Wonderful Apple Watch!

Only the Series 4 has the falling response, @Chrissy Cross . It seems like they set this watch up with seniors in mind, because it has the fall alert, and soon the ability to do an EKG right from the watch. They are supposed to be releasing the app for that one soon, before the end of the year is what I read.
But yours has the emergency button (the long one right below the dial), and if you push and hold that one, it will call for help and also alert your emergency contacts. Plus, you can always ask Siri to call someone if you were hurt and needed help, and were conscious.
The new one is good, because if you do not respond because you are unconscious, then it gives your GPS and calls for help.

 

I maybe should have put this in health, since it is a technology advance, but it is also a great personal medical investment for seniors (or anyone) who wants to track and take charge of their health.
Here is a list of the benefits that I have found from using my Apple Watch to track my health, and just make my life easier and more enjoyable.
It is certainly not a comprehensive post about ALL of the things an Apple Watch does, but just as it pertains to our health.
(this is something that I wrote for a friend who was considering whether or not to get an Apple Watch for his mother, and wanted to know what I thought about mine.)

Apple Watch for seniors.
This year, Apple totally re-designed their Series 4/5 Apple Watch to be perfect for seniors, and I think that any senior who is capable of using an iPhone NEEDS an Apple Watch .

1. You can track your health with the heart rate app, as well as now also being able to do an EKG anytime you think you need it, and it can be sent immediately to your cardiologist; so you are much more likely to get medical treatment faster.
2. You can track your sleep patterns, as well as see how you are breathing and how your heart rate is at night while you are asleep. Sleepmatic shows when you are in a light sleep or a deep sleep, as well as a graph of overnight heart rate.
3. The Apple Watch can sense if you fall, or even stumble, and it will shake on your wrist and send a message asking if you fell and if you are okay. You can respond that you did or didn’t fall, and whether you need help or not. Should you completely pass out, or for some reason can’t respond at all, the watch will call emergency as well as your emergency contact people, and will also send your location so help can find you.
4. There is an “emergency button” on the side of the watch, and if you hold that button down, it also calls for help. If you are exercising/swimming, the watch cannot be shut down, so you can’t accidentally turn it off if you are trying to get help.
5. This is so much better than using a phone, and you never miss a call again, because you can feel it shake your wrist, and you can see who is calling you. It is easy to answer a phone call with the watch, and you can talk when you are driving and not need earbuds. My phone is always on silent, so it never rings; but it shakes on my wrist. There are little answers that you can use if someone texts you, so you can let them know you got the message and will respond later.
6. Security. This is important to seniors. I feel like I am more prepared for any kind of emergency, anywhere it happens. I can always get help by using the watch, and even if I pass out and can’t tell anyone I need help, the watch will call for help, and send people to my location.
7. There are a lot of other features that are nice to have (although not essential), so you are alerted when there is going to be bad weather, and can put the most important complications on your watch to let you know the things you are interested in.
8. Beautiful ... the Apple Watch has so many different faces, and so many possibilities for watch bands, that you can always have a watch that looks just like you want it to, and with numbers large enough to read the time. There are a lot of other great features, but this covers the main ones.

 

I still think Apple Watches look cheap, although they are anything but inexpensive. Looking at them in the Apple Store, they look like the kind of watches that Sears doesn't even bother to put behind glass in the jewelry department; the ones intended for Elementary or Junior High School girls. I don't like the way they look but once they get to the point where they can replace my phone entirely, I might consider one. If I have to have both an iPhone and an Apple Watch to make or take a call from my watch, then I'll save my money and keep the phone. Otherwise, if they were an alternative to my iPhone, I'd think about it because I almost never carry my phone with me.

 

The new cellular ones can totally replace you having to carry around your phone, Ken. Bobby seldom even carries his phone anymore because he just uses his watch.
Just this morning, he had gone over to one of the rental houses to meet someone, and they weren’t there. Using Siri, he called; but they didn’t answer. Next, he asked Siri to send a text and stated what he wanted to say. He could proofread the text before it was sent even !

You do still need to have an iPhone because the main app for the watch is on the phone, but you no longer need to use the phone for calling or texting, or most of the other things we use our phone for.
Mine stays in my purse when I go somewhere, but even if I forgot it, I can still make and receive phone calls.

When you look at the Apple Watch at the store, you are just seeing the plain black face, but there are all sorts of beautiful faces that you can put on your watch, and many of those have motion, like butterflies moving their wings, or flowers opening and closing.
You can watch the sunrise and sunset, as the day progresses, and I think you can see the overhead sky and constellations if you like that.

We usually use the activity face that shows our movements for the day, but even those can be changed with using different complications. You can also use any photo from your iPhoto’s if you want, and changing the watch face is simple.

Here is one example, and this face is called an “Infograph” and you can choose what you want to show in each compartment of the watch face.
Mine is set with mostly information to monitor my health and my heart, but there are all kinds of different complications you can choose from. I just took a screenshot with my watch to show you one of the possibilities.
This shows the temperature, top right, my battery, bottom left, and the other two are heart rates.
In the center is the date, and on the right is my activity circles, and the little running man at the bottom is how I set the watch for an activity, like walking or swimming.

 

That's better, but I still have to own one. I'll wait for the technology to improve another notch, which may not happen because they like being able to sell you both an iPhone and an Apple Watch.

 

Any Apple iPhone after the version 5s will work for an Apple Watch, so it is not like you have to upgrade your phone to use it with an Apple Watch. You can already do most things just by using the watch , but since the phone is larger and easier to work with (especially for seniors), it just makes sense to use the phone app to fine tune the watch and add the different faces or complications we want to use on the watch.
Once you have picked the faces you like, and add the complications you need, all you have to do is swipe the watch face to change from one look to a different watch face.
I didn’t think that I wanted an Apple Watch either, until Robin gave me one, and I found out how much I love wearing it ! Chrissy said the same thing, and when she tried wearing her daughter’s Apple Watch, she discovered that she loves hers, too.
Obviously, they are not for everyone, but you should at least learn about the capabilities of having an Apple Watch before just dismissing the idea of having one.

Here are a few of the faces available, and if you look on YouTube, there are bunches and bunches of adaptable faces that come with each watch.

 

The first Apple Watch that I had was a Series 2, which was the first one able to be used to track swimming. They do need to be charged more often than some of the other activity trackers, but they don’t take very long to charge up fully. The newer models also hold a charge longer than the first watches did.
I sit and read before bed each night, so when I am doing that , and done with the day’s activity, then I put the watch on the charger. In under a half hour, it will be fully charged and ready for me to wear to bed for sleep tracking.
Not everyone cares about sleeptracking, and Bobby just takes his watch off at night and leaves it on the charger overnight. Because of my need to track what my heart is doing, it is important for me to not only track it at night, but to use the other heart apps that work for me.

The older watches do not do the EKG or have the fall alert; but they still do most of the apps that help track health.

 

There are probably cheaper ones, but i just would not trust something as important as watching my health to some cheap Apple Watch look-alike.
The older models do have most of the same capabilities as the newer ones, and you can find those much cheaper, and still have the first-class quality of an Apple Watch.
My first one was a Series 2, and it did everything that my Series 4 does, except for doing an EKG, and having the fall alert. Since it has the emergency button, you can get help that way , as long as you are conscious; but the fall alert would call for help if you blacked out and fell.
Series 3 is the first completely cellular version, where you do not need the phone to be close to the watch. In my Series 2, I kept my phone in my purse, and answered calls with the watch.
Since it vibrated on my wrist, I didn’t miss important phone calls like I did before I had it, and my phone was tucked in my purse.

With the cellular one, you do not even have to carry a phone if you don’t want to. I actually only mentioned the apps that are important to me, but there are a whole lot of other ones that you can use also.
Bobby always sets the alarm when he makes a cup of coffee, and it reminds him to get his fresh cup out of the coffee maker while it is still hot. With the different watch faces, you can have as many different looks as you want to and easily slide the watch face from one look to another one anytime you like.