I’m Excited. I Finally Upgraded My Apple Watch SE.
I’m already convinced I made the right choice.
You may remember a previous post I wrote where I was wondering about whether I needed to upgrade my Apple Watch or stick with the model I had.
In the end, I did decide to upgrade. But, that was mainly because the battery life on the Series 2 became ridiculously short. I couldn’t get through a day, even with very light use. That, along with sluggish performance was making the watch almost painful to use.
I went for the SE model. I didn’t write about that upgrade though, because despite the new watch being several years newer, it was much the same. Yes, more acceptable battery life and snappier performance — but otherwise much the same deal as before and honestly, there wasn’t much worth writing about.
At that point, I was feeling like Apple had charged me another £250 to continue using the same watch. Not a good feeling.
The experience did get me thinking though. What do we mean when we talk about ‘upgrades’?
For me, it’s simple. It means swapping something I already have for something different, and then that new thing should make my life better. But hang on, who said the new thing needed to be new?
In my case then, upgrading meant moving from my Apple Watch SE, to a watch that I had owned for about ten years, a Casio G-Shock AW-something-or-other.
Is it better?
My upgrade means that I am now rocking a device that has approximately 99.4% less features than my Apple Watch had.
My new, old watch has a stopwatch, alarm, and world time settings, I think. I don’t use any of them. I can’t actually see any of them, at least not without my glasses, the digits are tiny.
What I can see unaided are the hands on the watch face and that’s fine. In this respect, even my new watch has more features than I need.
Despite the paired down feature set, two months in and I’m convinced that this was one of my best tech moves. Yes, it’s better.
What makes it better?
There are many reasons why I’m happy with the switch. My new watch cost me about a third as much as my Apple Watch SE….and that was ten years ago. Imagine keeping an Apple Watch that long (not happening) — or (far more likely) paying to ‘upgrade’ to a new one every few years.
It never needs charging. It’s had the same battery for the whole ten years. It charges itself from the sun and lasts about a month without any light at all.
It adjusts itself every night using radio waves from Germany. This means that I know the time is always accurate. Ok, I guess the Apple Watch keeps accurate time too, but still, this is cool, no? Radio waves people!
It’s virtually indestructible too. I kid you not, this watch has endured serious, serious abuse. I don’t even think about its wellbeing at all. It never comes off my wrist, other than for the occasional clean.
It doesn’t make any noises or nag, sorry ‘notify’ me about things I don’t need to know about.
If I want to know the time, I either move my wrist in a gentle twisting motion towards my head, or I move my head towards my wrist, again twisting my wrist gently. Those are the only gestures I’m using these days.
The main thing though is this. My Casio performs in an absolutely identical way to how it did when I took it out of the box a decade ago. I mean, just think about that for a second. Is it just me, or does that seem remarkable these days?
Are there any features I miss on the Apple Watch?
Hmm. Apple Pay was handy on the watch, no doubt about that — but then I always have my phone with me, so I just use that instead.
Come one, there must be something?!
There is one thing. One. It’s the feature that stopped me from ditching the watch a couple of years earlier. The ability to set a ‘silent alarm’.
This is an undeniably cool feature. I can wake up without waking up my wife when I’m using the Apple Watch, most of the time anyway. As long as I didn’t forget to charge before bedtime, of course.
Oh, and occasionally, my watch would move on my wrist in the night to such an extent that it would need the PIN entering again. Which resulted in the alarm not working. That was annoying.
When it works though, it’s a great feature and I haven’t been able to find another way of silently waking up since.
Why did I switch?
Specific reasons? — charging the damned thing was annoying. If I didn’t charge at the right time, I wouldn’t be able to use the watch when I needed it.
Any time I wasn’t in my usual routine — like being away from home, was a pain. Another charger to remember, more thinking about when would be the best time to charge.
In more general terms though, I just gradually got to feeling that it was unnecessary. Yes, I tracked all my activity and my workouts but why? I never once looked the data.
…and the notifications. Jeez. The stuff that thing thought I needed a tap on the wrist for. Adjusting the notification settings felt like swatting flies.
Yes, I know there is a ‘Do Not Disturb’ mode and other ways to manage that kind of thing but then you’re just wearing an ugly watch that needs charging every day, right?
What have I learned and what next?
I’ve learned that I can be too connected. I love tech — but I now know that I can have too much and that’s a good thing to learn.
I admit being a little embarrassed at how liberated I feel having got rid of this one device. Maybe my shame is more about the fact that Apple convinced me I needed a mini computer on my wrist in the first place.
I now think of upgrades in a different way and I’ve expanded my personal definition to include decisions that remove complications from my life, as well as save, rather than cost me money. I now think about whether I am upgrading my experience in some way, and if not then why am I even considering making a change?
This episode has helped me figure out what I need from a watch, so I’m now considering another upgrade in the future. Probably to another Casio G-Shock, but this time with a better backlight (this watch is hopeless at night) and digits I can see without having to reach for my glasses. It’d be nice to be able to see the date without reaching for my phone.
Having said that, I’m curious to see whether I’ll get another decade out of this watch, so I may end up living with the current issues for the time being. It’s just a watch after all. It tells the time.
