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No Apple watch month – April

I decided to give up on the Apple Watch for a month at the start of the month, and today is the last day, and I wanted to reflect on what I learned and write them down for my future self.


TL.DR➖ I definitely do miss my apple watch, but not enough that I plan to keep buying the subsequent versions as and when it launches.


I’ve worn it so long on my wrist I don’t remember a time when I didn’t have it on me. I bought the Apple Watch first-gen and ever since had one on my person, so roughly close to 6 years. It’d be such a long time that I could use a break for a few days, that is when I realised, instead of few days, let me make it a month and understand what I enjoyed and what I didn’t about going Watch free for a month.

The first few days were a little odd, and I missed the Watch a bit more than I had expected; I didn’t expect that I relied on the apple watch so much for so many things daily. I used it to keep tabs on my time, especially when I was in the kitchen trying to cook or juggling time-sensitive tasks due to work timings. So having a timepiece on myself was very useful, so even if I don’t need an apple watch, I definitely need a Watch on me to stay on top of time. The mornings are always the rush, but once I am off my work, the lack of knowing time is kinda liberating. So I’ve mixed feelings here, but given how much of life revolves around work and punctuality is essential, I will need a Watch for myself.


Not trying to stand up every hour to complete the stand goal was a relief. While the stand goals are reasonable from a healthy perspective, it is more interruption than anything. I would instead prioritise the activity goal than just the stand goal. I pride myself on completing all the 3 goals/rings that I have set for myself. So it’s really going to be hard for me not to achieve this when I get to wear the Watch again tomorrow. I think my compulsiveness to meet would win with this battle of giving up on apple rings even if I feel interrupted during focused work. I may even disable the goals, but I doubt I will stick to them.


Notifications are the Boon and the Bane of all the smart devices, and Apple Watch is no different. I definitely missed them during my drives in the car. A quick glance on the Watch is always better than pulling the phone out, especially when your hands are right there on the steering wheel. I definitely like that not having them during work helped me stay focused on my work with lesser distractions. While I definitely feel there wasn’t a lot of context switching during the work hours without the Watch on me, I definitely did get some anxiety on some notifications, i.e. food delivery notifications which I didn’t want to miss during work hours. There was some random checking of the phone to check if I missed any of them on some days. So what I want to do here when I get back to the Watch is to review the notifications and tune them just enough to reduce the anxiety while maximising distraction-free time, especially during work hours.


I didn’t do any run workouts this entire month, nor were there any plans for running or tracking workouts, so I didn’t miss any apps in any fashion. Had I been running, this no watch month would have been impossible, to begin with.


If you know me, you know I try to track everything. Sleep is one among those that I track, and not having the apple watch was kind of a let down in this space. I used to track sleep on my Watch even before Apple released its own version of sleep tracking. I liked that my morning alarms were just a wrist buzz. Even though I have a pleasant tone to wake up to, I find it jarring to wake up to an alarm and tapping the wrist to disable the vibrations on the Watch was a lot easier. I really look forward to waking up to the tapping of the Watch starting tomorrow.


In all, it was a fun experiment to learn a few things about my likes and dislikes with the Watch. 30-day hiatus helped me understand what I used my Watch for and what could be improved for the years to come. Trying these 30-day experiments is also fun, and I would like to try some more such experiments. If you tried something similar and enjoyed it or hated it, please let me know in the comments. If you have any ideas for such experiments, do share them with me.

credits: Photo by Brandon Romanchuk on Unsplash

Workaround: Powerbeats pro battery issues

Are you suffering from your either or both of your Powerbeats pro not having charge you pull it out of its case? I think I have a workaround just for you.

Problem:

I have been having this issue of the right Powerbeats pro not having enough charge just when I go out for a ride or a run. It has been annoying me like crazy, especially given the price I paid for these and I chose to buy them over the AirPods Pro just to make sure they are really good for workouts and I didn’t need the noise cancellation on my runs/rides due to safety reasons. I have been having these issues inconsistently since October.

Only my left Powerbeats pro would be charged 100% consistently while the right would have drained completely or was at a useless charge percentage most times I would like to use them. This was so inconsistent that I would just bail and go out with the left one or with both with weird charge states etc. There was no predictable behaviour on how /when the right one would be charged completely etc.

It got so frustrating that I wanted to get to the bottom of it. I first thought it was a firmware problem (some forum threads suggested it was) and then there were a few firmware updates that seemed like they fixed it, but apparently the issue came back again in Jan or Feb.

More forum research got me thinking it was some hardware issue as well and yes there were recommendations to clean the contact points on the case and the pros with a baby wipe or alcohol. I did that but that didn’t fix the issue completely.

Powerbeats pro with the case

Solution:

Here is what worked for me, So after making sure the contacts were cleaned, now I make sure to place them consistently by looking out for the lights on the case. Regardless of the order, I place them in the case after my run/ride, I watch for the lights on the case. I make sure the case blinks (doesn’t matter red/white) right after I place the pods. So one blink for each pod for a total of two blinks. I close the case with as little movement as possible.

If for some reason the light doesn’t blink when I place my right Powerbeats pro, I remove it and place it again. I keep repeating this until it blinks once. The light blinking is an acknowledgement from the case that the pods are in place and charging.

I have been doing this for almost a month now and so far, no issues whatsoever. Both the Powerbeats pro have been consistently charged or at 100% every single time. Agreed that it is outright annoying to do this every time you place the pods back and its Apple’s fault for making them this way, but hey I am stuck with them because I bought them in the US and I can’t ship them back for replacement or exchange etc.

Sometimes I randomly check the battery widget on the iPhone or the iPad with the case nearby to see if both the pods are in fact charging. But this is just an unnecessary habit now, one that I picked up from reading the forums in Jan.

If you have been having similar issues, do try this lights workaround. Hopefully, they will help!

Keyboard shortcut to connect AirPods

This  alfred workflow is cool. I accidentally stumbled on this post today via Dustin and immediately ended up creating the workflow in Alfred.

I am bookmarking this for future to ensure I can use the apple script for other types of bluetooth devices I have :).

BTW if you aren’t using the Apple AirPods you should give it a try. I would definitely say they were my best purchase in 2017. They are so comfortable that I sleep with them sometimes and I wake up with them intact in my ears and I don’t even realise I had them plugged in my ears.  If you aren’t convinced here is a review by Sajib that you can read to convince yourself 🙂 .