I’ve stayed away from smartwatches for years, but a month with the Galaxy Watch Ultra changed my mind

When it comes to wearable technology, I often find myself peering enviously from behind a locked fence. The problem is, this is a fence I made myself.

With Samsung’s summer releases Galaxy Watch 7 And Watch UltraFollowed closely by Google Pixel Watch 3 and recently new Apple Watch Series 10I decided to fix this.

My goal was to consciously wear one of these. best smart watch Modeling for a month and deciding if this is something I can make a part of my life. Within this, a few sub-goals for myself were to reduce my daily phone use. I don’t even wear a “dumb” watch regularly, so I find myself pulling out my phone to check the time, which often turns into checking a notification and getting distracted from there. I would like to make unnecessary and better choices.

The other sub-goal was to monitor my fitness levels and encourage myself to get back on track health-wise. All of this can be done with a smartwatch.

So how did it go?

I wore the Galaxy Watch Ultra for a month: Getting Started

Galaxy Watch Ultra Review | BUY OR JUMP?! -YouTube

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Initially, I wanted to try the new basic Samsung Galaxy Watch 7. Somehow I was sent the high-end Galaxy Watch Ultra, which retails for $649. This was a surprising package to open.

I must admit that the watch looks quite stylish. Personally, I would have preferred Samsung to keep the shape of the case round rather than a circular face crammed into a square body. It’s also a fairly large watch at 47mm compared to the Watch 7’s 40 and 44mm dimensions. When it comes to watches, smart or not, I’m not a fan of big gadgets and prefer a more elegant fashion.

Additionally, the Galaxy Watch 7 comes with almost the same features as the Ultra at almost half the price. Here’s a closer look Comparison of Galaxy Watch 7 and Galaxy Watch Ultra.

Galaxy Watch Ultra is made of aerospace-grade titanium and is expected to withstand harsh conditions. The worst thing I did with it was rub my car screen while moving the tent. Luckily it is extremely scratch resistant and I didn’t notice any marks on it from that little accident.

For someone joining the smartwatch game for the first time, this felt like a lot of monitoring at first.

Installation was pretty easy. I’m already using Samsung Galaxy S23 Ultra As my daily driver, matching was very easy. My understanding is that some features will not or will not work well with other devices, and this is not the case at all for those using any device. iPhone.

I tried the Galaxy Watch Ultra for a month: I don’t sleep (and do other tracking)

(Image credit: Future)

During my time trying the Galaxy Watch Ultra, I had a love/hate relationship with all of the watch’s tracking features.

In short, I really enjoyed the fitness tracking and getting into the details of the different sports you can access. I mostly followed through walking, hiking, and running, as my sport of choice was mostly walking and disc golf with some shooting thrown in. Still, it was nice to be able to tell these three apart. You can create a tag for a new exercise, I could have done this for disc golf as well, but it made sense for me to choose something that already existed.

I’m trying to exercise more and have found the tracking information the watch offers very useful, especially when I’m trying to hit more specific goals like active time and heart rate.

Unfortunately, these were the only tracking metrics I found truly useful.

I have a five-month-old baby and he is at war with the concept of sleep. So I don’t need to know that I’m not sleeping. Here

Starting with the biggest takeaway, I don’t have a personal need for sleep tracking right now. There are two reasons for this.

First of all, I have a five-month-old baby who is at war with the concept of sleep. So I don’t need to know that I’m not sleeping. My partner is a Apple Watch Series 9 and is fully aware of how deeply he cannot sleep. If I were napping more regularly, perhaps I would find this information more interesting and useful rather than adding to my frustration.

Secondly, I don’t like the feeling of wearing accessories while sleeping. This includes things like necklaces, my wedding ring, and now a watch. I tried this during the last week of the experiment, but I was so consistently aware of the time that it prevented me from sleeping.

This means I can’t access Samsung’s new Energy score because it needs sleep tracking data as part of the calculation. So I have no idea if this is a useful feature or not.

(Image credit: Future)

The biggest new tracking feature of the latest Galaxy Watch is the sleep apnea detector and improved ECG tracking; the latter has been in the Galaxy Watch lineup for a while now. I tested the EKG tracker, it’s interesting but nothing I feel I need.

The ECG tracks your heart’s electrical activity and rhythm, but it doesn’t track heart attacks, as the app keeps reminding me. However, it can theoretically detect early warning signs. Clearly, sleep apnea detection was not used.

Annoyingly, the feature I was most excited to try was stress tracking. But the watch seems to think that I’m constantly pushing the stress to the red line, which ironically probably stresses me out even more. Maybe it’s because I’m not sleeping well, but even when I take the time to try destructive breathing exercises on the clock, it still reads as red-level stress. I’ve seen speculation that this might be related to heart rate. Thanks to the watch, I found that my constant was in the 75 to 80 range, which is higher than I would like, but it’s unclear if that’s the reason my stress levels are apparently so high.

I tried the Galaxy Watch Ultra for a month: Is there anything I like?

I found the media control to be a nice touch when walking my dog regularly with podcasts or music playing. Having the ability to pause, skip, or play without taking out my phone or holding it in my hand was welcomed.

Tracking rounds via the UDisc app for disc golf proved a bit wonky on the watch, but again, the goal here was to not use my phone. It actually helped me feel more connected to what I was doing and not worry about the rectangle in my pocket or purse.

Ability to use the watch for payments while out and about Google Wallet (or Samsung Wallet) was a nice touch, especially when I accidentally left my wallet at home when picking up my son from school. I’ve noticed that not every store or system accepts them yet, but for the most part, I’ve had no problems shopping with my watch when I really need it.

Outlook: Do I need to continue wearing this?

(Image credit: Tom’s Guide)

I entered this month of experimental smartwatches with as open a mind as I could muster. From where I sit right now, I honestly can’t decide whether or not I’ll continue wearing the Galaxy Watch Ultra.

Using it as a smartphone extension was a nice way to keep my phone in my pocket, which was a big goal, and interacting with the smartwatch is a lot less distracting. I also loved having the weather, messaging, and some apps like UDisc on hand.

But most of the tracking features are a waste for my current life situation. Sleep tracking is completely lost on me. At least the fitness tracking features were useful when trying to get my training back on track, but I’m not sure anyone beyond a professional athlete needs everything on offer here.

If I stopped wearing the watch tomorrow, I don’t know if I would miss it since the information I need is available on my smartphone. Still, with its fitness tracker, Google Wallet access, and distraction-free lifestyle, it makes an argument for sticking around.

I wouldn’t call myself a smartwatch evangelist, but maybe I’d like to try again with a smartwatch that isn’t as expensive or thick as the Galaxy Watch Ultra and maybe a little less feature-packed, though I might have missed the boat. This.