I was gifted with a new gadget during this past holiday season.
Still trying to get used to it and I am not sure if everything is set up right, but we’ll just say it’s a work in progress.
Friend and co-worker Teresa Hammond texted me and said her daughter had a gently used and loved Apple Watch that they were trying to find a new home for and they thought of me. As luck would have it, my old Fitbit had gotten to the point a couple of months back where it would no longer accept a charge. Consequently, I spent the last several weeks of 2023 not being accountable to that device on my wrist for how many steps I was taking each day and if I was getting in the required 250 steps each hour of all my waking hours. I had gotten used to making sure I hit that 10,000-step plateau and most days – especially on football Fridays roving up and down the sideline for four quarters – I surpassed it.
So I did miss that, not knowing how many steps I had, how that translated into the miles per day I covered, what my heart rate was, what my sleep score was, etc.
Enter the Apple Watch.
Which, honestly, I was afraid of at first. Not much on change and the old Fitbit had been a constant, familiar companion for a few years.
I admired the watch and the charger for a couple of days over the New Year’s long weekend … and then took the plunge to try it out. Of course, it took someone more tech savvy than myself to help set it up but now the watch and I are getting used to each other.
There are, however, some lingering concerns that still need to be addressed. First, I can’t find where it counts my steps so I don’t know how many I am getting. It also has this activity tracker that literally makes me seem as if I am a slug. Case in point, the other day, after enjoying a brisk decent length morning walk with the dog and then doing some vacuuming, the tracker gave me three minutes of activity time. Three. Another day, it was 17 minutes of activity for the entire day. Guess I need to see what constitutes ‘activity’ but I can tell you that running around like mad to keep up with my 2-year-old granddaughter should constitute some type of activity/movement/calorie burning and account for more than a handful of minutes.
About the only ‘level’ of success I have achieved, according to my new wrist reminder, is getting the ‘movement’ award since I at least stand up and move around once every hour for 12 hours a day. Most days I do zoom past that to achieve a 17- or 18-hour streak of ‘stand up’ time.
Sure, it is kind of nice to have the latest weather forecast on my wrist, but it took me completely by surprise one day and honestly scared me when my wrist started ringing. Someone was calling on my cell phone but apparently the watch serves in that regard as well. I have now gotten texts and been alerted to phone calls and once I even went so far as to respond to a text on the watch.
Felt very Dick Tracy-ish to me. For those unaware, Dick Tracy was a comic book crime fighter who had this fancy device on his wrist that served as a two-way radio to his police headquarters. Way fancier than Maxwell Smart (another long ago crime fighter) and his phone in a shoe.
Regardless, I just need to take a little more time and delve in to all the things this new watch can do. And I’m going to find a way to meet that 45-minute minimum ‘active’ time each day, even if I have to walk three hours uphill while carrying a 50-pound weight in each hand to do it.
Wait … my wrist just buzzed at me. Time to stand up and move. Gotta go.
Marg Jackson is editor of The Oakdale Leader, The Escalon Times and The Riverbank News. She may be reached at mjackson@oakdaleleader.com or by calling 209-847-3021.
