So I have been using an Apple Watch again for like the third time since the inception of the Apple Watch. Lets count it off:
- First time: “Hey its a Watch thats like my iPhone! I can get notifications on it! I can make calls on it! But I have my iPhone that does that…..ok……..return!”
- Second time: “Hey its an Anniversary gift from my wife! Its a new version! Its like my iPhone again! Notifications again!! Too many notifications!! Way too many notifications!!! Um, can I get rid of this thing?”
So I was given the Series 3 as a gift and had it within a return window when the Series 4 came out. So I thought Ok, I’ll exchange it for a Series 4 and pay the few extra bucks. I am more bullish on the watch this time because I have basically killed all the functionality off of it that made it a mini-iPhone. No notifications except for health/wellness related ones, no calls, no texts, none of it. I really only use it for the following:
- Tracking my health activity throughout the day
- Tracking my wellness activities like breathing, timers for cooking, etc
- Tracking my sleep at night with the Pillow app
- And a Watch 🙂
And its interesting how its essentially transformed itself in my mind from a nuisance that would just vibrate incessantly to a device that would actively drive my wellness vs inhibit it. When I had the Apple Watch for the second time I noticed that it was actively manifesting a compulsion in me whenever notifications would come in. I’m already pretty obsessive about those things (respond quickly, inbox zero, etc) so that little guy was really exacerbating it. It was getting really really bad. It felt great getting rid of it. But with the Apple Watch this time I was having a decent time of it but was starting to question of it was providing significant value to cost in this role. Then I got the following notification (disregard my hairy arm):
And I thought “Ok, what was I doing at this time that gave me an elevated heart beat” and I saw it was at a time where I was having a pretty contentious phone call. I can say I was holding in a lot of emotion and anger in those 15 minutes. A lot. I was sitting, angry, and my Apple Watch caught it. It was a very “What the hell” moment but definitely an eye opener for me. It will be interesting to see how these moments become enhanced with all of the elements of the Series 4 that focus on heart health.
I’m not entirely bullish on the idea of doing constant ECG because its not as advanced as medically trusted ECG devices out there BUT more what it means: a next level of algorithms around heart/pulse management and detection. With the investment they made in their hardware and algorithms its clear that this ECG is more an “MVP” (Minimum Viable Product) of an ECG vs an actual true ECG that a doctors office would use. But of course this is more me speaking as a technologist and not a medical professional.
No wearable manufacturer will make an equivalent ECG machine or Blood Glucose machine that does not involve blood. They are not in the medical device business, or even the medical business. They’re in the consumer business. By the restrictions of a meaningful and comfortable user experience and working within the constraints of a Watch with consumer battery life expectations producers like Apple will always come at the cusp of what the FDA will allow and what a user will accept. But thats fine. The cusp of body health detection will drive significant value when it comes to driving health focused activities and better wellness practices.
By not needing to provide a perfect reading for heart issues wearable manufacturers like Apple can use that data as a means of providing truly excellent wellness content based on extremely solid medical device like heart data. And that is what this is really all about: better health data driving better health outcomes.
person.earth 