Why I Returned My Apple Watch 10

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll perhaps already know that this week I returned my Apple Watch. Yes, I am doing a highly embarrassing about turn: after last week’s dramatic fanfare about why I decided not to buy an Oura ring and bought an Apple Watch instead, I am now writing a new post about why I decided not to buy an Apple Watch and bought an Oura ring instead.

It’s excruciating even writing this out. Not least because it’s a subject that is so completely inconsequential, on the scale of things. The fact is though, a huge proportion of the internet is obsessed with these wearable bits of fitness-monitoring tech! I’ve never had so many questions! So here we go with another post documenting my wearable tech research findings.

My main finding being that it took me less than 48 hours to decide that I absolutely could not get on with an Apple Watch. Here’s why.

1) I did not find the Apple Watch to be comfortable. Probably down to my strap choice (I went for a stainless one that looked amazing but was slightly scratchy if I moved my wrist too much) but it was also the fact that I needed to sleep in it as well as wear it during the day, and it just felt wrong.

To recap on the reasons I wanted to research wearable tech in the first place: I wanted to track my cycles (using the Natural Cycles app, which links up with both Apple Watch and Oura) and I wanted to get more of an overview on my sleep quality, my stress levels and my general fitness. The aim being to get moving a little bit more and not sit for such long periods at my desk, to be more regular with my bedtime routine and to attempt to incorporate some periods of rest into my week. Not the sleeping sort of rest, the awake-but-being-at-peace-with-the-world sort of rest. Restorative thinking time.

Anyway, for wearable tech to be able to give you the data you need for all of these things, and for it to automatically take basal temperature every day at the same time for the Natural Cycles app, it needs to be worn 24/7.

I did 24. I was miserable. It felt as though I’d been tagged, like a pigeon. And I didn’t even like looking at the thing, which brings me onto…

2) I didn’t like the look of it. Despite thinking very carefully about the look I was going for - low level mobster crossed with Jennifer Aniston - it sparked absolutely no joy. The strap? The “Milanese loop”? A solid 10/10. The device itself? With its very expensive gold-coloured titanium casing? It was, unfortunately, a 5. Which would be fine for something that got the occasional glance, but it was just there all the time, demanding my gaze, it felt like this big prison tag on my wrist that just made me feel that bit less polished than I do already. I need no help looking less polished, believe me.

I think if I have to look at an accessory that large, every single day and night, then I need to love it. And I didn’t. It sort of felt as though I’d had a regrettable tattoo. Which is why I don’t have any tattoos, because I know they’d be regrettable.

3) The notifications did my utter head in. Now I know that you can turn them all off, you can customise them, you can choose to have fitness alerts but not texts, you can have an alarm clock and nothing else going on and any infinite combination to suit your lifestyle and personality. But here’s the thing: being able to have the notifications to tell me to move more or go to sleep or what have you was one of the selling points for me. I thought I’d enjoy these prompts: I didn’t. And if I had them turned off, along with my text notifications and call alerts and so on, what was even the point of wearing this screen on my wrist? To infrequently double-check my resting heart rate?

It didn’t stack up for me. I also didn’t like making/taking a phone call on it, when I was in town, because I had to put my wrist to my ear like a secret service agent and I felt like a twat. I had been overjoyed at the idea of finally owning a spy watch: in reality, it didn’t make me feel as good as I’d expected. Possibly because I’m not eight.

Let’s just take pause here, because I know loads of you love your Apple Watches and I do not want to tarnish your enjoyment of them. Just because I didn’t get on with it doesn’t mean that you’re wrong, or that you look like a twat when you take a call by holding a watch to your ear. This is merely my own summary, plagued with obvious insecurities and well-worn biases. Many friends have them and would never be without them. Notably none of them have the stainless steep strap, though, and also none of them use it for cycle tracking and so don’t have to wear it religiously…

4) One of the other things that didn’t massively impress me was the way in which Apple presented the sleep and health data. The amount of it available was impressive, but it was just sort of plonked there factually, with no real interpretation of what any of it meant or how it might impact your day, or how you could use it to improve on certain aspects of your lifestyle.

What I liked about the Oura app when I looked at reviews was that it took all of the heart rate data and sleep data and other bits and pieces and it told you where you could make adjustments, how you could tweak your day to suit your particular health readings (I think this is called “readiness”?) and what you could change in your sleep routine to improve on sleep quality. I knew that this element would be lacking in the Apple Watch 10, because so many reviews had mentioned it, but I thought that the notifications and spy watch excitement would make up for it.

They didn’t.

So, after less than 48 hours together, we parted ways. I would have given it longer, to make it a fairer sort of test, but I was worried (justifiably) that I might scratch the watch screen or damage the strap and not be able to get my money back.

And this thing was pretty pricey.

It’s funny, when I first saw the Apple Watch I knew it was something I wouldn’t be able to handle wearing 24/7, but I was sold on the golden strap. I am so ridiculously shallow and also stubborn when I latch onto something I like the look of: I will disregard every single glaringly obvious downside and convince myself that all will be well. I’ve done it with shoes, I’ve done it with cars (bit more of an expensive mistake!) and I’ve even done it with a house. I wanted it, wanted it, wanted it because it was (still is) one of the most glorious houses I’ve ever set eyes on, but there were so many things that weren’t right. That I just glazed over because I had made my mind up and nothing was going to change it.

Anyway, I’ve ordered the Oura ring. HA! If I can pre-empt the downsides that this will inevitably have then they will be that the shininess of the metal will annoy me (they don’t look hugely attractive in finish, though maybe the garish shine settles down a bit after it has worn in) and that it won’t work or the battery will be fcuked and I’ll have a total nightmare trying to change it.

Although: I found a workaround for the terrible Oura customer service: I BOUGHT THE OURA FROM JOHN LEWIS! My thinking was that if anything went wrong, I’d be dealing with good old John Lewis and not the apparently-always-AWOL Oura team. I bought with confidence. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that before…

Anyway, I know that the fitness tracking element won’t be as good on the Oura - don’t forget that I did about fifty hours of research on all of this! - but I think that I’d rather have the overall health data interpreted and made useful, and on a device I know I can wear 24/7 without wanting to chop my own arm off with a pickaxe.

Thanks for following along. This won’t be the last post, I’m sure there’ll be a saga with choosing the right coloured Oura in the right size, and then I’ll have to work out how to use the app…

I know that my Mum, avid reader of A Model Recommends, will be shaking her head at the absolute madness of it all…