I bought Apples ultimate water sports watch, the Apple Watch Ultra 2 and already returned it.
Most of the time I spend in the office is down the hall in the CoolToys® TV Studio or working on the Fan2Stage® Virtual Audience System. Once in a while something strikes me and I need to share it with you and the Apple Watch Ultra 2 did just that. If you watched CoolToys® back in 2018 or earlier you might have seen me doing the “dick tracy” cellular watch test. I tried over a dozen watches hoping to dump my phone. Then the Apple Watch arrived on the scene and my dreams were fulfilled.
The First Apple Watch
I dragged my feet until the series three came out so I could go in the water. I spend a lot of time surfing. Well I don’t think so but my wife describes herself as my “surf widow”. Anyway, after upgrading to a series 7 and several years of reliable service it was time for another upgrade. The Apple watch series 7 was no longer usable in the water. I think I didn’t rinse it enough so the microphone was encased in salt. Never mind how much cooler my friends looked wearing the giant Apple Ultra 2. After a little online research I purchased the titanium black model at Costco. The silver edged models are a bit blingy for me. Right out of the box, it was cool.
The 49mm screen holds a lot of data that you can still read even if you are over 50. And the titanium black felt like the first radioactive watch the military gave me for night ops. Adding the Porsche app put the Porsche crest center on the top of my screen. It was very cool, then I put it on. The rubber band made my arm sweat, but I figured that it was designed to be in the water anyway. In reality I only wear my Apple watch to work or for working out.
Real World Testing
By day three, even surfing the band was uncomfortable so I bought a nylon surf style velcro band I thought would let my skin breathe better. The other thing I noticed is that as I paddled to catch a wave my arm would push the giant crown. If I wore the watch outside of the wetsuit, it would lock and all activity tracking stopped. Wearing it under the wetsuit kept locking the Apple Ultra 2. I didn’t have these issues with my old series 7. My mom now has that watch so I can’t go back.
The next issue started after about a week in the water. The watch was continuously asking to be drained. I started asking other surfers if they had a similar issue. The answer was a resounding yes. By the third week the crown stopped working, the watch got hot and the battery dumped. It stopped charging. All of this in less than 45 days. If other surfers weren’t complaining I would have thought I just got a bad one. I think the crown design is flawed for surfing. A visit to the genius bar to confirm it did in fact die and the return process started.
The End Game
The “genius” at the Apple Store offered to send it in for refurbishment or possible replacement. That was odd since I could do “express” replacement online. Why couldn’t they do it in the store? Instead I decided to go Costco replacement style and simply return the dead watch. The bummer was that my local Costco was out of the Series 10 models with Cellular. Does the exercise even count if I don’t have an Apple Watch to track it?