Exactly 8 years ago I started wearing an Apple Watch, the original series. At that time, Apple was offering an aluminium sports watch, the “regular” watch made from stainless steel, and an outrageously expensive gold watch. Apple did not yet know what to do with the watch and they eventually pivoted to health and fitness, which happened to be exactly my use case from day one.
I wanted to close my rings every single day of the week, and I have now been doing this for 8 years. As you can see, I completed 2900 days with reaching my move goal, out of 2920 days. My longest move streak has been more than a thousand days until I missed one day by a few calories.
A few years ago, Apple Watch alerted me of a health condition that turned out to be a severe sepsis, a potentially life-threatening situation. Three doctors made the right decisions within just two hours. I had surgery the next day and I walked out of the hospital three days later.
In the years since Apple Watch has received an ECG monitor, fall detection, crash detection, irregular heart rhythm detection. The display has gotten a lot better, it has been always on for more than three years, its battery life has gotten much better, and it charges faster, so that you can wear it 23.5 hours a day and track your sleep. The long-term health data makes it so valuable for me. When my resting heart rate goes up, I know something is wrong.
With Apple Pay I can pay for almost everything just by holding it to a payment terminal, I can take a call without even carrying my iPhone and can dispatch iMessages just by talking to it. When I leave the house, I continue to listen to a podcast through my AirPods, and all this tight integration makes the watch indispensable to me.
That’s all nice and good. But what makes me wear this thing every single day is that it watches over me.
I may not even be here without it.
On to the next 100 days to complete the 3000 days of closing my rings. #dontbreakthechain