, but since I brought it up, you can drool over them here.
The Apple Watch comes with various accessories, including a series of Hermès bands.
In all, if you’re looking to reset your resolutions for 2021, you will want to consider the Series 6 so you can watch where you’re going health and wellness-wise.
Coming up - which iPad should you get as your WFH sidekick?
Benjamin “Mr Miyagi” Lee
Full-time ad-man, full-time family man, full-time theatre writer, full-time radio DJ, Benjamin doesn’t find time for everything, but somehow time seems to find him quite kindly. He’s also the kind of tech geek who’s quite blur about tech specs, but knows what he likes. Kinda like you and me.