Taking a Break From The Apple Watch

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Yesterday I decided to take a break from the Apple watch for up to a week. I am tired of two behaviours. The first of these is the watch's habit of saying that I did not stand for two or three hours in a row. I know that I have. I need to stand to cook, or to brush my teeth and other tasks. It also annoys me that if you bend your arm it counts that you sat down. Bend your arm to check if you have been standing for at least one minute and it resets the counter.

The second flaw comes from the monthly challenge. The challenge for this month is to do 4900 minutes of exercise if I remember and this is absurd. It will always push you to strive more, to reach further and to work out harder. It lacks flexibility.

If the workout goal is 4900 minutes, then that's over two hours per day. In theory that's a nice challenge, but in the long run it leads to exhaustion. Last year, I would let the app tell me to do up to 600 calories or more of exercise a day. That goal led to me exhausting and fatiguing myself because there are no breaks. It pushes, and pushes. It doesn't think "You need to rest" or "you did sport A rather than sport B so we will adjust the monthly goal. It's AI, without fatigue built in.

The other challenge, having three watches with three ecosystems. There is little to no interoperability. The steps aren't transferred from Suunto to Apple from Apple to Suunto. Garmin wants other data than the other two. To feed all three databases you need to wear three watches. It would be nice to sync the data between the three without thought. This would give us the freedom to slide between platforms. This would give us the opportunity to wear a single watch.

Running Up Four Floors at a time, Walking Two Hours A Day

I almost never walk up the stairs, especially a single step at a time. I always run up them. I run up at least two steps at a time and I sprint three or four floors without getting winded. I also walk from one and a half to two hours a day. The Apple watch tells me that I didn't stand for two hours in a row. If I don't stand for one or two hours it is because I am studying or working. By telling me to stand the watch is telling me to procrastinate.

For clarity, the watch doesn't tell me anything. I turn off notifications. I check the fitness app to see how the day is going, and that's when I see that it says I haven't stood for two hours. That little light blue bar annoys me. I have a compulsion to have a perfect collection of filled bars, every hour.

That's why I need to take a break from the watch. It makes me care about something that doesn't matter at all. Standing is a recommendation, for people who need to get into the habit of working out. I don't have that problem. I can ignore it.

Turning It Off

I looked for an option to turn off the standing trend but can't. I can cut it down to six hours a day, but the issue is not standing six or twelve hours a day. It's wanting to have a "perfect" day, and keeping the trend in the fitness app increasing. This benefits my life in no way, so turning it off would be the ideal solution.