New Apple Watch 6 – Geek For Hire’s Review

I traded in my old Apple Watch for the new Apple Watch 6 a few weeks ago. I got the one with GPS and cellular. Now that I’ve gotten used to it and its functions, I think it’s time for a review. (As an Amazon Associate, and we earn from qualifying purchases.)

What I Like About My New Apple Watch 6:

Blood Oxygen:

The Apple Watch 6 measures your blood oxygen percentage. I never realized how important this measurement was until Chris’ mom moved in with us. Moving from Long Island, NY, at sea level to 8500’ was hard for her. She began having issues with breathing and low-energy in general. Then her new doctor recommended that we get a pulse oximeter. This would help us measure her O2 regularly and know if she was in trouble. Twenty years later, I sometimes have issues with my O2 levels as well. My new watch helps me keep on top of the measurement. I also like that it tells me that it measures in a “high elevation environment.” It also measures my O2 sat when I’m asleep, as long as I’m not moving around while I am dreaming!

Watch Faces:

The new iWatch gives me the option to have different watch faces. There are probably 50 items you can track on the Apple Watch, but not all of them will fit on the watch face at one time. I have one watch face that tells me the time and date, of course, but it also tells me the local temperature, the Air Quality Index, wind speed, elevation, my next calendar item, and the current time in Rochester, NY, where much of my family lives. Another watch face only tells the time and rotates through about 20 favorite photos and videos. Another one tells me what time the sun and moon will rise and/or set.

Exercise:

 

I really like the way the Apple Watch tracks exercise. It gets me motivated each day to “close my rings.” There are three rings: One for active movement, one for exercise minutes, and one for standing each hour. I’m able to change the goals for each one to keep the pressure on. Apple has also added challenges each month. They’re always stretch goals, but not undoable. I’m looking forward to earning the October challenge by exercising a certain number of minutes this month.

Heart Rate:

The watch still measures my heart rate almost continuously. It tells me my high and low heart rate for the day, it tells me my average resting heart rate, and it tells me my heart rate recovery time after exercising. This is another way I can keep track of my overall health.

Hand Washing:

I get a “thumbs up when I’ve washed my hands long enough!

Sleep:

The new Apple Watch 6 still links with the Pillow app so I can check my sleep quality at a glance. I think the Pillow app is more robust than the sleep information provided by the Fitbit.

Colors:

Red is my color, and I love having a red watch. My second favorite is the blue one shown above. (But Chris said I could only get one!) Other colors include gold, graphite, silver, and space grey.

Charging:

The Apple Watch 6 charges WAAAAAY faster than my previous Apple Watch! I got this cute silicone charging stand to hold my Watch on my nightstand.

Watchbands:

The watchbands are interchangeable with my old watch. That’s a good thing. I really didn’t like the red shade the new Apple Watch came with. I was easily able to swap the weird red bands for basic black. And, it’s easy to order replacement watch bands to dress it up or make it sportier.

What I Don’t Like the new Apple Watch 6:

1. With my old Apple Watch, I was just able to take screenshots. With the new Apple Watch 6, I needed to enable screenshots before that function would work.
2. Siri is pretty intrusive and is constantly asking me what I need help with now.
3. Sometimes when I’m really active, the watch asks me if I’ve taken a hard fall. Now, in general, I like this feature, and I’ve heard some great stories of people in the backcountry that have been rescued, but it seems a little too sensitive for me.
4. Blood Oxygen measurement is not always accurate. Sometimes I’ll compare the measurement from my watch to the measurement with the pulse ox. About 20% of the time, the measurements are substantially different. I’m hoping that the Apple engineers are working on this and will push out an update to make it more accurate over time.
5. I have to stay really, really still in order for the Watch to take an O2 measurement. I can’t take it when I’m exercising or in a moving car or when I’m moving around in any way at all.
6. There isn’t an option to make the text on the Watch Face larger. My older eyes sometimes have a problem reading the data, especially the elevation!

How-To Book:

There are so many features on this new Apple watch. I got confused and overwhelmed when I was setting it up. This book helped me a lot. It’s available in paperback and Kindle format. I downloaded it to my Kindle which was good, because I had access to the information right away. The downside is that there weren’t links to the different sections of the book, so there was a lot of scrolling involved.

Important!

If you need help setting up your new Apple Watch, let us know. Here are some important things to remember:

• If you’re trading in your old Apple Watch, remember to delete all of your personal data. (That’s what I did and the AT&T store gave me a great deal when buying it back.)
• Back up your iPhone before setting up the new Watch and make sure it has the latest iOS.
• Make sure you set up a passcode. The Apple Watch locks every time you take it off, which this security conscious gal says is a good thing!
• The Apple Watch interacts with three separate apps on your iPhone;

Watch Out For Phone, Text, Email, and Other Scams:

• Remember to stay well clear of shortened links unless you know without a doubt where that link will take you. That includes most bit.ly and owl.ly links. Here’s a recent article about short links.
• Right now, there are a lot of scams out there. Read our article about Covid19 scams.