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.

Saturday At 4:53am

I've done it again. Only this time it's not in the middle of the week but a Saturday???? It's never a good thing to wake and not able to get back to sleep when you didn't go to bed early to begin with. Evidently I had too much on my mind when I went to bed after a Friday filled with Stella's separation anxiety, a new watch, a new camera, rain, and the normal million thoughts being processed by my peabrain.

Before I go any further I just noticed on my Activity Monitor that tracks all hard drive activity, just like that almost 800Mb of data was used. I went into the Google Data Saver which will tell me in order what websites are using  up the data. For the second day in a row WORDPRESS .COM is the guilty party!!!!

What?????

It used over a Gb of data yesterday, which is abnormal. I can't afford to let it use that much data so off to the forums I will be this morning. As a test I closed Google Chrome just in case Chrome and Wordpress are not working well together. I opened Firefox, all the same websites I closed on Chrome. I added only TWO images to my Wordpress media library ... TWO PHOTOS ... then watching the data counter go to 119Mb !!!!

Luckily with the Wordpress Premium plan that I had to buy so I could use my own domain name, which blocked all of the automatic advertisements, has a pretty fast email response team on the weekends, so I'll get an answer to this problem pretty quickly.

It was a 'big' morning this morning. There were some "firsts" going to happen which would result in answering some questions I had lingering after the two purchases yesterday PLUS how Stella would be feeling today after all the fruit she ingested yesterday.

One of the differences was using the Apple Watch's activity feature on my walk. The Garmin Sport was easy but lately did not lock into the GPS so I had to use their alternative "indoor walk", which kept time acccurately but decided the walk distance was .22 of a mile. This morning it was a single tap to start the clock and a single tap to end the walk. Instantly I had more information in front of me than ever before. It was detailed to the point of telling me I had climbed 32' during the walk.

Not only using a smaller camera than the Nikon D3200 today, but how well would that work with me wearing these gloves in temperatures a little over 32°? I had tested these gloves on an old Nikon CoolPix 3100, which is smaller than the new Canon G9. The gloves worked okay when I tested them. I did that test before I made the Canon purchase online.

Since we were up to start the day at 4:53am, I knew that Stella would be pretty anxious to get outside and start the walk. She was but she was about two hours too early for that. It was also dark outside so she was going to have to wait until the normal time of 8am. We actually started five minutes early. As soon as the door was open she went running for the field. That fruit was about to clean out her digestive system.

I have just the basic settings in the camera tuned in. I wasn't sure how the photos would turn out, so you can see for yourself. A lot of the photos I did not have to edit at all, some others I added a little color but overall very little editing on any of these early morning photos. I have no doubt there are some settings I can change to fine tune the camera for our next walk, thus improving some things in the photos.

After I downloaded them into the computer, my first impression was "these photos looked real" ... I mean, the grass color, the trees, etc looked exactly as they are. Yes, they are drab but it's winter in the Midwest. I could tell a slight difference in these photos compared to the ones I'd take the same time of day with the Nikon D3200

A lot of early morning air traffic this morning. What is interesting they are coming from the south, so I am guessing the Louisville airport would be the starting point. I live half way between Louisville KY and Indianapolis IN, almost to the exact mile between them.

Stella seemed more interested in tracking scent this morning rather than eating deer scat. That is always a good thing and it means I can do less 'verbal herding.'

Evidently I wasn't walking fast enough for her.

As she trotted through the field and I walked through the field ... frozen grass and leaves would crunch loud enough for me to hear. Yet the path was very soft and in some spots muddy. In the one spot I fell in up to my ankles last week, there was standing water where my boot print was today

She stayed on the path for most of the way. Don't ask me why? I don't have any answers at all about how she operates. She is definitely in her own little world

This was a test to see how clear/sharp that AT&T tower would be from a distance. I thought I'd back off the zoom a little so I could catch that airliner in the picture. I found the much smaller camera very easy to operate.

She was on her own for most of the walk, after we made that first turn.

Heading southwest ... St. Louis? Kansas City? or further south?

No photos to prove it since I doubt you would be interested, but let's just say that Stella made a few more stops along the walk than she usually does, to get all of those apples and bananas out of her system.  :)

Can you tell which photos I edited?

From the way Stella ended her walk, it looks like the field cat paid us a visit last night while we slept.

I won't discuss too much about the Apple Watch because I want to share all the pros and cons I have found after I have used it for a while, probably a couple of weeks from now. So far after only a few hours of using it and getting it set up so I know where the information is and how it operates ... I'll say it's been a very good purchase.

There are many things I like about it. I did my first ECG or EKG yesterday. It let me know that my heartbeat was normal, nothing to be alarmed about. Since I did not buy the cellular model, all the setting up and adding apps when needed is done from the iPhone.

With a sunny day ahead, it will be a good day to try the Canon G9 on the walk in the afternoon so I can get a better comparison. Today is NFL Playoff Saturday plus college basketball so I am not sure how much I'll get outside, still Stella will get her afternoon walk, as she always gets during the ballgames.

I dreamed about deadbolt locks last night. It was the last thing I thought about right before turning off the lights for the night. They were suggested to me last month when I wrote about Stella's escape. I transferred those posts to this blog on December 9th.

As funny as it might seem, I am beginning to think her escape was caused by her desire for food. Normally she would have been fed between 11am-12noon ... I didn't walk in the door until 12:53pm??? That was a hour or two late. I saw no signs that she tried to open the locked kitchen door to get out of the house.

The ONLY thing I saw she got into was the fruit she ate, from two different bowls in two different locations. She did not even touch her favorite chew toy, the hard plastic clothes basket. I had put that in the bathroom so she wouldn't chew it up in the bedroom, while I was gone.

It's going to be a good day today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.