So my hubby and I are gigantic tech heads, we love tech. I told the hubby it’s actually a good thing for him that I’m more into tech than jewelry, this saves him hundreds when it comes to buying me gifts because tech is generally cheaper than jewelry….except for maybe that iPhone X that is. When the apple watch first came out, we were among those early (read psycho) adopters who were waiting in the wee hours for the online store to open Hawaii time to get our orders in. Then came the holding of breath to wait for our goodies in the mail…followed by the “hey it’s not fair” argument as mine (aluminum body with bright green band) arrived earlier than expected and his (space grey body with black band) arrived later because everybody and their mama wanted that color combo…

I truly didn’t expect to become so dependent (read addicted) to a wearable. I tried the Up band and the smaller Fitbit, wasn’t even gonna go there with the bigger TomTom and other giant running monsters, as you can see from the pic, I don’t exactly have a huge wrist therefore the gigantic GPS/running systems would make me look like a child who stole her daddy’s watch. The Up and the Fitbit were great for measuring steps, but I wanted something more. That’s where the Apple watch came in, at the time of the series 0 release, it was also opportune because I was a high school teacher who needed to model by example, if the kids couldn’t use their phones in my class, I certainly shouldn’t be checking those text messages either. But at the same time, I was also a grown ass woman who has aging parents. I was very concerned about my father who had recently suffered a stroke and would often either call or text if he fell and couldn’t get himself back up again. This made paying attention to one’s phone during class a semi-essential part of being an adult with parents who had health issues. But being hooked to you phone more than teenagers because of the need for constant contact with a sick parent isn’t a good thing if you are the teacher of said teens. Enter the series 0 Apple watch. I was able to receive texts and calls directly to my wrist and with a slight glance could determine if that was something I needed to attend to right away or if it could wait, all of this without skipping a beat in a Spanish lesson to my students. The competitive athlete in me enjoyed the tracking of my movement/calories, steps, exercise time, and stand time. I had no idea that as a teacher, I actually stood for a good 14 hours a day…more like paced the classroom in order to attend to questions and make sure no one was cheating. I was one of those who barely took the Apple watch off…except for those things the series 0 were not prepared for: water (swimming, bathing, and washing the dishes) and to sleep. The competitive athlete in me was able to see how many calories I burned in a day and how many minutes of exercise. The visual learner in me (the teacher who spends too much time with teens who are all about the YouTube videos) could literally see those three rings closing or getting close to it and going out and running up and down or doing jumping jacks just to close those suckers.

In other words I was super satisfied with my Apple Watch, it even surprised the heck out of me when I traveled to Europe after the hubby was stationed there. I could discreetly navigate using Google maps while adventuring out and about as I could get those turn by turn walking directions to my wrist, making it a safer method of travel. It didn’t scream check out the tourist lady using her phone to navigate…gee she must not be from here. And even though public transportation is hella awesome and fairly reliable in Europe, it was still great to be able to actually track the arrival of buses and trains via my watch. Like many customers, when the series 2 came out and all of the hullabaloo about ceramic something or other, I still couldn’t justify in my head spending another 300 plus bucks to upgrade on just the ceramic watch body alone. My series 0 was still fine by me, and the 80s kid in me still had all of those lovely bands to make it all swatch watch like and stuff.

Then along came the series 3 LTE…I could leave my phone where?!!! Wait…whaaaaat?!!! Okay yea, so I caved (aka the hubby caved and bought me a new one so that I would stop asking) , I can leave my phone at home and my watch still works?! I mean realistically no person in the 21st century leaves their phones at home on purpose, but still…I could leave my watch on the beach and go swimming, snorkeling, and surfing is the more realistic scenario. When you live in paradise, that’s pretty much the only time you and your phone are not in the same spot.

The built in LTE, GPS, and water resistance are the absolute reasons to upgrade to the series 3, but that’s not all. The series 3 is faster, I can see the difference in the lag time with Siri, it was getting slightly infuriating trying to answer text messages via dictation on the series 0. The athlete in me…yea she’s still there but kinda way down deep nowadays, enjoys the fact that I can forget my watch at times, like when walking the dogs and still gain my points for exercise and continue tracking it. The adult me feels a little more secure in knowing that I can still “call” someone in case of emergency when walking within my subdivision with the dogs because the LTE connection on the watch allows me to make phone calls even if I left the phone in the house.

All in all, I got me a red dot…and I LIKE IT!!!