Apple Watch 7 First Impressions
I recently got my Apple Watch 7. I had to double-check the box to make sure I really had ordered a series 7 rather than a Series 6. I had !
As you can guess. They are VERY similar. Even visually.
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Apple Watch 7 – A Quick Play
Apple Watch 7 – A Quick PlayUntil recently, I had both a Watch SE and Watch 6 in use, although my partner grabbed the latter for several months. Consequently, I’ve got used to the SE version being on my wrists for the last 6 months, prior to that I wore the Watch 6 for 6 months. The Watch 7 is definitely smoother and slightly quicker to use than the SE, even the screen’s surface feels physically smoother but that just might be because I haven’t scratched it yet or it’s clean! My partner also commented that scrolling seemed smoother and slightly more responsive.
In terms of the visuals, I have to say I’m finding it very hard to spot any difference. Sure I’ve written about the Watch 7 already quite a few times so I know what the differences are, I’m just saying the physical hardware looks very similar indeed.
I’m loving the always-on screen. Jeez the Watch SE was starting to bug me with that 0.1-second delay to fire up the visual goodness! I’m happy about the screen and knew I would be happy, having enjoyed it on the Series 6.
Apple Watch 7 with Modular Duo
We’ve known for months that watchOS 8 supported two full-width horizontal charts per watchface. However, it’s only the Watch 7 that can display them via the Modular Duo watchface. So, I was super keen to get these up and running, mainly because it will enable us sporty types to create a screen to get just that little bit more of our data on display.
I’ve been using Training Today, Whoop, Athlytic, Oura and HRV4Training to keep track of my readiness in recent months. Specifically, I’ve had the Training Today complication on display almost all of the time but noticed that the charts don’t seem quite right, so now I will add Athlytic to the same screen and monitor them assiduously for the next few weeks. I’ve just this second done that and the Athlytic data doesn’t seem to have refreshed yet for the following image…sorry!
I hadn’t noticed this before on other watchfaces (or forgot I had), but when you raise your wrist with the Modular Duo watchface the top bar that shows the time enlarges slightly as you turn your wrist. Cool.
Now all I’m keen for Apple to give us is a watchface with no watch…that’s space for two more of the smaller widgets.
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Whoop Widgets
Whoop WidgetsThanks to @Markus from Wearables for Human Performance for this find.
If you forcibly update your Whoop app on iOS then you will be able to add Whoop’s brand new widgets to your desktop. They look cool too and nicely show you daily strain (load) and recovery! (I like this sort of thing)
I’m a bit concerned about what all my recovery stats are showing right now as I’ve got a race at the weekend and am tapering and have been since last weekend. My HRV is going South for the Winter and a close relation I saw last week has just tested Covid-positive. Oh dear.
I also checked if Whoop had added complications showing the same data on the Watch. I didn’t expect them to have done that and they haven’t. It would require a watchOS app to serve the complications, I believe.
Take Out: I’m excited today, nobody else is 🙂 !
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Love your enthusiasm, but also the information. I use 2 AW 6 SS 44mm watches. One I wear as my casual and other for sports. This way I’m never without a watch on a charger, and have different setups for both.
I looked at the 7, and looked, and looked. But the main reason i upgrade an apple watch is if there is a new sensor and metrics. Since the sensor is unchanged and they are basically the same watch (ergo the display), I’m good for another year!
These AW’s have been utterly fantastic for me and my sports routines. Running and Swimming. Never run out of juice, and with LTE on both of them, never need a phone.
BTW, I’m an old fart at 57, but still run 10k about 5 times a week and swim 2500 yards 5 times a week. Yeah, my HRV has been enjoying the south pole a bit as well.
🙂
the usable screen is bigger, it recharges faster and is more durable.
those are the headlines.
Check out my link above as to the exact differences. eg there probably is a new GPS chip in it. just come back from a run test this morning and, superficially at least, the GPS track looks even better.
love the 2xwatch strategy. will definitely work albeit a little bit of an expensive solution! the iPhone seems to automatically detect the switch between my watches in similar scenarios to you
The 2 watch strategy has worked great, I wanted sleep tracking, the full 9 yards. I realized that 1 watch with the amount of LTE, GPS I was using along with 24 HR and O2 monitoring wasn’t cutting it with the battery.
My “sports” watch goes from 100% to about 40% after about 6 hours of wear, 3 of those hours are in activities, LTE and playing music. The other 3 are just having it on and using LTE.
The Stainless Steel models have the more sapphire screen and the SS body, they are very tough, albiet very expensive. I’ve never had one scratch or misfunction from too much exposure to the chlorine pool. I wear them working on my cars, working on my house remodeling, you name it. I got more scratches on my Garmin Fenix than I have on my AW.
I tried the Garmin route, but the bugs and bugs and bugs just ruined the experience for me. The WHR on them are so off course, while the AW matches my Chest band and even my Polar HR attached to my form swim goggles. In water at that!
I’m a big fan of how the Garmin’s look, not a fan of their screen and bezel. I really wish Apple would come out with a round faced rugged watch with a big beautiful screen.
I’m sort of locked into the Apple ecosystem, which I really don’t mind. We’ve never had a virus, malware, or any issues like that. My whole family has iPad’s, iPhones and watches. We even have apple tags. (Boy have those things been a blessing for my wife and her keys). Even Apple’s airpods have been great and now can find a lost pod with the play sound on it. I lost a pod at the gym and was able to hear it and find it 🙂
Until another company comes up with something better, there is no reason to even look. I’m still considering the 7, but not this first “batch”. I’ll let manufacturing go through a few itterations of parts, work the kinks out and probably get one as my sports watch in the Spring.
Happy running!
ha, airtag…yes i know exactly what you mean, we have several!
stainless steel + sapphire…yes not everyone knows that combo. i’m thinking of getting one and would have got one if i could have had it last week. my only concern there is that they all seem to have LTE and i don’t want that. even if i had it my carrier is not supported.
This is awesome – I just finished up a biggish review of Athlytic and any watch apps for CrossFit and love seeing it here again – I think it’s a great app. And Markus is great. And Whoop adding to the AW is great, if I didn’t dislike the AW form factor so much haha. Can’t believe they’re doing dual screens.
Cross Fit with apple watch: check out hunter’s review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dj5SJFJqBUA
Thanks so much!
Hope, you know it:
is it possible to run Stryd workouts with Apple Watch and listening with Air Pods Pro to Apple Music and
Get Audio Prompt/alerts include Lap Alerts, Power Alerts, Pace/Speed Alerts and Heart Rate Alerts at the same time?
Or is it possible to listening spatial/lossless sound in Apple Music by iPod/iPhone and get the Alerts via Apple Watch and connect Air Pods Pro on both devices?
That’s what I would LOVE to see. A review of running apps that do the following:
No need to bring phone.
Selectable audio prompts that duck the music.
Will show my running power from my Stryd.
Very customizable and nice to look at.
The ONLY app that I’ve been able to customize properly is WORKOUTDOORS. It’s pretty much the standard for which I judge all other running apps.
The only problem is that it won’t show my running power from my Stryd. I do not like the Stryd app either.
this lists most of the sports apps of various kinds https://the5krunner.com/2021/01/17/best-sports-apps-report-table-winners-losers-of-2020/ to answer your precise question and similar questions about other features that people prefer would sadly be a significant undertaking
I saw athlytic abs am intrigued. Use HRV4Training right now. Do those two give you similar advice? Do you use the training load advice of athlytic at all?
I’m not an expert but having tested both a bit, and athlytic much more, I think athlytic a far superior app.
The key to making the most of it is to repeat whatever HRV tracking you start with. Meaning if you’re letting it capture the last HRV from your nights sleep then stick with it, because it all affects the 60 day averages. If you’re doing a breathing session upon first waking up to stick with that as well.
And for the best accuracy you should do a breathing session upon first waking up. This is the way to best measure.
So basically – There’s something that happens when you oscillate between one and the other tracking methods that disrupts the quality of the information so just stick with which whatever one you start with.
But to your point – I’ve found athlytic to be far more valuable across a number of measures than HRV4Training
it depends how you use hrv4 and athlytic as to which gives best readiness. eg waking chest strap measurement vs overnight apple watch measurement.
IDK about the load accuracy of athlytic, it’s standard formulae so should be as good as the source data.
What I did was change the source for the HRV, giving priority to HRV4Training. I almost always do a morning reading, so Athlytic uses that if available, otherwise uses the next HRV source in line.
does athlytic have that specific feature to prioritise HRMs (IDK)
anyway, it’s not a good idea to mix hardware sources eg I’m certain that apple watch and H10 can give different results when reading at the same time.
it’#s probably also a bad idea to mix software sources as they may well apply different algorithms on the raw data (I’m reasonably sure that’s generally true)
also i use training today (which probably isn’t as good as athlytic but is mostly bug free) and that doesn’t seem to pick up readings that aren’t from the one source (Apple) even tho my hrv4 data is on the same phone.
You don’t need to change anything in Athlytic (even though it has a prioritize sleep HRV). You can test it easily, just go to Apple Health and change the priority of the HRV source then refresh the Recovery tab in Athlytic and it updates on the fly!
Regarding using different sources you are right, but I only miss about a dozen readings a year with HRV4Training, so in those days it will use the nightly HRV reading (2nd best option regarding HRV readings). And I’ve checked that Athlytic is using the SDNN value, not ideal I know but at least it’s consistent with Apple Watch that also uses that metric (instead of rMSSD).
i think there are advantages of SDNN. If you do a 2-minute reading it will eliminate ectopic beats (something along those lines)
Yeah SDNN tracks well with rMSSD from what I’ve read, but almost every respectable HRV software out there uses rMSSD, so no idea why Apple went with that metric for Health.
Anyway, right now I’m doing 60 seconds readings instead of 3 minutes like I did in the past. Apparently it’s good enough and I don’t feel like I’m wasting almost a day per year doing it. 😀
Source: https://www.hrv4training.com/blog/hrv-measurements-duration
yes, it’s good enough!
and yes I did the math too on 5 mins time 365 days! (I used to do 5 min readings which didn’t always work with bioforce hrv)
the caveat, again, is the ectopic beats. If you have them then the one minute reading might not be good enough and neither might rMSSD.
that’s why i think apple originally used sdnn but, as we know, everyone else uses rmssd