My experience with smart watches began with arguably the very first smart watch, The Pebble, which I received as a Christmas present December of 2012, nearly 8 years ago.
I would consider myself an early adopter, getting it just after it’s successful Kickstarter campaign. The Pebble was a smart watch that would connect to your Android (for me a Nexus S Android phone at the time) or Apple iPhone. It could track your steps, tell you pace and distance on runs, display your notifications, read your text messages, play or pause music, let you know you had a call, tell you your phone battery level, show the weather forecast and even allowed developers to create their own apps. This is how it became even smarter.
Suddenly fitness trackers like Misfit had their own Pebble app so you didn’t need one of their little pedometers to use their phone app or be part of their community. Individuals created things like workout logging apps that you could do from your watch – display a workout plan, move from exercise to exercise logging how many reps and weight and even tracking your rest period and estimating calories burned. Better and more accurate run trackers came to Pebble.
The best features were the long battery life (lasting a genuine 5-7 days), the always on ePaper display visible in all lighting conditions and that it was water proof to 130 feet meaning I showered and used it in the pool/ocean. The only cons I experienced were very infrequent syncing issues which were understandable as the Pebble supported both iPhones and Android and required updates to keep up with hardware changes and operating system updates.
Next on January 19, 2012, launch day, I ordered the Nike Fuel Band in black with the volt interior. This was the first device that gamified fitness for me. Nike took your steps and estimated calories burned and formulated a “Nike Fuel” score. The band would illuminate on a gradient from red to green to indicated when you reached your fuel goal for the day and would display a fireworks type graphic. It had other achievements as well introducing the streak. I vividly recount doing jumping jacks and running in place at 11:50 pm many nights to make sure I hit my goal and kept my streak alive. The Nike Fuel Band also had a button and could display the time putting it in the fitness watch category unlike some pure trackers that you could clip anywhere and lacked a display requiring the user to check sync with their phone and use their phone to see all data or get notifications.
For a time I wore my Pebble watch on my left hand and Nike Fuel Band on my right. I loved that I could wear the Nike Fuel Band while playing sports like basketball. Something like a watch would never been seen on a basketball court differentiating this from the Pebble. Especially when you saw NBA stars like Kevin Durant and Lebron wearing a Nike Fuel Band during warmups or practice. However, it was not without problems. I exchanged my Fuel Band 5 times during the 2 years Nike supported the device. My problems ranged from a faulty clasp that wouldn’t stay closed to a device that suddenly would not sync or stopped charging.
The massive pro of the Fuel Band was their revolutionary point system utilizing streaks and encouraging you to beat your friends as you compared fuel points for the day, week or month. The other pros were similar to the Pebble: 1-4 day battery life, water resistant meaning it could be worn in the shower and rain (not the pool) and also the ability to tell the time in a period when watches were becoming less common since people could use their phone to check the time. The cons were hardware issues requiring device replacement and software or syncing issues causing users to lose their streaks or achievements. No matter the reason once a streak was broken so was the motivation to hit goals for most users.
My last and now current smart device is the Apple Watch, again purchased on launch day, April 10th, 2015. The original watch for me was worse than the Pebble in nearly every way. The haptic feedback was so weak I often missed text messages, unlike the Pebble which had a strong vibration always alerting me. Further you would receive notification on your watch or phone, not both if your watch was connected, again causing missed notifications. I understand the logic of saving battery life of the other device but in practice it was a problem many users complained about. The battery life last up to 18 hours which isn’t even a full day. The display only came on if you flicked your wrist, touched the screen or pressed the crown. It was not water proof meaning you couldn’t wear it in a pool. The biggest positive was the Dick Tracy like feature where you could physically answer a call from your watch and talk through it. Granted the volume was too low to hear the person in most situations, but if you couldn’t get to your phone in worked in a pinch. It also could connect on Wifi so there was an instance or two where my phone battery was dead or I didn’t take my phone to the condo gym and I was still able to receive text messages. Another positive was the heart rate monitor. Personally, knowing my heart rate was rarely utilized but it made it a more legitimate health device. Lastly because it was made by Apple there were less syncing issues. The color screen was a minor improvement but was overshadowed by the negatives of not always on and severely decreased battery life.
What the Apple Watch did correct was combine the notification receiving features of the Pebble with the gamification of the Nike Fuel Band. In fact, Apple teamed up with Nike as Nike dropped support for the fuel band and created an Apple Watch Nike edition combining the Nike Run app directly into the Apple Watch face. Apple created rings for 3 goals – Move (essentially steps), Exercise (utilizing the heart rate to gauge exercise minutes) and Stand (encouraging users to stand up at least part of every hour to combat sedentary health issues).
Ultimately, revisions to the Apple Watch have improved some qualities but it still lacks in others. While I normally upgrade quite frequently, I haven’t felt the need to upgrade my Apple Watch since I haven’t been wowed by any new improvements. Most are incremental, water resistant to water proof, battery life from up to 18 hours to a full 24 hour day. 3rd party app support has come and gone. For example the ability to control my Nest thermostat is gone, same with my smart light bulbs by GE on the Wink home automation system. Largely that use case in the home has been replaced by having an Amazon Echo device in every room so I can say “Hey Alexa, dim the lights, or set living room to 70 degrees.” Those examples are not fitness related, but some popular 3rd party fitness tracking apps have gained and some have lost Apple Watch support depending on the timing of when you read this article.
Now I see a challenger in the fitness wearable, but not watch, space with the Whoop. I never used any Garmin watches, or Fitbit devices but had friends and relatives that did so I have some first hand experience. Both have their places. Some avid runners and cyclists love their Garmin GPS enable devices and fitness minded people that aren’t necessarily athletes who are concerned with calories burned, weight loss and social aspects love Fitbit. One big area these devices have continued to dominate over the Apple Watch is in battery life. The Apple Watch tries to do everything and as such battery life suffers.
Whoop has really gained traction with sleep monitoring and their readiness score. Apple Watch can actually already do both with apps such as Sleep++ and Training Today but battery life in its current state makes sleep tracking not ideal for anyone used to charging nightly. Whoop utilizes a charging dongle that you attach while you are wearing the device to top up your battery so it truly can be an always on 24/7/365 monitoring device. Whoop is also trying to utilize research backed studies to promote its key health metric tracking and how it can be used to predict things like possible sickness which has never been more important than now during a pandemic.
Whoop’s positives are the long battery life, proprietary recovery and strain algorithms targeting actual and wannabe athletes and construction meaning you don’t have to worry about scratching or cracking a glass screen nor are you distracted by notification dings unrelated to your fitness activity. Another positive introduced is teams which brings the social aspects similar to Nike Fuel and Fitbit.
The construction of the Whoop can also been seen as a negative. The main con I see with Whoop is the lack of display meaning everything needs to be done on your Phone. For example you need your phone to check your sleep, your recovery and readiness scores. Additionally, activity/strain tracking requires the selecting and starting of an activity from your phone such as functional fitness, swimming, running, basketball, etc. The Apple Watch has made massive automation strides in now prompting users with messages such as “it looks like you’re taking a walk, would you like to record this activity?” which will actually track the walk going back to the approximate start. Additionally, through watch face complications, you can add things like activity rings to see how active you have been throughout the day, workout tracking so you can press the watch face once to start tracking a run or workout, 3rd party complications such as Training Today or Sleep++ to display your readiness score or quality of sleep and Siri integration so you can simply flip your wrist and say “Hey Siri, start an outdoor run.” I could see myself trying the Whoop in addition, not in place of, my Apple Watch.
One thing we haven’t discussed is cost. As of right now Whoop is subscription model pricing so unlike an Apple watch which might range from $199 for a new Series 3 to $399+ depending on size and options, the Whoop is $30 per month and requires a 6 month commitment so minimally $180 and then if you stop paying your Whoop band is useless without their subscription services. For comparison my original Apple watch (not on sale) was $399 and I used it for 41 months (under $10 per month) and I gifted the Apple Watch to a relative when I upgraded. My Apple Watch Series 4 was purchased on launch in September of 2018 for $429 (again not on sale) and I’ve used it to the present which at this time is 22 months (under $20 per month), but it also has a current resell value of on average $100 which drops the months cost to under $15. For anyone that’s price conscious Whoops subscription model is worrisome, but on the flip side the subscription model means Whoop has to keep adding features and proving usefulness to their users or people likely will cancel.
Overall, wearables, especially smart watches have brought attention to fitness data, the necessity to be active and gamification to health. I expect their user base to continue to grow until there is some major advances that integrates smart phone and fitness wearables into a single device.