I forgot my Apple Watch, and it’s fine

This morning, I forgot to put on my Apple Watch. It's the second day in a row that this happens. And I realized that it's fine, I'm not missing out on anything. If I forget my phone, I'll go back and get it, but for my watch it's just not worth it.

When I bought it, I knew it was an experiment. I got the sport model, which is still $349, but I figured that I would get at least that much entertainment out of it. I had lost my FitBit a few weeks ago when the armband broke and figured that the watch would also serve as a replacement for that.

While it does track heart rate and steps, I found that for myself these values were rather meaningless. Steps are already counted by my iPhone, and heart rate isn't that useful for my training regimen (I'm doing weight training, since running doesn't help with muscle building and getting a good body). That's not the fault of the watch of course, it's a change in my habits, where Weight, Body Fat% and how much I can lift are the metrics I'm interested in, metrics which the watch can't track by itself.

Apart from that, the Watch has been useful mostly to glance at incoming messages and serve as a calendar reminder, but actually interacting with them is still better done on the phone. Matt Gemmell wrote a good piece about how it helps him avoiding distractions, but it didn't have the same effect for me.

I don't regret buying the Watch, but if someone would offer me close to what I paid for it, I'd part with it immediately. I guess that smartwatches just lack a must-have feature to be really attractive, and with reports saying that sales dropped by 90% I don't seem to be the only one that thinks something is missing.

Whatever it is that is missing, I'm pretty sure that I'll go back to my previous wristwatch. That one also doesn't need to be put on a charger every night.