Apple Watch review

I've had my Apple Watch for almost a month now. I'm still figuring out how to use it, but hope I have the hang of things.

Bottom line: Love it. Don't know how I lived without it.

I've had fancy running watches since high school and I do like wearing a watch. This one's great.

What I love

1) The watch is super light. It's lighter than any running watch I've had and I can forget I have it on.

2) Driving directions on your wrist. If you look up directions on your phone, it will pair with your watch and show directions on your wrist. So there's no need to look down at your phone. It also buzzes your wrist when it's time to turn. I like this better than the bossy Turn Now voice on my iPhone.

3) Find my iPhone ping.
I am constantly misplacing my iPhone. I leave it on the couch and the dog sits on it. I leave it upstairs when I go to do the dishes. The watch will ping the phone (the phone will make a horrible noise so you can locate it.) This is a God send for me! (And might prevent the pets from sitting on it in the future.)

4) The fitness tracker. I'm obsessed. This is a good and bad thing.
I check it way too much. I get sad when I don't meet my calorie goal for the day. (I need my off days.)

Activity rings on my watch. Blue is for hours stood (12 is the goal. You just have to stand up and walk around some.) Green is for activity. It likes you to workout for 30 minutes a day. The most difficult one is the red active calories. My goal is 500, which can be challenging when it gives me low calorie counts. I burn about 2000 calories a day, but not all of them are active. This is why I'm walking laps around the house at 10 p.m. trying to make my goal AFTER barre class and walking the dog. 

5) Viewing picture messages on my wrist something out of the Jetsons. It's pretty cool.

I currently don't have email set up on my watch. I don't need any more notifications. That would make me too anxious.

It has calendar notifications, which can be helpful, for example when I have a barre class and need to get out the door.

It has a stop watch and a timer (that pair with your phone. So if you set the timer on your phone, it will beep in both places when done.)

The watch also has silent mode (so no texts while you're in pilates) and a Do Not Disturb. (Which is great since silent mode is broken on my iPhone. My otter box won't let me flip that switch.)

Fun: You can send touches or doodles to friends with Apple Watches. Two of my friends got Apple Watches for Christmas and sent me doodles. That was really fun.

You can use the watch to take a picture like a selfie stick. 

Downside to the watch.
1) It can be hard to select the right button or press start on a workout. The screen is tiny and I constantly hit the wrong app. I struggled to press start on a treadmill workout the other day. I had to stop the treadmill. Ugh.

2) I didn't set it exactly right on the charger one night and it didn't charge. Oops. Make sure it chirps that it's charging. It does charge in about an hour so that's not bad. (This has only happened once.)

3) It can be overwhelming when your friends blow up your phone. That said, there's a silent mode on the watch. I think it still buzzes. I wanted to take a nap but kept getting texts one day (friends only text when I nap) so I ended up taking the watch off. (Before I figured out the Do Not Disturb.)

What I don't love.

The calorie count on the watch is not very accurate. It cheats me out of a minimum of 100 calories per workout. Even with the heart rate monitor telling the watch I'm working hard. It counts active and total calories—but I still don't think it's anywhere close to right. It seems to only count arm swinging as calories, so if I'm doing pilates or barre and keeping my arm still and moving anything else, the calorie count is low.

For running, the distance is off. I did calibrate the watch, but it's still not accurate—even if I put the phone on my leg (and usually my iPhone step counter is pretty accurate.) I ran 2 miles at the track the watch said 2.17 (which is almost another lap.)

• If I'm on the fancy treadmill at the gym (that knows my age, height and weight), it's calorie count doesn't match the watch's calorie count—even when I have my iPhone on me. (Watch said I ran 2.97 miles, treadmill said 3.5 miles.)

71 calories versus 151 calories and the bike
isn't even counting the arm weights I did.

• Same for exercise bike. The indoor cycle workout function—even with both watch and machine measuring my heart rate—don't get close to the same calorie count. (For a 27 minute bike-ride, the watch said 100 calories, the bike said 218.)

• There's a definite lag in the information. It will say zero calories burned and then 5 all at once. It's not real time.

• I read the the heart rate monitoring is the best out there. Except when I run my heart rate gets higher than those online charts say is feasible. The heart rate sensor does not match the gym equipment sensors on the fanciest treadmills. And I feel fine when I run, so I'm guessing the heart rate monitor has issues, like maybe the watch is too loose or I'm moving my arms too much.  I'd really like to compare the watch to another heart rate monitor. But how reliable can a wrist monitor be?

Also, Lululemon makes a long sleeve shirt with a hole for a smartwatch. This doesn't work for the Apple Watch and it messes with the watch's wrist sensors so I constantly have to unlock the watch.

Bottom line
I'm hoping that with the next update or version of the watch, they incorporate more workouts—like barre, pilates, yoga etc. So those will be more accurate. I'm also hoping to be able to edit a workout—for example when a distance is off, or I forget to stop the workout, I can go in and edit it. But for a first generation product, I'm stoked.

My friends only text me when I'm napping or working out. I absolutely hate it when I get a text while running. Because I feel like I need to look at it, but I need to run and not stop. I've started setting my watch to Do Not Disturb while I exercise (of of course the first time I do this I take a barre class and my boss is blowing up my phone and I'm an hour late responding to something. It was Saturday morning. An hour response will have to do.)

I really do like my Apple Watch. But I've been really annoyed with texts on my watch lately. (I'd rather get them on my phone.) So maybe I should have gotten a fitness tracker instead.