My Apple Watch Series 4 Review

First of all I am not an expert techie, I will not be paid for this review nor will I have any other affiliate links built into the photos or this post. This review is from a normal (??) everyday user that decided to take the leap and buy the new Apple Watch Series 4 almost two months ago on January 4th. I still claim, it's been the best electronic device (toy?) in the last 24 years that I have ever bought.

That includes PCs, DSLRs, every Apple product and my Sony PlayStations.

I watched from a distance after Apple released their first series a few years ago. I knew there would be bugs to be worked out and there would be more improvements with each new release. So I was willing to wait until they had the features I wanted and in some way ... needed.

It was the Fall Detection and EKG Reading features that I had been waiting for. Since I am a borderline hermit that lives alone and never has visitors, I needed some way to let friends know or contact medical services, that I either needed help or had dropped dead. Only one of those friends lives in the same state but not locally. The others live out of state, scattered from Georgia to California and parts in between.

It wasn't so much they needed to know or I needed medical service .... my #1 priority is my hounds. If something were to happen to me, unexpectedly, they need to be rescued and taken care of. Honestly they were the main reason I decided to spend the money on the Apple Watch Series 4. (Just in case something happened to me)


I will most likely outlive my basset hound and bloodhound but in March 2010 I found out in a split second of time ... you never know. I had been sitting at a 3-way stop on a highway waiting for my turn, to make a left hand turn when I was rear-ended by an old modified Ram 3500 truck pulling a horse trailer. It had a huge homemade steel front bumper. Police reports showed he was going 65-70mph when he hit me. There were no signs he applied any brakes.

I'll not go into detail about the wreck but I was not the only car he totaled. That showed me just how fast your life can change unexpectedly. It happened so fast, within seconds.

So if I were to fall, pass out from a medical issue or accident, the chances are good based on studies, that the Apple Watch Series 4 will contact medical services automatically and the friends I have listed in the Apple Health SOS. At least my hounds would not have to wait too long to be rescued and kept from becoming shelter animals.

It was hard to picture having something 44mm on my wrist. I had not worn a watch since the day I bought my new Apple iPhone 3s many years ago. Between the phone and the computers at home or work, I always could tell what time it was. So that was a question in my decision process. Would I want to wear a watch again?

In May 2017 I bought a Garmin VivoSmart3 to wear all the time so I could monitor my pulse rate. I also would use their activity monitor for my the daily hound walks and the Garmin Connect app tracked my sleep. That was some good information I had not counted on ... but it showed me just how much information I had access to concerning my health.

It also had me getting use to wearing something on my wrist again.

So I came home on the 4th of January with the new Apple Watch Series 4. I had it up and operational within 15 minutes. I scanned the Apple Store for a free sleep app and it synchronized with the Apple Health app that was preloaded on my iPhone. I had no issues setting up everything and within minutes it was already showing me the basic information I was wanting:

My pulse rate

Temperature and weather outside

Time

Recording the daily walks

One of the blog readers whom I've kept in contact with over the years by email, discussing Apple products, updates, etc ... had bought her watch a few years before so she was a great source for suggestions, how it worked, and the pros and cons of the watch. She has had to remind me at various times when I have thought about ditching my iPhone and use the Watch as my full-time computer when away from the house .....

You have to have the iPhone to transfer all the iOS updates to the phone. Everything is programmed on the iPhone for the watch. That includes choosing which watch faces you want to use. I rotate between two really. The one face you see above and this one.

It did come with this screen as the default and would have been very handy during the years I was working and not retired. I could have loaded my calendar, notes, etc.

I scrolled through all the settings and watch faces on my iPhone, and the changes or additions were immediately transferred to the watch. I never had any kind of synchronization issues between the watch, the phone, Apple Health App and my free app SleepWatch. Here is the iPhone screen where I could decide which feature was arranged on my watch face. A very simple process.

With my Garmin, synchronization was a problem because it would lose connection frequently. After almost two months of use, I have not had any issues with connectivity between my Apple Watch and iPhone.

I have my Apple Health app on my iPhone connected to the food tracking app I use, Cronometer. It lists the amounts of food in ounces, grams or milligrams for every vitamin, mineral or micro-nutrient. It's amazing everything that it tracks and is easy to see on the iPhone.

Since I am basically a cheapskate most of the time, I never pay for apps even if they are only a $1. If I can find a free app that gives me the information I am wanting, then free it is. I have found the SleepWatch app to be very good and accurate. I can tell by looking at the times during the night I may or may not get up and it's right on the money for accuracy. It will also record sleep data when I take an occasional siesta.

It gives me a 3-day target for sleeping and what percentage of time I have come close to that target. It already tells me what I already know ... I don't sleep a lot. I also don't get a lot of deep restful sleep. One neat thing it does track is the Sleeping Heart Rate Dip. Something I was not aware of. It will tell me if I am average, below average or above average for people my age.

The app also measures Average Sleeping Heart Rate and it measures Sleep Rhythm.

The real test will be this spring and summer as I wear the watch when I am outside doing regular yard work. I'll be sweating, possibly around dirt or gravel and the watch could possibly get banged around.

One thing that has happened that you have to be aware of .... the Fall Detection ... almost works too good!!! I have had it activate while hammering a nail in the wall. I have had the detector activated slapping a soft sided can of biscuits against the edge of my kitchen counter to open the can. I also can swing my left wrist down hard not hitting anything and see the fall detection activate.

The first screen will give you a choice "I'm okay" and the second screen will give you a choice "I did not fall" ... both important to click shortly after you feel the watch vibrate on your wrist and hear a loud buzzing sound. Otherwise emergency services will be called.

Speaking of calling ... using the Apple Watch as a phone, the sound is crystal clear. The few people I keep in contact with over the phone tell me it sounds better to them than when I use my iPhone. All of those calls are long distance and at times the person I have called is driving their car.

The watch has so many notifications loaded as the default setting, that I had to go into settings on my iPhone for the Apple Watch and turn them off. I know I am not using the Apple Watch to its full potential but have the features set up for the information I want.

EVERYTHING is very accurate, from walking time and distance, the GPS map of your walk or run. When I bought the watch, I checked my heart rate manually for 60 seconds to compare it with the watch and the pulse rate was very accurate. The EKG feature works fantastic. It would tell me if I had A-fib when I ran the EKG feature. After the test it told me my heart was above average for someone my age.

All the apps you have on your iPhone are carried over to your Watch. The watch monitor is easy to read, even the texts you receive. I do not use any kind of watch monitor protector and have seen no damage to the screen after wearing the watch 24/7.

WARNING --

The friend I mentioned that has had her watch for a couple of years does have A-fib and she knew that before she bought the watch. Over the past couple of years she has fallen due to that condition. She recently had an episode and told me that the Series 4 watch did NOT warn her in time that her A-fib was taking place. Also when she fell, the fall detection did not work !!! Luckily her husband was in the area to get her the help she needed.

Note: my friend sent me some added information that might change your thoughts or curiosity if the fall detection really works well. She was wearing her older  watch at the time she passed out. That watch was "bricked" when she did the update to the operating system and had to be sent in to Apple to be fixed. You might remember reading about that issue that Apple acknowledged at the time of the update. She things the watch I am wearing and what I am reviewing WOULD HAVE WORKED if she had worn her newer watch.

That sounds so strange since the few times I have had that fall detection activate with a simple slap of my hand, or my wrist in motion with a hammer or even slapping down on the kitchen counter as a test.

I am sure that after I post this review I will remember something that I have left out. If so, I will come back to add what I remember and color the additional thoughts in my crimson color I use here on the blog.

Did the watch cost more than I wanted ... yes. Here is a story about my past Garmin VivoSport and VivoSmart activity monitors (watch) before buying the Apple Watch. I bought my first Garmin VivoSmart for $110. After 17 months the band tore in two, a common problem that I did not find out until it happened. Garmin sent me a free replacement, the VivoSport. That was a model above what I had and it retailed for ~$162. How long would the band lasted on that watch?

So cost wise I was already at ~$273 in less than two years for the Garmin. I bought the Apple Watch Series 4 for around $425.

Conclusion --

If you are in the market for buying a 'smart watch' I feel the Apple Watch Series 4 is the best way to go. Expert reviews agree with me. After two months I still say it's the best electronic device I have ever bought and I have everything from computers, laptops, tablets and iPhones. The watch IS worth the cost and the amount of information that is provide is just like a desktop computer ... amazing amount of information right there on your wrist.

Even if you are in good health but are 60 years old or older, the Series 4 is a great health feature for not only as a warning system if something unexpected goes wrong but also as a health monitor AND as a tool that will get you off the couch doing some sort of healthy activity.

Definitely a good purchase.

A Day Of Changes ???

As you can see I had a hard time coming up with a title for this post. It might even change before I publish it, who knows. It's one of those days. I mentioned yesterday I might change the look of the blog. Nothing happened until last night around 10:30pm. I turned off the movie Woodstock and sat back down in front of my computer. I looked at only a few themes, tried one, the same one I changed too for an hour a few weeks ago. I was basically too tired to make any kind of decision nor did I feel like putting in the time to make the small adjustments after I would activate the theme. So, I ended the night and started today with the same theme as always. Why do I need to change it all the time?

Winter will not hit us until Friday.  A long time blog reader out in the Kansas City area always likes to test the weather we get here in 'the tropics' before it arrives. So sometimes, not all the time, I will get a warning a few days in advance of what to expect. She is more accurate than any weather online radar or local tv weatherman. I don't think she told me about this though ... the fog. She did tell me that temps were half of that 64° I mentioned and that was true this morning. I put my wool socks back on, the sock hat, my gloves, but stuck with the light four seasons jacket as a test. After the first photo from my doorstep, the low battery light started flashing. Could we finish the walk with enough photos?

I decided the best thing to do was to turn the camera off after every photo I took. Some might say that would wear the battery down faster but I remembered from last time just how little time I had left after that blinking battery icon a few weeks ago. I didn't have more than two to three photos left after that. So I had nothing to lose and everything to gain. Off, on, off, on, off, on for over 25 times. I liked the fog this morning. It gave the walk a little feeling of mystery as Stella and I walked across a field fully saturated. There is more rain on the way this afternoon and tomorrow. It could be perfect weather for making blog changes.  :)

I also went to bed last night with my Apple Watch battery showing only 13% left. Would that get me through the night? I decided to test it and knowing I would be awake and up within the next six to seven hours, I thought the 13% of battery life would be plenty. I found out this morning, a night of poor sleep took a little over 1% per hour. I had 3% left as I let the hounds outside for the first time today. So ... two batteries needed to be recharged as soon as possible this morning if I was going to be able to operate like I normally do. Sad isn't it ... an electronic life. But ... a good life it is. I love electronic equipment.

Another change took place very early this morning. It's the first time in maybe two years that I am feeding the hounds lamb and rice instead of chicken and rice. I made the change with hopes that Stella will itch less, since I cannot find any fleas on her and there are no signs of raw skin or hot spots from any kind of allergy. Who knows, maybe she is allergic to deer scat? That's a joke ... at least I think it is. I did ask myself, what happens if Heidi's skin allergies flare up with the change in protein? Well if that happens I'll immediately go out and buy the bag of chicken and rice for her and let Stella finish the bag of lamb and rice. Remember, the vet told me two years ago that in his study on dog allergies, dog food was the cause only 3% of the time. Maybe Stella's scratching is a habit since it seems to take place in the same areas inside and outside. Strange.

Another change this morning, I went back to my old blog on Blogger, Bhounds And Other Stuff, and took off the private setting then checked all of the settings in the dashboard. Google always does this, someway settings that I set a long time ago were changed. For some reason the ticks had changed to where search engines were not allowed to index the site. The comments setting was changed. The number of posts on a page had changed. I thought at first all of those happened automatically when I changed the settings to 'private' the other day, but after checking my other two old private blogs, that was not the case. You can go there to see the blog list that updates each time a blogger posts something new. On WordPress I can list those same blogs but they do not update each time a post is published. WordPress keeps the list of blogs or websites in alphabetical order. It's that list of blogs that keep telling me I need a blog template that has the side bar on the home page or at least on the page that has the post.

Not quite halfway through the morning walk and I still am able to take pictures of Stella and the fog. The technique of turning the camera off an on is working so far. Later I'll look at my screen on the Canon camera to see if I can tell how much battery life I have before I get the warning so I am not in this same situation again. While walking I am still thinking about blog changes, or taking photos around my local small town that has some pretty sad buildings empty for the past few years. They all tell an interesting story and one that makes you wonder if the economy is really as good as the experts tell us it is. Or are they possibly proving just how hard it is keeping a brick 'n mortar store profitable year after year in the world of e-commerce? In a few cases the old businesses have gone out of business because of the owner's death but a couple more told me they could not stay competitive with online e-commerce. Other's just retired and could not sell what they had.

I could have gone lighter on this photo but I wanted to keep the overcast sky with fog as the main attraction. The tall grass really is that color next to Stella and there is something about that tall power line tower that keeps me taking photos of it. Over the years I will see an occasional state helicopter flying above the lines, going southwest, checking the lines but in the 21 years I have lived here, I've never seen anyone doing any kind of maintenance or repair.

As I walk this field I feel many mole tracks scattered within the half mile walk. That told me years ago, no matter what I put on my yard to control yard moles, they will always be a problem to my landscaping ideas. I saw one surface on top of the snow one year but other that than I've never seen them. I've tried everything on the market to prevent them from destroying my backyard. I rarely see them in the front yard. I remember in 2014 I dug 6" deep in the flowerbeds, then laid out the black plastic or net to prevent weeds from growing. I covered it up with 6" of river rock in back, mulch in front ... only to see dirt pushed up through the mulch or rocks, above ground level from mole traffic. I hate those little bastards.

No AT&T tower to see today ... the PNW has arrived in 'the tropics'.

Stella did not run again this morning but she did to a little short trot to catch up and pass by me. I keep forgetting that she will be 10 years old this summer.

Just as I snapped this photo, the screen on back of the camera went black and the lens automatically retracted. I had made it on a low battery for over 25 photos and 17 minutes of walking. So besides charging my watch, the Canon battery and finishing my second cup of coffee ... I had two decisions to make. (1) publish this now or wait until later today. (2) spend a lot of time and a lot of data, looking for that one blog theme that I wanted to change to.

The only search words I will use to choose from those 308 WordPress themes are "page wide photos", so the photos will remain as large as they are now with a different design. Besides the large photos on the post page I am looking for a sidebar either on the home page and/or the post page, where I can list those blogs of friends that I follow out in the open, plus other information. This theme puts them at the very bottom of both the home page and post page. I'm not a fan of that placement. Traffic reports show that for some reason there are not a lot of clicks on the past posts on the home page where all the photos/posts are listed, compared to my older Blogger blog. Some of that is by the way the blog is designed for phones and tablets. With those you have to scroll to the bottom to see the other posts. I tried it the other day and told myself "I'm not doing that" and stopped.

So we will see what happens to the blog design today. Maybe nothing.

I still have books to read. I will NOT be watching the State of the Union address tonight nor will I watch all the expert opinions afterwards. That reminds me, the other reason I want a sidebar ... I have four new websites I want to have on the side of the blog. Two of them were mentioned just the other day and two others were sent to me by a friend a few months ago. I read those two very informative blog in my Feedly account. So it looks like I have something to do this morning ... blog design. That also answers option number one above ... post this now.

See how easy life in retirement is. No approvals needed. No meetings to discuss those options. No outsourced input. I'm in charge and that's a good thing here in 'the tropics'. No .... I am NOT putting that period inside that quotation mark !!! :) Besides I am not really in charge here in 'the tropics' ... the hounds are the ones in charge.

I read somewhere yesterday, ah yes, in Team of Vipers. It's very well written and the author is very conscientious about what he is reveling about his time working in the White House. All the reports, the news, the chaos that goes on under the Trump administration does not bother me and does not surprise me in the least. Like I said a month or so ago, I use to work for a family owned business and one of the owners of the company was a twin of Trump ... he acted identical to him. He made decisions the same way, some good some bad. I found it to be typical business. People forget or don't want to remember, a businessman was elected not a politician. So why should his administration be something people and news stations are familiar with or like all the past presidents? It's not complicated for me to see and I'm not the smartest person around.

Well Heidi has moved her sleeping operation from the bedroom into the living room. Stella has joined her with a few hours to go before their lunch. That will give my Canon battery plenty of time to charge. Like I said yesterday or in the past ... I really like that smaller Canon G9 X with the Nikon D3200 as a backup or for those days I need a change. :)

It's foggy but still nice this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.