Will you buy an Apple Watch?

[kshaw]

I have been a big fan of the Casio Protek watches for everything I do. It has a solar charge feature and I never have to replace batteries, it is very rugid, it is waterproof down to SCUBA depths, and it sychonizes time every night. That's all I need and it is under $300.

 

[harshness]

I have been a big fan of the Casio Protek watches for everything I do. It has a solar charge feature and I never have to replace batteries, it is very rugid, it is waterproof down to SCUBA depths, and it sychonizes time every night. That's all I need and it is under $300.

Casio has been peddling solar atomic watches for 21 years but none of them are particularly smart (the alarm capability is pretty disappointing on the newer models and the Databank feature has been largely abandoned). The Casio Protrek is an in-your-face styled timepiece with some weather station features.

The Apple Watch is about as smart as watches get (though far from the only smart watch). It is a Personal Digital Assistant that arguably looks like it might have come out of a bubble gum machine.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

Wife surprised me with a new Apple Watch Ultra today. Up until now I have been using an Apple Watch Series 4.

This may sound strange, but this watch does not seem that much of an upgrade to my Series 4. All the apps I use seem to load just as fast as they did on my Series 4.
I do however like the sound from the Ultra Watch, I use an app called StreamLets which lets you listen to Internet Radio stations via the speaker on the watch. And it's nice and loud and sounds great!

Are there any apps people suggest which are optimized for the Ultra? I am excited about the reported batter life.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

TheForce

So Don, are you still using the Wristcam? Has it got any better? I got an Apple Watch Ultra for Christmas and was looking at this but having a hard time finding actual video and pictures from it. Would you buy it again?

 

[navychop]

No watch for me, at least not for a while. But off to buy a four pack of Apple Air Tags. Anyone familiar with them?

As my XS Max is at 80% battery capacity/life, I figure I’ve got 1-2 more years out of it. Maybe more, if I pay them to replace the battery. How far back does Apple go for replacing iPhone batteries? I know our iPad 3 is a lost cause.

 

[Scott Greczkowski]

I have Air Tags, to replace the batteries is very easy push down on the cover and turn, and put a new battery in.


Not sure how far back they go replacing batteries, but the job is not that hard to do if you have the tools. I replaced my sons without issue.

 

[navychop]

No Apple Air Tags in NoVA area. Backlogged. Will have to order later.

 

[osu1991]

There was nothing wrong my with Series 5 watch, but for various reasons I needed to upgrade a lot of my business tech, so I got an Ultra in early December as part of those upgrades.

Battery life is really good and the slightly bigger screen is good on the old eyes. The case being larger, I have had to adjust it slightly higher on my wrist for comfort. The old one was just fine for my daily uses, so I haven't really noticed much performance improvement in my use case. Opens/closes garage door, email and text alerts, tracks my daily walks, tracks sleeping. I'll probably try it in the pool next summer swimming laps, I didn't use the old one for that as I didn't have a band conducive to swimming. I may start using apple pay more with the watch. I didn't use it much before as it wasn't accepted at the few places I go, but that seems to be changing.

I did like the new Ultra watch bands being larger, but buying new did cause me to look for new bands, which I should have done sooner. I really needed one more link in the metal band I had for my Series 5. I found these on an Amazon lightning deal over the holidays and really like them.

Amazon product

They work well on both watches. I gave the old watch to my mom for the fall protection, general alerts and being able to call with it. I needed a stretchable easy to put on band for her and these work great for that and are really comfortable.

 

[klang]

Bought a 3 pack of the Air Tags when they first came out. Have one on my keychain and another in my hiking backpack. They work but I don't think I've ever come close to forgetting either. May break out the other to put in my suitcase next trip in February.